This book consists of nine chapters, each an in-depth case study into a specific non-mainstream or marginalized online community in Malaysia. The authors come from diverse backgrounds to talk about how new media can both assist and hinder maligned minorities, ignored ethnicities or the often attacked migrants in their day to day lives. The book makes a strong contribution to Malaysian studies which highlights the other and represents minority viewpoints to challenge the belief that Malaysia's online space is monolithic and limited to several mainstream discourses in Malaysian scholarship.

Expands the discourse of online communities in Malaysia beyond the typical Sino-Malayo centric lenses Elaborates on the duality of social media in both empowering and oppressing those in the margins Presents in-depth case studies of communities that has never been written about in terms of the new media

Autorentext

Benjamin YH Loh is a media scholar who employs digital ethnography to study emergent cultures and the digital public sphere. Having received his PhD in Communications and New Media from the National University of Singapore, he focuses much of his work on the confluence between technology and society, with a particular focus on minority and marginalised communities. He is currently a senior lecturer at the School of Media and Communication, Taylor's University. He recently co-edited a book on the Sabah state elections entitled Sabah from the Ground: The 2020 elections and the politics of survival.
James Chin is a professor of Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania. He was the inaugural director of the Asia Institute Tasmania and the founding head of the School of Arts and Social Sciences of the Malaysian campus of Monash University. He is also a senior fellow at the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia, and wasa senior visiting fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (now the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute). He is widely regarded as the leading scholar of contemporary Malaysian politics, especially on Sabah and Sarawak. Prior to an academic career, he worked as a journalist in Malaysia and Singapore.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- Part 1: Indigenous rights and representation.- 2. Native Customary Rights land titles and thwarting deforestation: Digital acts of resistance among Sarawak's indigenous peoples.- 3. 'Some Orang Asli still think Najib is PM': Representations and self-representations of the Orang Asli in the Cameron Highlands byelection.- Part 2: Migrant and refugee discourses.- 4. Romance through digital avatars: Online courtship, representation and 'catfishing' amongst irregular female migrants in Sabah.- 5. Grateful politics: Rohingya and social media in the time of the pandemic.- Part 3: The Othered minorities.- 6. Confronting Malaysian Indian stereotypes and state neglect: The 'SuguPavithra' episode within mainstream national discourse.- 7. 'Our online-ness matters': The construction of social media presences by Malaysian LGBTQ Communities.- 8. A 'blue ocean' for marginalised radical voices: Cyberspace, social media and extremist discourse in Malaysia.