Community Forums and News in Subang J

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CONTACT: Dr John Postill, University of Bremen (Germany) Email: jpostill@usa.net

Subang Jaya e-Community Portal

Background Information

Title: Subang Jaya e-Community Portal http://usj.com.my

Location: Subang Jaya (Malaysia)

Primary Sponsor: self-funded by residents of Subang Jaya

Project Start Date: 26/10/1999

Project End Date: ongoing

Executive Summary The Subang Jaya e-Community Portal is a project funded and managed by residents of Subang Jaya, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) that has been running since 1999. The portal has successfully fostered grassroots democracy, community-building and better local governance in Subang Jaya, setting an example for local residents across Malaysia and overseas.

Project Rationale and Objectives The project arose in 1999 out of the gulf between the high expectations of new Subang Jaya residents prior to moving to this award-winning ‘model township’ and the daily realities of traffic jams, clogged drains, unsafe playgrounds, frequent burglaries, etc. The project founders felt that poor local governance and a chronic democratic deficit (local authorities in Malaysia are unelected) were at the root of the countless ‘mundane’ problems besetting the township.

The project aimed to: • provide township residents with an electronic ‘community hall’ • foster grassroots democracy, including freedom of speech • promote an ICT- and knowledge-based society • be the engine of SJ2005, a federal government ‘smart township’ initiative

Although the project was primarily aimed at residents of Subang Jaya, it also envisaged to assist the creation of a tri-sectoral partnership between residents, the local authorities and the private sector known as SJ2005. The project was designed to grow ‘organically’ and from the bottom-up. Although lacking a timeframe, the project was conceived by its founders as the engine that would drive SJ2005, a Malaysian federal government project aimed at transforming Subang Jaya into an ICT-based ‘smart township’ by the year 2005. Subang Jaya was to be Malaysia’s testbed for ICT-driven good local governance.

What was delivered? The Portal has achieved three of its four main aims as outlined above. First, it provides residents with an electronic ‘community hall’ of an extraordinary vibrancy and popularity at http://usj.com.my. The online forums has become the prime public forums in this township of 500,000 on questions of local governance, community services and lifestyle. The flexible system of user-initiated ‘threads’ (topics of discussion) allows for a dynamic ‘bazaar’ of ideas and information on a vast range of local issues. As of 28 January 2005, the portal boasted 4,847 members and its forums had generated 3,055 threads and 32,963 posts in just over five years*. The record for the largest number of users online at any one time was set on 8 January 2005 at 532 people. Participants have literally woven a sense of community out of myriad intertwined threads.

Second, the portal has fostered grassroots democracy by not only allowing residents a ‘voice’, but also in a number of cases by setting the local governance agenda. A recent example was the portal’s key role in an October 2004 demonstration demanding the construction of a police station. The campaign, which was amply covered by Malaysia’s mainstream media, successfully blocked the building of a food court and led the federal authorities to commit themselves to the building of a police station in its stead.

Third, the portal has promoted an ICT- and knowledge-based society by tangibly demonstrating the potential social and political benefits of new digital technologies to residents, municipal council staff, politicians and ICT policy-makers.

• N.B. This figure is likely to be an underestimate as the portal was attacked by a ‘cracker’ in September 2004 and not all archives had been recovered at the time of writing this report. In August 2004, prior to the cracker’s attack, the author recorded 3,500 threads and over 26,000 posts in the main forum alone.

Communication Activity The project was promoted to residents, councillors, local politicians and private firms through formal meetings, informal gatherings, word of mouth, email, award ceremonies, and press releases and interviews.

Successes In addition to the three main achieved aims discussed above under the heading ‘What was delivered?’ this ongoing project has had a number of beneficial spin-offs for local governance and democracy in Subang Jaya. These include: • A close working relationship between community leaders and the elected state assemblyman, who is also an influential councillor and has his own website through which he communicates with residents publicly, see http://hwabeng.org.my • A municipal council that is well informed about issues concerning local residents, as key staff members regularly visit the portal • A growing sense of rootedness and community among regular portal users; this community-building process now includes regular offline gatherings on a monthly basis. • A high political, academic and media profile for the township nationwide and even internationally; in the long run, this can be expected to attract socially innovative residents, firms and public initiatives.

Benefits to Citizens The project allowed concerned residents to become actively engaged in local governance by providing a supportive environment for constructive criticism of, and suggestions to, the local authorities. This online environment encourages the participation of residents in decisions that affect their locality. These views may not have always had a direct impact on local government decisions, but together they have contributed to the emergence of a local public sphere that the municipal council cannot afford to ignore. Additionally, by pooling their local knowledge, residents were able to make well-informed decisions regarding council rates, building permissions, unkempt public parks, etc. All this is has set an example for citizens and local authorities across Malaysia.

Benefits to Authority The portal’s rationale and activities are fully in line with the local authorities’ Local Agenda 21 vision which seeks to achieve sustainable development across the township. It is highly compatible with the municipal council’s introduction in 2001 of an innovative network of residents’ committees (JKP) aimed at bridging the decision-making gap between governing and governed. Some influential residents are, in fact, active in both the independent portal and the council’s residents’ commitees.

The portal helps to fulfil the federal government’s long-term vision of a fully developed, knowledge-based Malaysia by 2020. Internationally, it demonstrates the federal government’s commitment to foreign ICT investors to allow freedom of expression on the internet. Domestically, by providing a role-model of grassroots democracy for localities across the country, it raises the profile of Subang Jaya and its local authorities. At the same time, this high profile provides a check on the municipal council’s decisions and pressures it towards greater accountability and transparency. Thus, in his widely read review of local governance in Malaysia published in December 2004, the Penang-based scholar Prof Goh Ban Lee praised the Subang Jaya municipal council for its forward-looking approach to governance while criticising its lack of transparency regarding the police station incident described earlier.

Benefits to Councillors By improving the local knowledge of councillors, these public servants are in a better position to question and influence local policies. The fast delivery of high-quality information through the portal allows councillors to follow the progress of projects, particularly as they are perceived by their intended beneficiaries: the residents and rate-payers. Although in theory this could help them to hold the executive to account, in reality the entrenched practice of appointing councillors on the basis of ethnic patronage rather than merit inhibits the attainment of such a prospect.

Limitations The Subang Jaya e-Community Portal could have been broader in its target audience, particularly in reaching out to low-income groups, young people, foreign immigrants and to the Malay population. At present virtually all postings and community reports are in English rather than Malay. The use of Malay alongside English (which is the everyday language of the middle classes) could have been encouraged on the forum.

As regards the fourth aim mentioned earlier – to be the engine of SJ2005, a federal government ‘smart township’ initiative – the portal has not been able to play this role as SJ2005 proved to be unworkable owing to irreconcilable disputes over ownership and management between the two main government bodies involved, namely the corporatised federal agency in charge of Malaysia’s ICT policy (MIMOS), and the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ).

The project was never, however, conceived as a ‘technological fix’ to local governance problems. Instead, its initiators fostered from the outset its gradual, ‘organic’ growth. From this perspective, its first five years of life have been a resounding success. The founders’ lack of success in obtaining public funding was undoubtedly an early setback, but it may also have been a blessing in disguise, for it helped to promote the portal as an independent initiative representing the interests of local residents. This independence, however, came at a cost, as subsequently it became more difficult for portal participants to cooperate with the federal government and local authorities.

The main obstacle hampering the progress of the e-Community Portal has been a lack of clarity over the forum’s governance. Two factions have emerged in this regard. While the forum’s administrators favour the strict adherence to explicit rules of online conduct or ‘netiquette’, an influential group of veteran forum participants regard these rules as constricting the free flow of ideas and information. The dispute remains unresolved.

Evaluation The project has been assessed using qualitative measures, both online and offline. This assessment is part of a 15-month long anthropological study based on participant observation, semi-structured interviews and online archival research. The benchmark used was historical: the researcher compared and contrasted local governance in Subang Jaya in mid-1999, before the project was launched, with that in January 2005.

Lessons learnt For other councils in Malaysia or abroad to avoid the kinds of obstacles encountered by the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) in its dealings with the Subang Jaya e-Community Portal, it is imperative that a good working relationship and clear division of responsibilities is established at the outset between the various government agencies, community groups and private enterprises. Should such a working relationship prove unviable in the early months of the initiative, the tri-sectoral governance project (in this case SJ2005) should be abandoned. The usability of the two main products of the project (the online forum and community reporting) can only be increased through a greater involvement from residents, politicians, municipal staff, and/or the private sector. This is particularly so for community reporting which has suffered from a lack of volunteers since its inception.

Contacts: jpostill@usa.net Author of this report jeffooi@usj.com.my Portal founder and manager Author: Dr John Postill, University of Bremen