Electronic Republic

Since some time ago the label Electronic Republic identifies a new type of political society. This proposal opens, above all, citizens participation and the use of new technologies of communication in a very extended way. We have tried to collect some ideas, in a limited formal way. A wide range of researching possibilities has been opened, as well as research in itself is becoming a need. The social use of ICT's in political aspects also opens a very broad field, going from normal social debate to more deep conflictive use, from social activism to militar confrontations and even terrorism. The role of media is, more and more, modified by ICT's, including a increase of its capacities to search and inform about specific political cases, offering a growing influence in the political exchange.

ICT's use of political organisations in their internal and exernal activities offers and understanding of the nature of our societies and mechanisms of control and presence of these organisation.We would like to know a further impact on the political environment with the use of ICT. We hope to present some aspects of the ICT's that is used by any political member within the action objectives. For those have experience, commitment or any contribution on the research topic, we would like you to participate in our research so that the impact of our study will be more meaningful.

Regards

-MZA-

Knowledge Management and Politics

Web 2.0 and the Politics

Today i have a business meeting with one of the 'ketua bahagian' just to share some ideas on the business and the movement of the new cabinet line-up. As we are having conversation and some discussion on the new-line up, I suddenly realised that the three of us are referring to the internet for the latest news and not television or any local newspaper. It shows that, Internet in no longer a second options for a timely information but it is gaining populartity from readers of all race and religious and of various ideological backgrounds.

As many of us know that the recently elected U.S President, Barak Obama has leveraged the latest in Web 2.0 technology, which is the catalyst for the new generation of Knowledge Management. Incorporating the use of social media such as blogs, YouTube and other social networking tools the Obama team has able to push out the latest news, information and knowledge about every aspect of the campaign. The use of technology in the U.S presidency campaign has increased the involvement of every supporter enabling them to feel a part of the campaign from the start to finish. This is what everyone know, but what we don't know is that it is not just stop there, the excitement of the use of technology make the supporters received text messages and emails at every turn and this encouraging them to hold parties with friends to "get out the vote", and donate their time.

Leveraging on the Internet (Knowledge Management) in a precise strategic manner that supports the mission of the Obama organisation is exactly how all organisation and political party should do. I believe that many political organisation in the world are following and study how Obama utilizing knowledge management and the internet to successfully run and energies a campaign. Undoubtedly this will become a new trend in Malaysian politics as well.

Knowledge Management has become an essential part of many organisation. In the coming weeks I will issues more on these existing programs. I welcome your comments.


Regards


-MZA-

The Winning Strategy

The purpose of this short section is not to herald Obama’s triumph. Rather, it is to examine the strategy and approach that his campaign employed. Then we will see how we can apply these same tools to growing your political portfolio in Malaysia.

The Obama campaign works because of a combination of several key components:

Personal Appeal: Barak Obama is a charismatic individual. People like him. People feel they can connect with him. He comes across as an articulate, kind, respectful man. He isn’t bombastic, argumentative, or egoistic. He isn’t an aloof, out of touch politician who comes across as haughty or privileged. Now think how many malaysian politician have these kind of appeal?

Market Analysis: Prior to beginning his campaign, Obama understood the wants and needs of his core market. As a Democrat his core market of course is those who will vote in Democratic primaries and attend Democratic caucuses. While his competitors sought to appeal to the market’s opposition to the current administration’s policies, Obama looked past the obvious opposition and recognized a more visceral need. He understood his market was suffering from a deep sense of despair and hopelessness. His market wanted change, but was desperate for someone to give them hope. He allowed his opponents to try to appeal to the brain; his strategy was to address the underlying, immediate need. Whereas his opponents addressed the visual manifestations, Obama understood his market and addressed the real issue of despair. And possibly to his surprise, he discovered that despair had spread well beyond his core market.

An in Malaysian scenario the malaysian's citizen is looking for the same thing which is 'CHANGE,' it can be change in the form of cabinate line-up, change in the government business process, change in the placement of the candidate, change in the....the bottom line is how many of our candidate really understand what his market was suffering form and what hope that they can give in order to makes things right.

Consistency of Message: Throughout his campaign, every aspect of his marketing has been consistent. His speeches, his advertisements, his interviews, his press conferences, and for the most part, even his surrogates have remained true to the message, deviating only slightly when confronted with a situation demanding a more substantive response, but immediately coming back to the central messages of hope and change. Look and click the internet, see for yourself in the youtube ther are many speeches by our party representative which is not consistent and always play a different issues.


I will provide more key components of strategy in short session on the next posts.


Regards


-MZA-

Is Obama a Muslim?

More than two months into Barack Obama's presidency, as many people incorrectly identify him as a Muslim as did so during the 2008 campaign. When asked about Obama's religious beliefs, 11% say he is a Muslim. In October, 12% said Obama is a Muslim, which was unchanged from earlier in the campaign.

In the current survey, 35% say they do not know Obama's religion, either because they do not know enough about him (22%), or because they have heard different things about his religion (13%); another 6% refused to answer.

As was the case last fall, white evangelical Protestants (19%) and Republicans (17%) are among the most likely to view Obama as a Muslim. Fewer than half in each group -- 38% of white evangelicals and 46% of Republicans -- correctly identify Obama as a Christian.

While relatively few Democrats (7%) say Obama is a Muslim, just 55% correctly identify his religious beliefs as Christian, down slightly from 61% last fall. Among independents, 10% say Obama is a Muslim (compared with 12% in October), while 45% say he is a Christian (50% in October).

The latest survey conducted March 9-12 among 1,308 adults reached on landlines and cell phones, finds continuing educational differences in views of Obama's religious beliefs: 68% of college graduates correctly identify Obama as a Christian, while 6% say he is a Muslim. By contrast, just a third (33%) of those with no more than a high school education say Obama is a Christian, while 14% see him as a Muslim.

How to conclude this, it shows that regardless of what Barack Obama's religious beliefs, he still win the presidency sits, these prove to us that the many people are accepting the candidate as they are and the issues of skin colour and religoius belief is no longer threat to the campaign.

In Malaysia scenario the same issues happened when it come to the candidate and the area he/she is placed by the party members. The issues of religous belief and race is put behind by the voters and what is more important is the agenda of the development and the transformation that he/she can make. What about the religious belief?....frankly, the voters wasn't care...

Regards

-MZA-

Revisit 2008- The Era of New Revolution

The shift has begun.......the new approach has to be establish. There can be no doubt that the Internet has profoundly changed out work, our lives, our entertainment and our politics. Now the Internet itself is undergoing perhaps its most radical change ever, See where it will bring us....



Are you following the wave.....


Regards


-MZA-

General Survey on Malaysian Internet User - Political Blog

Studying the audience for political blogs is very difficult. After reaching more than 1,000 people by emailing questionnaire, we was able to find just 633 blog writers. This is just the nature of trying to find members of a small group in a large population with random sampling techniques. This survey in however not 100% accurate and cannot be generalize to the larger audience but it is enough to be the foundation of the political survey using internet.

We hope that this findings both informs and inspires members of the political party across government and non-government to consider ways of engaging in the new world of cloud computing to improve citizen access to public service as well as to enhance democracy in our society.

Summary of the Study

1. Target Population: Internet User, Blog User, Internet Forum [the user who use ICT as a medium of communication]
2. Our Approach: Internet Surver and Observation through forum and blogs.
3. The Limitation: The limitation to our findings is largely because of the methodological constraints within which we have to work. We are forced to discared random sampling because of the exorbitant cost necessary to obtain the sample size we desire.

We have been doing some research on the blog readers and among our findings are:

• while many internet users have seen blogs, a much smaller propotion of them are regular readers of political blogs. Of the sample gathered, 9% said they look at a policical blog 'almost every day.'
• daily readers of political blogs see blogs as a news source and an alternative to the mainstream media, which they despise. Daily blog reders get almost all of their news online.
• the audience for political blogs appears to be fairly concentrated across dozenz of blogs, not thousands. Daily readers visit most popular blogs.
• daily readers are more likely to place themselves as a YUPPIES and there are some at the ends of the political spectrum.
• daily readers are heavily involved in politics, and they respond the efforts by bloggers to participate.
• daily readers forward news stories, sign petitions and e-mail politicians at the prompting of political blogs.
• daily readers are more likely to be male that female.
  

Note:

At ahlipolitik (AP), we study the influence of the Internet on political scenario in Malaysia. We are interested in the readers of political blogs -we welcome ideas, comments and support in any form. For comments and ideas and improvements: kritikpolitik@gmail.com


Regards


-MZA-