Mediating the nation? The manifestation of the ideological project of nation building in Malaysian public service broadcasting

Abstract

The present study investigates the manifestation of the ideological project of nation buildingin MBCtv’s prominent current affairs programming. It particularly interrogates three of MBCtv’s current affairs programmes, namely Top Brass, Business Digest, and Speak Out, also known as Public Dance Forum (PDF). Situated in debates between the dominant ideology thesis, and the pluralist paradigm of news, it explores the extent to which the ideological project is manifested in the programmes as well as the extent to which journalists who front them mediate impartially debates that characterise state-led nation building. The study shows that the ideological project of nation building is a recurrent issue in MBCtv current affairs programming and that, to a large extent, it is mediated impartially, contrary to the widely-held view that MBC staffers perform their duties partially because they lack agency when interacting with dominant ideology. Journalists who front the programmes engage with dominant ideology actively by making decisions and choices which mostly testify that they mediate debates characterising the state-led nation building project with impartiality. The decisions and choices which are made, however, tend to be covert as the journalists try to avoid misrepresenting themselves as opponents of dominant ideology, especially when addressing politically sensitive aspects of nation building. This, in turn, explains the misleading conclusion by subscribers of the political economy approach that the journalists interact with dominant ideology passively at the expense of Malawi’s nationbuilding needs.

Date of Award	May 2015
Original language	English
Supervisor	Gregory Mc Laughlin (Supervisor) & Colm Murphy (Supervisor)