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Published by The Journal of Development CommunicationISSN 0128-3863, Vol. 20, No. 1, 2009, Pages. 61-71 

INFORMATION SEEKING IN THE ICT AGE:

 A STUDY OF HOW YOUNG AND OLD MALAY INTERNET USERS

RESPOND TO THE NEW PHENOMENON 

Ali Salman and Mohd Safar Hasim

School of Media and Communication Studies

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

 

Abstract

During the last twenty years rapid developments in technology have led to changes in the way we work, play, learn, and carry out social and business transactions. Technology has become an integral part of society’s everyday information environment. Net Generation will depend on their ability to navigate in a global knowledge economy where access and being able to use information to generate new knowledge are key attributes. The aim of this paper is to discuss information seeking among younger and older Malay internet users. For this purpose, the use of internet as an information source will be looked into. This study used the survey research for obtaining data. Some 357 Malay internet users were sampled from the Malay internet users in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, a sub-urban town in the North-east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The break down comprise of 225 young Malays and 132 older Malay respondents. They were interviewed using a standard questionnaire. Descriptive statistical analyses were used to analyse the data. From the results newspaper and internet both emerged the main sources of information for the younger Malay internet users with 96.9% of the respondents using both as sources of information. While for the older Malay internet users, newspaper was the main source of information with 94.7% of the respondents using it as information source. Majority of the young Malay respondents, 81.8% use the Internet one to four hours a day, whereas for the older Malay internet users, majority (79.6%) uses the Internet one to three hours a day. Whereas 85.8% of the young Malay Internet users use email as the main purpose of using the Internet, only 73.5% of the older respondents use the Internet for this purpose. More Malay younger generation use the internet to get information than the older Malay internet users. Moreover, while seeking for education related information is the third main purpose of usage for the younger users, work related information and usage emerged as the third main purpose for the older generation. 

Key words:  Internet, email communication, information source, information seeking

1. Prof Dr Mohd Safar Hasim

School of Media and Communication Studies

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

2. Ali Salman, PhD

Post Doctoral Fellow

School of Media and Communication Studies

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

 

Introduction

During the last twenty years rapid developments in technology have led to changes in the way we work, play and learn. There is a kind of new revolution in the making, IT revolution. Castells (2000) notes that the current process of technological transformation expands exponentially because of its ability to create an interface between technological fields through common digital language in which information is generated, stored, retrieved, processed, and transmitted. Technology has become an integral part of society’s everyday information environment. For the ‘Net Generation’ of users (born after 1985) technology is transparent and a part of their social, economic and educational landscape (Combes, 2006).

While information seeking behavior remains a fundamental method for coping with our environment and day-to-day problems, the skills required to access information are becoming increasingly diverse and reflect the complexity of both the technology being used to store, retrieve and disseminate information and the multiple delivery formats. For students and youngsters growing up in the Net Generation, information seeking is a complex cognitive, physical and social behavior that requires proficiency in a wide ranging set of skills that is constantly evolving. Successful participation in society for students and youngsters of the Net Generation will depend on their ability to navigate in a global knowledge economy where access and being able to use information to generate new knowledge are key attributes (Combes, 2006). More than half, about 53% of internet users are between the age of 18 to 44 (Jones and Fox, 2009).

            However, the older generation of internet users, were not brought up in the same environment as their younger counterparts. This, in a way has put the older internet users in a tensed situation whenever they find themselves in an IT environment. In the beginning, the earlier internet users among the older generation had a phobia towards IT complicating their use and subsequent benefit to be derived thereof from its usage. However, things have now changed and the older generation are now using internet more for e-commerce including banking and shopping online (Jones, 2009). Members of the older generation are most likely to bank, shop, and seek health information online, according to Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project (Jones & Fox, 2009).

            This paper will report the descriptive findings of the study on internet usage by Malays living in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, a semi-urban town in the North East of peninsular Malaysia.

Literature Review

There is a kind of new revolution in the making, IT revolution. Castells (2000) argues that the current process of technological transformation expands exponentially because of its ability to create an interface between technological fields through common digital language in which information is generated, stored, retrieved, processed, and transmitted. In the words of Castells (2000, p. 29), “the IT revolution is as major an historical event as was the eighteenth- century industrial revolution, inducing a pattern of discontinuity in the material basis of economy, society, and culture”. At the core of this IT revolution is the internet. The creation and development of the internet in the last three decades on the twentieth century resulted from a unique blending of military strategy, big science corporation, technological entrepreneurship, and countercultural innovation (Abbate, 1999; Naughton, 1999; Hart et al, 1992).

Järvelin and Ingwersen (2004) discuss the research into information seeking and its directions at a general level. Their approach was by analysis and argumentation based on past research in the domain. They begin by presenting a general model of information seeking and retrieval which is used to derive nine broad dimensions that are needed to analyze information seeking and retrieval. Past research is then contrasted with the dimensions and shown not to cover the dimensions sufficiently. Based on an analysis of the goals of information seeking research, and a view on human task performance augmentation, they argued that information seeking is intimately associated with, and dependent on, other aspects of work; tasks and technology included. They therefore proposed two action lines viz. information retrieval research needs extension toward more context and information seeking research needs extension towards tasks and technology.

            Weiler (2005) contends that information seeking has been studied since the 1950s, but these early studies involved mostly the information-seeking activities of researchers and scientists. Information seeking has only been studied in the general population, and particularly within student groups, in the past 20 years or so. Weiler explored research in information-seeking behavior, motivation, critical thinking, and learning theory and compared in a search for possible motivating factors behind students’ dependence on television and the Internet for their information needs. The research indicates that only a very small percentage of the general population prefer to learn by reading.

            Combes (2006) observes that technology has become an integral part of society’s everyday information environment. Children growing up during what has been called the technological or digital revolution have never known a world without instantaneous communication and easy access to vast quantities of information using multiple formats, text types, graphics and multimedia. Combes further points out that ror the ‘Net Generation’ (born after 1985) of users and consumers who are surrounded by information, technology is transparent and a part of their social, economic and educational landscape. Among the terms use to describe young people in major educational policy documents and population studies worldwide include the terms tech-savvy, web-savvy, Internet-savvy and computer-savvy While educators recognise that their students have a different culture of use when using and seeking information delivered electronically, they struggle to come to terms with the changes the integration of technology brings to the teaching-learning environment. The implications for educators, teacher librarians and librarians being raised in current research on the information seeking of the Net Generation, is whether students have an intuitive/instinctive grasp of how to access and use electronic information or is this just an illusion borne of familiarity with the technology? Combes proposes a leadership role for libraries and their personnel in designing programs to ensure that young people have adequate information skills that will enable them to use evolving technologies effectively and efficiently when searching for information.

            Jones (2009) argues that contrary to popular belief, older generations are as active online as members of younger generation in some respects. Members of older generation are most likely to bank, shop, and seek health information online, according to Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. The findings were based on surveys taken from 2006 to 2008.  However, younger generations continue to dominate the Internet, and more than half the adult Internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. The study also reveal that the younger internet users are more likely to turn to entertainment, social networks and for communicating with friends and family.

            From the brief literature review, we can see how the information and communication technology has expanded and permeated almost every aspect of our societal life. Information seeking has taken a different format whereby the people now use the internet as information tool. We also have to bear in mind the skills of the people, especially the younger generation in using the internet. Do they have the right skills or are they just net oriented as against being net savvy.  When it comes to internet usage, the nature of use also differs from the younger to the older users.  The older uses mainly use the internet for e-commerce that is banking and shopping while the younger users use for entertainment and social usage. 

Methodology

This study used the survey research method to obtain data from the Malay population in Kota Bharu, to ascertain the nature of information seeking and internet usage. This study used  purposive sampling focusing on the respondents who are already using the Internet. Three sampling components were used and comprised of the age, gender and occupation components. The age component consists of three groups comprising 19-30, 31- 40 and 41+.  For the occupation component the respondents were categorised into four groups viz. government servants, government linked companies, private businesses and students. For the younger Malay internet users the age is between 19 to 39 and 40 and above for the older Malay internet users.

A questionnaire was used to collect data for this study. The questionnaires were distributed among the Malay internet users in Kota Bharu in the last week of January 2008. Some 400 questionnaires were distributed. A total of 365 answered questionnaires were collected, three weeks later. Out of which 357 were usable giving a return rate of 91.25%. For this paper only the descriptive analysis was used.

Findings

The Young Malay Internet Users

Out of the total 357 respondents, 225 are younger Malay internet users aged between 19 to 39 years. Some 120 of the younger users are males representing 53.3 % and 105 (46.7%) are females. In terms of age, 133 (59%) of the respondents belong to the 19–29 age group and form the majority while those in the 30-39 age group, represent 92 of the respondents and form 41% of the 225 younger Malay users. 

Majority of the younger respondents 128 (56.9%), are employed. Of this number, 10 (4.4%) are self-employed. Students make up 97 (43.1%) of the respondents. The students comprise of matriculation, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Academically, majority of the younger respondents, 40.4% have SPM, followed by those with a bachelor’s degree, 33.8%. This represents fairly educated respondents. The results also show that there is wide use of Internet across different educational backgrounds among the younger Malay internet users in Kota Bharu.  

In terms of household income, the average household income is between RM2000 to 3000. This means the working respondents (128) can be categorized as belonging to the middle class in Malaysia (Tori 2003).

Newspaper and Internet both emerged the main sources of information with 96.9% of the younger Malay respondents using them as sources of information. This is followed by TV (88.4%). Radio followed TV with 67.1% and Magazine is the fourth main source with 63.1% while Book is the least source with 56.4%. This is an interesting discovery as Internet has over taken television and radio as main source of information and at par with newspaper. This may be due to the dynamic and interactive nature of the Internet.

However, when the younger Malay respondents were asked to rank the sources of information, television overtook Internet as the second ranking for the respondents. Newspaper was ranked number one. It is interesting to note that Internet has overtaken radio in ranking as a source of information. It was also closed to the first and second ranking which are Newspaper and Television respectively as the scores revealed.

Computer ownership among the younger Malay respondents is very high as 91.1% of the respondents have their own computer. Of the 8.9% of respondents who do not own a computer, a large number (6.2%) use computer at the cyber cafes. This is followed by 5.3% who use computer at the office. As criteria for inclusion in the research, a respondent must use a computer and therefore all the respondents use computer. 

More than two thirds of the younger Malay respondents, 181 (80.4%) acquired their Internet usage skills through informal learning that is self taught and learning from friends. About half, 116 (51.6%) of these respondents have Internet connection at home. Of the 109 (48.4%) respondents who had no Internet connection at home, 55 (24.4%) gave expensive monthly access fees as the reason for not having Internet connection at home. 50 (22.2%) said they had no telephone line. There were those who were afraid of their children being exposed to pornography and they made up 21 (9.3%) of the younger Malay respondents who had no Internet connection at home. The lack of computer at home was also one of the reasons as 30 (13.3%) said they had no computer at home. This did not mean that they had no computer at all. Some of the respondents, especially the students use their computers or laptops at college or university.  Interestingly there were still some younger Malay respondents, 8 (3.6%) who think it is not very important to have Internet connection at home.

Of the six places where they usually use the Internet, 123 (54.7%) use the Internet at the office and computer laboratory at college or university. 107 (47.6%) of the respondents use the Internet at home, while 98 (43.6%) use at Cyber Café.

More than half of the younger Malay respondents, 171 (76%) have been using the Internet for two to eight years. On the nature of usage, 144 (64%) of the respondents said they have been using the Internet on and off, while 81 (36%) said their usage has been continuous.   

Majority of these respondents, 184 (81.8%) use the Internet one to four hours a day. Another interesting finding is on the future usage of Internet by the respondents. 89 (39.6%) of the respondents said they will increase their usage of the Internet, while 39 (17.3%) said they will maintain their usage. 88 (39.1%) of the respondents said they were not sure.

            Email is the main purpose of using the Internet with 193 (85.8%) of the younger Malay respondents using the Internet for this purpose. This is followed closely by reading newspaper and searching for information, 189 (84%) while education related usage is the third main purpose of usage with 137 (60.9%) using the Internet for this purpose. The least purpose of usage is shopping online, 35 (15.6%) respondents and credit card payment, 28 (12.4%).

The Older Malay Internet Users

There were 132 older Malay respondents of which 59 are males representing 44.7% and 73 (55.3%) are females. In terms of age, 96 (72.7%) of these respondents belong to the 40–49 age group and form the majority while those in the 50 and above represent 36 of the respondents and made  27.3 % of the older Malay Internet users. 

All the older respondents were employed and 6.1% (8) were self-employed. There were no students among the older Malay Internet users. Academically, majority of the respondents, 51.5% (68) have SPM, followed by those with a bachelor’s degree, 15.9% (21) and Diploma, 14.4% (19). Some 12.9% (17) of the older Malay respondents have master degree while only 1 respondent has a PhD. This represents fairly educated respondents. The results also show that there is wide use of Internet across different educational backgrounds among the older Malay Internet users in Kota Bharu.  

In terms of income, the average household income is between RM3000 to 4000. This means the older respondents can be categorized as belonging to the middle class in Malaysia (Tori 2003).

Newspaper emerged as the main source of information with 94.7% (125) of the respondents using this medium as source of information. This is closely followed by TV (93.9%). Internet was the third main source of information for the respondents as 84.8% (112) of the respondents use this new media to get information. The fourth main source of information was radio with 73.5% (97). Magazine and book followed suit. It is an interesting development to note that Internet has over taken radio as main source of information. This may be due to the dynamic and interactive nature of the Internet.

When the older Malay respondents were asked to rank the sources of information, newspaper was ranked first, television was second and Internet got the third ranking.

Computer ownership among the older Malay respondents was very high as 90.9% of the respondents have their own computer. Of the 9.1% of the older Malay respondents who do not own a computer, a large number (6.1%) use computer at the office or place of work.  This is followed by 3.0% who use computer at the cyber café. As criteria for inclusion in the research, a respondent must use a computer and therefore all the respondents use computer. 

More than two thirds of the respondents, 101 (76.5%) acquired their Internet usage skills through informal learning that is self taught and learning from friends.

Only less than half (37.1%) of the older Malay respondents had Internet connection at home. Of the 83 (62.9%) respondents who had no Internet connection at home, 19 (14.4%) gave expensive monthly access fees as the reason for not having Internet connection at home. 25 (18.9%) said they had no telephone line. There were those who were afraid of their children being exposed to pornography and they made up 25 (18.9%) of the respondents who had no Internet connection at home. The lack of computer at home was also one of the reasons as 6 (4.5%) said they had no computer at home. This did not mean that they had no computer at all. Some of the respondents, especially the students use their computers or laptops at college or university. Interestingly there were still respondents, 5 (3.8%) who think it is not very important to have Internet connection at home.

Of the six places where the older Malay respondents usually use the Internet, 103 (78%) use the Internet at the office and computer laboratory at college or university. Some 85 (64%) of these respondents use the Internet at home, while 30 (22.7%) use at Cyber Café.

More than two thirds of the respondents, 102 (77.2%) have been using the Internet for two to eight years. On the frequency of usage, 83 (62.9%) of the respondents said they have been using the Internet on and off, while 49 (37.1%) said their usage has been continuous.   

Majority of the older Malay respondents, 105 (79.6%) use the Internet one to three hours a day. On the future usage of Internet by these respondents, 58 (43.9%) said they will increase their usage, while 24 (18.2%) said they will maintain their usage. 48 (36.4%) of the respondents said they were not sure.

            Email is the main purpose of using the Internet with 97 (73.5%) of these respondents using the Internet for this purpose. This is followed closely by reading newspaper and searching for information, 94 (71.2%) while work related usage emerged as the third main purpose of usage with 88 (66.7%) using the Internet for this purpose. The least purpose of usage is shopping online, 24 (18.2%). 

Discussions and Implications

The younger generation and likewise generation Y students, will usually go to the Internet first, whether it be for personal, academic, or professional information. This has been confirmed again and again in research studies such as John Lubans’ various studies at Duke University from 1997 to the present (Weiler, 2005). For the older users as the present study revealed, they tend to give priority to their work and therefore their usage is more towards work related than education. Moreover, the present study also shows that majority of the younger generation use the internet for their information source than the older internet users. This is reflected in the percentage of the Malay users who have internet connection at home. Only 37.1% of the older Malay respondents had Internet connection at home and 51.6% for the younger users.

The nature of use coupled with the priority and purpose of use differ from the young and older Malay internet users. Thus the generational difference is reflected in these aspects. 

D’Esposito and Gardner found in 1999 that 40–50% of the subjects in their study used the Internet on a weekly basis, and the Pew Internet study in 2002 found that 71% of college students said they used the Internet as a major source of information (Weiler, 2005). The findings from the Pew Internet study is supported by this study where the main source of information for the younger Malays was the internet as 96.9% use the internet as their main source of information, whereas for the older generation of internet users, newspaper was the main source of information.  

            Only 20% of the younger Malay internet users, as compared to 24% of the older users, had a formal training in using the internet. This calls for formal training, especially for the younger Malay users. With proper training for using the internet and appropriate search techniques, using the internet for searching for information would be much easier and more beneficial as it will lead to retrieving the required and right information thus making their search more productive. The finding of this study is in congruent with the finding by Margam Madhusudhan (2007) that Forty-three per cent of the older research scholars in university of Delhi reported insufficient training for internet usage.

It is also evident from the present study that more of the younger generation have their own internet connection at home. More than fifty percent of the younger Malay internet users, as compared to 37.1% of the older Malay internet users, have internet connection at home. What this means is that more young users are connected to the internet than the older generation. Similar to this study, the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported fifty-three percent of 18-44 years old are using the internet, compared to only twenty-two percent of 45-54 years old (Fox & Jones, 2009).   

More of the younger Malay internet users use the internet more hours a day than the older users.  About three-fourth of the younger users use the internet one to four hours a day, whereas about the same figure of the older generation uses the internet one to three hours a day. We are not far from right when we say the younger Malay internet users are somehow internet oriented or savvy than the older users. The younger Malay users in this study belong to the Generation Y and X whose percentage of internet using population is quite large. 

More of the younger Malay generation, as compared to the older generation, mainly use internet for the purpose of sending and receiving email. It is also evident from the study that the younger Malay internet users use the internet more for education than they do for work. For the older users, work related usage of the internet is rather more prominent than education.

The current technological revolution is not characterized by the centrality of knowledge and information, but rather the application of such knowledge and information to knowledge generation and information processing/communication devices, in a cumulative feedback loop between innovation and the uses of innovation (Castells, 2000). Thus the effective use of the internet in our everyday lives is very crucial to benefiting from it by way of generating new knowledge. As this study reveals, the young generation of Malay internet users use the internet to get educational information and in process generate new knowledge by processing this information.

The older generation on the other hand, uses the internet more for work, apart from email communication, than for education. As Castells (2000) argues that the new information technologies allow for the decentralization of work tasks and for their coordination in an interactive network of communication in real time, be it between continents or between floors of the same building.

Carnoy (2000) differentiates four elements in the emergence of flexible patterns of work which came about as a result of the transformation of working arrangements due to technology, particularly the internet. Two of these elements are worth examining and they include working time and location. Work is now flexible and it is not constrained to by the traditional pattern of 35-40 hours work per week for a full time job, meaning one can work outside these office hours. Also while the majority of workers still work regularly at the workplace of their company, an increasing proportion of workers work outside their workplace for part or all of their working time, whether at home or on the move.  Over the years, information technology and the internet has contributed a great deal in the way people work. In assisting workers with their work, it provides information needed by workers for their work as the present study of Malay internet users shows.

The results also show that Internet access fees is a deterrent to having internet connection at home as almost half of the younger Malay internet users who had no internet connection at home, gave this as the main reason. However, for the older respondents, almost two-thirds have no internet connection at home. For this group of people, the main reasons for not having internet at home are lack of telephone line and the fear that their children may be exposed to pornography. For them internet access fees is not a deterrent as most of them are working. Whereas for the younger users, a number of them were still studying and they might not have the budget for internet access.     

Internet access fees need to be reduced to a minimum or an affordable level to enable more people to have internet connection at home, especially the younger generation. At the same time the issue of pornography should not be taken lightly among the older users. 

            Moreover, from the discussions it is therefore imperative for organizations and authorities to facilitate the use of the internet and its related technology for their workers so they benefit from such use, especially the older generation. For the younger generation, especially those who are still studying either at the undergraduate or postgraduate level, they require the internet for their study. Therefore, educational institutions, apart from providing the internet, need to make available sites that can help the students in their research. So far some local universities have provided online journal for their students. The UKM library, for example, has online journal where students can access Scopus and other online journals. A proposal by Combes (2006) for a leadership role for libraries and their personnel in designing programs to ensure that young people have adequate information skills that will enable them to use evolving technologies effectively and efficiently when searching for information is therefore congruent to the findings of this study on young Malay internet users.

Conclusion and suggestions

Generational difference between the young and older Malay internet users is somehow reflected in the way both use the internet. Email still remains the main purpose of usage for both the old and young. However, more of the young use email than the older users. Also the younger users use internet more than the older generation as the hours of usage show.

The priority in internet usage differs from the young to the old viz. educational and work related use, respectively. Augmenting this use to help in information search and use is crucial for benefiting from ICT in general and the internet in particular. This is where IT education and training becomes pertinent. As in the case of the Malay internet users, majority of them acquired their internet skills form self taught and learning from friends. They did not have a formal training and this may not augur well to their benefiting from the information search be it for education, health or political information.

It is highly likely that internet resources are under-utilized by the Malay users due to poor or lack of orientation and training. As Combes (2006) noted regarding the internet generation or the younger internet users, they may not be savvy enough but rather just net oriented.

Therefore all stakeholders and authorities concern should do their part in providing the necessary training skills in the areas most needed by a particular generation of internet users. This could be done in the form of Multimedia Presentation (Flash) for Internet resources, online library orientation and Internet searching, to improve motivation towards efficient and effective use of Internet, Internet-based library services, resources, etc. Falling short of this may result in losing the benefits which can be derived from the internet. The results of this survey and others also point to the need for more research on the best way to teach and train users on the effective and productive ways on using internet services (Madhusudhan, 2007).


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Abbate, J. 1999. Inventing the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Case, D.O. 2002. Looking for information: A survey of research on information seeking,

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Castells, M. 2000. The rise of the network society. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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employment and skills. A review of the literature, Washington, DC: World Bank, PHREE.

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Creswell, J. W. 1994. Research design: qualitative & quantitative approaches. California: SAGE Publications.

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