Instagram and Political Storytelling among Malaysian Politicians during the 14th General Election

Shafizan Mohamed

Abstract


The popularity of Instagram as a political tool has world leaders adopting it as an integral part of their communications. Over the recent years, governments and world leaders have flocked to the mobile photo and video sharing social network to share their official as well as personal pictures with a worldwide audience. Malaysian politicians are jumping on the Instagram bandwagon as well. Almost all the prominent politicians have an Instagram account and a significant number of followers. As such, this study explores Instagram’s affordance for visual imageries and political storytelling and its subsequent impact on political communication during election campaign. Methodologically, image analysis was conducted for two months on three Prime Ministerial candidates’ Instagram accounts running up to the historic Malaysian 14th General Election that happened on May 9th, 2018. The result showed that the candidates were actively using Instagram and were uniquely authoring their own stories by switching between narratives that were personal and political. These narratives were presented through six image types that included 1) fieldwork, 2) professionally-produced campaign materials, 3) politician-at-work, 4) family, 5) personal activities and 6) throwbacks. In addition, this analysis offers a crucial look into the mediatization and personalization of politics and contributes to the academic literature on social media, election campaign, as well as political communication in Malaysia.

 

Keywords: Instagram, elections, personalization, political storytelling, visual imageries.


Full Text:

PDF

References


Casaló, L. V., Flavián, C., & Ibáñez-Sánchez, S. (2018, July). The relevance of creativity and emotions in engaging users on Instagram. Paper presented at 2018 Global Marketing Conference at Tokyo (pp. 4-5). Retrieved from http://db.koreascholar.com/article.aspx?code=350601

Ekman, M., & Widholm, A. (2017). Political communication in an age of visual connectivity: Exploring Instagram practices among Swedish politicians. Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook, 15(1), 15-32.

Filimonov, K., Russmann, U., & Svensson, J. (2016). Picturing the party: Instagram and party campaigning in the 2014 Swedish elections. Social Media + Society, 2(3), 1-11.

Gomez, J. (2014). Social media impact on Malaysia’s 13th general election. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 24(1), 95-105.

Hunt, L. (2018) How will Malaysia’s Najib Razak fare in 2018?. Thediplomat.com. Retrieved from https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/how-will-malaysias-najib-razak-fare-in-2018

Idid, S. A. (2017). Agenda setting: Probing the issues during the 13th general election. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 33(2), 1-12.

Jenkins, H., Lashley, M. C., & Creech, B. (2017). A forum on digital storytelling (Interview with Henry Jenkins). International Journal of Communication, 11(8), 1061-1068.

Jung, Y., Tay, A., Hong, T., Ho, J., & Goh, Y. H. (2017). Politician's strategic impression management on Instagram. Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 2195-2201). Retrieved from https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/ 10125/41420/1/paper0271.pdf

Khoo, B. T. (2013). 13th general election in Malaysia: Issues, outcomes and implications. Retrieved from www.ide.go.jp/library/Japanese/Publish/Download/Kidou/pdf/ 2013_malaysia03.pdf

Lalancette, M., & Raynauld, V. (2017). The power of political image: Justin Trudeau, Instagram, and celebrity politics. American Behavioral Scientist, 63(7), 888-924.

Lee, C. (2017). Facebooking to power: The social media presence of Malaysian politicians. ISEAS Perspectives, 74.

Liebhart, K., & Bernhardt, P. (2017). Political storytelling on Instagram: Key aspects of Alexander Van der Bellen’s successful 2016 presidential election campaign. Media and Communication, 5(4), 15-25.

Lourdes, M. (2018) Malaysia's Najib Razak is in a fight for his political life. CNN Edition. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/06/asia/najib-razak-malaysia-general-election-intl/index.html

Manaf, A. M. A., Taibi, M., & Manan, K. A. (2017). Media agenda and public agenda: A study of issues during the 13th general election. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 33(2), 13-26.

MCMC. (2017). Internet users survey 2017 statistical brief number twenty-one. Retrieved from https://www.mcmc.gov.my/skmmgovmy/media/General/pdf/MCMC-Internet-Users-Survey-2017.pdf

Mohamed, S. (2017). ‘Breaking the Malaysian political media dichotomy: A case for citizen’s media’. International Academic Research Journal of Social Science, 3(2), 17-23.

Puthucheary, M., & Othman, N. (Eds.). (2005). Elections and democracy in Malaysia. Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Salman, A., Mustaffa, N., & Salleh, M. A. (2016). Social media and agenda setting: Implications on political agenda. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 32(1), 401-414.

Salman, A., Yusoff, M. A., Salleh, M. A. M., & Abdullah, M. Y. (2018). Political engagement on social media as antecedent for political support among voters in Malaysia. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 34(2), 152-165.

Sani, M., & Azizuddin, M. (2014). The social media election in Malaysia: The 13th general election in 2013. Kajian Malaysia: Journal of Malaysian Studies, 32(2), 123-147.

Twiplomacy. (2017). World leaders on Instagram 2017. Retrieved from https://twiplomacy.com/blog/world-leaders-Instagram-2017/

Van Aelst, P., Sheafer, T., & Stanyer, J. (2012). The personalization of mediated political communication: A review of concepts, operationalization and key findings. Journalism, 13(2), 203-220.

Wheeler, M. (2013). Celebrity politics. London: Polity Press.

Wok, S., & Mohamed, S. (2017). Internet and social media in Malaysia: Development, challenges and potentials. In Peña Acuñ, B. (Ed.), The evolution of media communication (pp.45-62). London: InTech.

Zanuddin, H., Sern, T. J., Ahmad, F., Hassan, B. R. A., Zawawi, J. W. M., Hashim, N., & Ishak, M. B. (2017). Burying the news for the public: Agenda cutting of the Tamil newspapers and MIC candidate Facebook during the 13th general election. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 33(2), 55-72.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


e-ISSN: 2289-1528