Overview: Expanding the Political Sphere
Media activism has been a staple of Malaysian civil society since before
independence, dating back to networks of progressive journalists, writers,
and “pen-friends,” and extending to Malaysia’s inaugural modern-day
nongovernmental organizations (Weiss 2003). Human rights group Aliran, in
particular, launched in 1977, has not only sustained a well-known, criticallyengaged
magazine, the Aliran Monthly, for decades, but supports initiatives
such as Charter 2000, which calls for independence in news media, including
such provisions as a Freedom of Information Act and autonomous media
council (Kenyon and Marjoribanks 2007, 107).