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ustify their control over the media in terms of jealousy guarding and guiding its members towards the supposedly noble path of national development and to ensure that the media does not fall into the 'wrong hands' or in other words, state control over the mainstream media has clearly been justified in the name of national development and national security (Mustafa, 2004)

During elections, the media plays an important role in publicizing as well as plays a part in advertising politicians as well as their campaign. The mainstream media is fully controlled by Barisan National's needs to not only publicise but as Mustafa (2005) stated, flaunt to the whole country BN's achievements, particularly in the area of socioeconomic development. A wide coverage would done on the pro-government and minimal reporting would be done on the opposition. Media ownership generally plays in role in why Barisan national is constantly being flaunt and portrayed as the political party to vote for.

After Malaysia gained independence in 1957, the mainstream print media was owned by private sector companies. Then the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) made a successful bid for the Utusan Melayu a few years afterwards. Over the years, the major English newspaper, The New Straits Times was also taken over by UMNO of the ruling National Front, while The Star was bought over by the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and mainstream television channels like TV1, TV2 and TV3 were born, controlled by the government.

According to an analysis on the coverage of Malaysia's 2004 general elections by four mainstream newspapers (The Star, the New Straits Times (NST), Berita Harian and Utusan Melayu), the total number of news items that were positive towards BN among all four major newspapers were roughly 40% and above. The other part of the percentage went straight to new items that were negative towards the opposition. Only a slight number of news (4% and below) were negative new items towards BN. Mustafa (2005) also highlighted sample of headlines used by these newspapers that gave an idea of slant news reporting; 'Malaysians prefer Pak Lah's vision of Islam' (NST, March 15 2004), Perlis merana jika pilih pembangang (Perlis suffers if opposition is voted) (Utusan Melayu, March 16 2004 ) This shows a high level of bias coverage within the highly influential mainstream newspapers during the 2004 general elections.

Alternative Media and Politics
With an obvious slant reporting and biasness from the mainstream media, cyber news is slowly taking over, becoming a more focused, better written, more informative and alternative to the mainstream newspapers and media. Like in the case of Marina Mahathir with 'The Column that wasn't'; this piece was spiked by the Star because it touched in issues that were sensitive but since The Malaysian Multimedia and Communication Acts of 1998 promises that 'No censorship would be applied on Internet content', Marina published her column online together with ranting on why her column was spiked. What would stop the public now from reading that column online and have the same reaction if it was published in the mainstream newspaper?

A study conducted by Zentrum Future Studies Malaysia in 2008 involving 1, 500 respondents between the age of 21 and 40 showed that the alternative media holds a big influence on young Malaysians. In the study, 64.5% of those ages from 21