Malaysians are very familiar with the term ‘politik kedai kopi’. Since Malaysians now more ICT-exposed, people can get easy access through Internet, SMS, blogs. etc from the most rural place that you can name in Malaysia. This surely shows that communications among Malaysians are getting better. What used to be ‘politik kedai kopi’ has now changed its face to emerge as ‘politik Starbucks’.
‘Politik kedai kopi’ is a term which people would say when going to a coffee shops in the morning, meet with their peers and talk about their MPs and local politics. These coffee shops were usually located in many kampungs and towns where people can meet and chat. Topic evolve in ‘politik kedai kopi’ is of course Malaysian politic scenes. People get the ideas and information from the TV and radio, which were the only source I guess back in 70s, 80s and early 90s. These mainstream medias were and still now control by the government so everything that you heard is already filtered by the government.
Comparing with ‘politik Starbucks’ which is now what is happening, people get their ideas and information from unfiltered source which are the Internet and through SMSes that are being flying in the air. The Internet has no boundaries so this is THE PLACE where freedom of speech is really happening. Unlike ‘politik kedai kopi’, the ideas and information on local politics are discuss in a very open environment. People talk based on facts and these facts are raw facts compared to ‘politik kedai kopi’ which the facts are filtered by the government. Although these raw facts can sometimes be (most of the time actually) rumors through the blogsphere, I think people will get the main idea on what’s going on and people will also tend to think. As a result, there goes the politic analysts on the TV talking about these raw facts from the Internet. Starbucks now has Wi-Fi Internet and the citizens are getting the information through the Internet while sipping the coffees.
So there you go, ‘politik Starbucks’ based on what I observed.
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