Beliefs and Attitude towards Political Advertising During Malaysia's GE14 Political Tsunami

The recent General Election in Malaysia has seen the opposition alliance form the government for the first time in its history. The tsunami that changed the country's political landscape has largely been attributed to the participation of young voters and the effect of political advertising transmitted through social media. Drawing upon the theory of reasoned action, the study tests the scale of beliefs about political advertising in relation to attitude towards political advertising among young voters. While the first phase of the study validated the belief components, the second phase tested and confirmed the effect of the belief components on attitude. As a result, three belief components of political advertising were extracted, including core values, actual values,andexternal values. The findings indicated that young Malaysian voters hold unfavourablebeliefs aboutpolitical advertising. Moreover, the beliefs about advertising’s core and external values have a direct effect on attitude towards political advertising. Given young voters use social media for nearly every aspect of their lives, the findings underscore the importance of understanding the potential effect of negative political advertising and its external elements during election campaigns.

Joseph Ernest Petavel, 1873-1936

The earliest records of the Petavel family are from the district of Bole,in the Canton of Neuchatel, near what is now the frontier of France and Switzerland. Neuchatel had been part of the Kingdom of Burgundy ,had passed to a branch of the French house of Orleans, thence to the Nassau -Orange family (1530), and thence to Prussia (1702), until in 1857 it became a full republican member of the Swiss Confederation ,with which, how ever, it had been in alliance form any years.