Examining political efficacy among Malaysian voters
The role of traditional and new media
The technological advancement and political situations have dramatically impacted the way traditional and new media have played their role in society, especially in the political development of the country. Studying media use and credibility have been a major concern among scholars to understand audience perceptions and attitudes towards the media and their role in politics. This study investigated the level of media use and credibility among voters and their perception of political efficacy. Drawing on a nationwide quota sampling of 2030 respondents, the findings found voter perception on the media as credible, with the highest trust being on television, followed by newspapers and radio. Internet was found to be the least credible. A factor analysis performed on the political efficacy items extracted three dimensions: Voter Efficacy, Internal Efficacy and External Efficacy. The results of hierarchical regression suggested that traditional and new media use as well as media trust dimensions were significantly correlated with political efficacy but different media use and credibility contributed differently to the various efficacy dimensions. Implications and recommendations are further discussed.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Literature review
- 2.1Political efficacy
- 2.2Media use and credibility
- 3.Methodology
- 3.1Research design and sample size
- 3.2Measurements
- 3.3Data analysis
- 4.Findings
- 4.1Demographic profile
- 4.2Media use and its credibility
- 4.3Exploratory factor analysis
- 4.4Reliability test
- 4.5Hypotheses testing
- 5.Discussion and conclusion
- Acknowledgements
-
References
This article is currently available as a sample article.
References
Allen, R. L.
(
1991)
Political efficacy and political ideology: the role of communication in a media-rich, underdeveloped country.
International Communication Gazette, 47(2) 79–105.
Ancu, M., & Cozma, R.
(
2009)
MySpace politics: Uses and gratifications of befriending candidates.
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53(4), 567–583.
Blumler, J. G., & Katz, E.
(
1974)
The Uses of Mass Communications: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research (p. 318). Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications.
Caprara, G. V., Vecchione, M., Capanna, C., & Mebane, M.
(
2009)
Perceived political self-efficacy: Theory, assessment, and applications.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 10201(2008), 1002–1020.
Dhaha, I. S. Y. A.
(
2014)
Political information-seeking and political efficacy: Applying the uses and gratificaitons thoery. Unpublished Master Thesis: International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Freeman, K. S.
(
2013)
News Consumption Behavior of Young Adults in Malaysia.
International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 3(2), 121–124.
Georg, N., & Jackob, E.
(
2010)
No Alternatives ? The Relationship between Perceived Media Dependency, Use of Alternative Information Sources, and General Trust in Mass Media, 41, 589–606.
Golan, G. J.
(
2010)
New Perspectives on Media Credibility Research.
American Behavioral Scientist, 54(1), 3–7.
Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E.
(
2010)
Multivariate data analysis (7th ed,.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Idid, S. A., & Saodah Wok.
(
2005)
Media Credibility and Its Correlate With Popular Votes During Elections.
In Mediamorphosi: Communication, Technology & Growth International Conference (pp. 1–19). on 13–14 July, 2005, Suban Jaya, Malaysia.
Idid, S. A., & Saodah Wok
(
2006)
Credibility of television, newspaper and Internet with popular votes of Barisan National during elections by race.
Jurnal Pengajian Media Malaysia: Malaysian Journal of Media Studies, 8(1), 41–56. Retrieved from
[URL]
Jamal, A., & Melkote, S. R.
(
2008)
Viewing and avoidance of the Al-Jazeera satellite television channel in Kuwait: a uses and gratifications perspective.
Asian Journal of Communication, 18(1), 1–15.
Johnson, K. a., & Wiedenbeck, S.
(
2009)
Enhancing Perceived Credibility of Citizen Journalism Web Sites.
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 86(2), 332–348.
Johnson, P., & Yang, S.-U.
(
2009)
Uses and gratifications of Twitter: An examination of user motives and satisfaction of Twitter use.
In Annual Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Boston. Retrieved from
[URL] Comm Theory/Week 7 Uses and Gratifications/Johnson and Yang 2009 Twitter uses and grats.pdf
Johnson, T. J., & Fahmy, S.
(
2008)
The CNN of the Arab World or a shill for terrorists?: How support for press freedom and political Ideology Predict Credibility of Al-Jazeera among its Audience.
International Communication Gazette, 70(5), 338–360.
Johnson, T. J., & Kaye, B. K.
(
2010)
Still cruising and believing? An analysis of online credibility across three Presidential campaigns.
American Behavioral Scientist, 541(11), 57–77.
Johnson, T., & Kaye, B.
(
1998)
Cruising is believing?: Comparing Internet and traditional sources on media credibility measures.
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 75(2), 325–340.
Kaid, lynda L., McKinney, M. S., & Tadesco, J. C.
(
2007)
Introduction: Political Information Efficacy and Young Voters.
American Behavioral Scientist, 50(9), 1093–1111.
Kaid, lynda L., & Postelnicu, M.
(
2005)
Political Advertising in the 2004 Election: Comparison of Traditional Television and Internet Messages.
American Behavioral Scientist, 49(2), 265–278.
Kaid, lynda L., Postelnicu, M., Landreville, K., Yun, H. J., & LeGrange, A. G.
(
2007)
The Effects of Political Advertising on Young Voters.
American Behavioral Scientist, 50(9), 1137–1151.
Karaman, T.
(
2004)
Political efficacy and its antecedents in contemporary Russia.
Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 20(2), 30–49.
Katz, E., Gurevitch, M., & Haas, H.
(
1973)
On the Use of the Mass Media for Important Things.
American Sociological Review, 381, 161–181.
Kaye, B. K., & Johnson, T. K.
(
2002)
Online and in the know: Uses and gratifications of the Web for political information.
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 46(1), 54–71.
Kenski, K., & Stroud, N.
(
2006)
Connections between Internet use and political efficacy, knowledge, and participation.
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50(2), 173–192.
Melican, D. B., & Dixon, T. L.
(
2008)
News on the Net: Credibility, Selective Exposure, and Racial Prejudice.
Communication Research, 35(2), 151–168.
Miller, a., & Kurpius, D.
(
2010)
A Citizen-Eye View of Television News Source Credibility.
American Behavioral Scientist, 54(2), 137–156.
Pingree, R. J.
(
2011)
Effects of Unresolved Factual Disputes in the News on Epistemic Political Efficacy.
Journal of Communication, 61(1), 22–47.
Quan-Haase, A., & Young, A. L.
(
2010)
Uses and Gratifications of Social Media: A Comparison of Facebook and Instant Messaging.
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(5), 350–361.
Saodah Wok, Idid, S. A., & Norealyna Misman
(
2012)
Social media use for information-sharing activities among youth in Malaysia.
Journalism and Mass Communication, 2(11), 1029–1047. Retrieved from
[URL]
Saodah Wok, Tamam, E., Bolong, J., & Ahmad, A. M. Z.
(
2011)
Pattern of news media consumption and news discussion among youth: A test of agenda setting theory.
Global Media Journal – Malaysian Edition, 1(1), 1–30.
Sweetser, K. aye D., & Kaid, lynda L.
(
2008)
Stealth soapboxes: political information efficacy, cynicism and uses of celebrity weblogs among readers.
New Media & Society, 10(1), 67–91.
Valentino, N. a., Hutchings, V. L., & Williams, D.
(
2004)
The Impact of Political Advertising on Knowledge, Internet Information Seeking, and Candidate Preference.
Journal of Communication, 54(2), 337–354.
Wimmer, R. D., & Dominick, J. R.
(
2011)
Mass media research: An introduction (9th ed., p. 464). Boston: Wadsworth.
Wolfer, L.
(
2007)
Real Research: Conducting and Evaluating Research in the Social Sciences. Boston: Pearson.
Wu, C.
(
2003)
Psycho-Political Correlates of Political Efficacy The Case of the 1994 New Orleans Mayoral Election.
Journal of Black Studies, 33(6), 729–760.
Zhang, H., Zhou, S., & Shen, B.
(
2014)
Public trust: A comprehensive investigation on perceived media credibility in China.
Asian Journal of Communication, 24(2), 158–172.
Cited by
Cited by 3 other publications
Chen, Yi-Shuan
2022.
Presidential election polls and stock returns in Taiwan.
Investment Management and Financial Innovations 19:3
► pp. 139 ff.
Gil de Zúñiga, Homero, Trevor Diehl, Brigitte Huber & James H Liu
2019.
The Citizen Communication Mediation Model Across Countries: A Multilevel Mediation Model of News Use and Discussion on Political Participation.
Journal of Communication 69:2
► pp. 144 ff.
Wijesundara, Tharaka & Samantha Kumara
2023.
Acceptance of product placement in social networking sites: the mediating role of materialism.
Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication 72:6/7
► pp. 612 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.