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YOUNG PEOPLE AND NEW MEDIA IN MALAYSIA: AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL USES AND PRACTICES

ABSTRACTToday, new media technologies form an important part of young people's lives and it is important for us to understand the needs of young people and the ways new media is appropriated in their growing lives. However, there is little knowledge about the social uses of new media technologies among young people in Malaysia. This study builds upon new media studies in developing a framework for studying young people's patterns of engagement with the new media in contemporary media landscape in Malaysia. Questionnaire surveys were conducted among a sample of 1200 young people aged 13 -15 and 16-18 age groups across Malaysia to examine their patterns of new media engagement. As for the qualitative phase, focus group interviews were conducted among young people to examine their media consumption practices on selected issues to provide a rich understanding and documentation on the changing practices in the new media environment of young people's lives in Malaysia today. The study reveals how young people appropriate new media in their everyday lives and the embedding of new media within the temporal and social dimensions of young people's life.Keywords: New media, young people, social uses, mobile phones & media games.INTRODUCTION:A new media landscape is emerging where media cultures are changing young people's lives in both the private and public spheres. Many young people's lives today are dominated by media where an average child grows up with television, DVD player, radio, CD players, video games, mobile phones, computers and iPods (Livingstone, 2002, Osgerby, 2004). The texts and images produced by these media technologies help shape their views of the world. They contribute to educating young people about meanings, messages, and systems of norms, values, practices and social relations and patterns of interactions (Buckingham, 2002; Felitzen & Carlsson, 2000). The new media carry information and values about family, friendship, love, violence, horror and so on. Further, these stories present practices, behaviours and life-styles that are deemed as desirable and undesirable and actions that bring rewards and penalties (Budd, Craig & Steinman, 1999).Malaysia in the past decade has also experienced a flooding of old and new media which are, without any doubt, a highly significant part of contemporary young people's lives. Young people use media because, they find them fun, exciting and imaginative and because they experience learning through the media. Young people are often fascinated by these new media technologies that offer them thrilling encounters and understanding of the social, cultural and moral facets of the adult world.Needless to say that new media technologies form an important part of young people's lives and it is important for all of us to understand the needs of young people and the ways new media is appropriated in their growing lives. However, there is little knowledge about the social uses of new media technologies. There is hardly any empirical information on the ways young people are using these rapidly developing new media and how important these new media are for their social development, for their building of social relationships and for the shaping of leisure practices.The present study builds upon new media studies and audience centered theories in developing a framework for studying young people patterns of engagement with the new media. Drawing from the insights of the projects conducted by Livingstone (2002), Osgerby (2004) and Youth(2006), the present study reveals how young people appropriate new media in their everyday lives and the embedding of new media within the temporal and social dimensions of young people's life as well as their perception of new media regulation and risks.Osgerby (2004) traces the development of contemporary young people culture and its relationship with new media and asserts that young people in different locales are appropriating and giving new meanings to globally circulating cultural forms and media texts. …