| A strange phenomenon has occurred during the Malaysia 13th general election held on 5th May 2013.The Chinese voting rates had achieved a new historical record as many of the Chinese voters whom were apathy of politics in the past had crowded themselves at many of the polling centers.Besides,many of the Chinese voters went onto the streets to guard against phantom voters and stop every suspicious looking voters from voting.There was no ending in political rumors during the election period,the noise from society reaches its highest climate.Different kind of political news and rumors were appearing in the internet.To a certain degree,some political rumors had caused panic in the society and affects their behavior in political participation.At that time,rumors about the Barisan Nasional importing 40,000 foreign workers to vote;former Prime Minister,Tun Dr.Mahathir fleeing to Europe due to his fear on changes made after the election;Polling Center in Bentong having power cut or power failure to manipulate voters' voting and many other rumors were going viral in the internet.Though explanations were given by all of the relevant bodies or parties,many of the people still do not believe the tainted explanations.Some voters even have fighted with voters that are suspected to be foreign workers when attempting to stop them from voting,but eventually realized it was a misunderstanding.A French author,Kapferer stated in his book 'RUMORS' that:"when there is politics there are rumors".Political rumors is an important tactic in political battles,they are often harmful;therefore,analyzing the effects of political rumors towards voters' behavior in political participation;and prevention work to political rumors are important issues that modern society nowadays need to study seriously.This research is based on the change in Malaysian Chinese voters' behavior in political participation after received political rumors from the internet.Through a qualitative and quantitative research method,this research has analyze 5 rumors that picked from internet during the 505 election period coupled with in-depth interviews,investigating from different perspective the influences of political rumors towards Chinese voters'behavior in political participation during the election period to determine the sequelae of such influences towards political situation and society's development.Besides,a questionnaire survey was carried out after determining from the research model which covering online political rumors,online behavior and habits,political attitude and tendencies in changing political party,and changes in Malaysian Chinese's behavior in political participation.A total of 173 valid surveys were obtained for data analysis,validation of research question and research model.The correlation analysis of this research shows that the behavior of sharing and forwarding of political news in social media is closely related to the degree of believe in the rumors.On the other hand,we noticed that online political rumors have significant effects on the political attitudes and changing political party's tendency of the Chinese voters,so as to change their political participation as well.As such,this research opined that online political rumors does not only affect online user's behavior in political participation,it is also capable of spreading from one to another which resulted the propagation of political rumors.After been influenced by the online political rumors,they will go on to influence those non-online users with their political ideas.Besides,the spread of online political rumors can also lead to group polarization effects,when people with similar ideas gathered together,they will eventually sidestep their original idea and come up with a more extreme one to continue to affect other people's behavior.This situation is shown in the 505 election where some of the Chinese voters behaved aggressively to catch phantom voters at the polling centers,the phenomenon of harassing,and the cyber-bullying and abusive language on the internet. |
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