Zeti Azreen Ahmad of the International Islamic University (IIU) said an analysis of news pieces by FMT and Malaysiakini during the 12-day campaign period in the run-up to polling day showed that the two portals covered both sides of the political divide and maintained their non-partisanship.
Zeti said she and her colleague Nur Shakira Mohd Nasir from the university’s Department of Communication analysed a total of 1,080 news pieces published between Apr 28 and May 10.
“Both portals were mostly critical of the government and opposition. There was less focus on content which propped up either party,” Zeti told a conference to analyse post-general election Malaysia.
But she said that there were slightly more reports deemed neutral published by FMT.
Despite that, she said, FMT and Malaysiakini were often labelled as “pro-opposition”, adding that this could be due to the tendency by the traditional “mainstream” media to be “pro-establishment”.
The study also noted that the politician most written about in both portals was PPBM chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad, while PAS received the least publicity.
Another IIU academic, Shafizan Mohamed, studied posts by social media users who engaged with eight prominent politicians from Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Harapan and PAS.
She said PAS’ Shah Alam candidate Ahmad Dusuki was the most active among the politicians, who also included Mahathir, former prime minister Najib Razak, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, then-Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin, then-defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein, and then-Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar.
“Ahmad has the most followers of all PAS leaders. And while there were positive comments, they wouldn’t always voice support,” she said. However, Ahmad was the only one among the eight to lose.
Shafizan also noted that most of the social media comments reacting to posts by Najib were negative.