Varia Ranah - Sorotan Ilmiah Perkhidmatan Awam

224 Varia Ranah: Sorotan Ilmiah Perkhidmatan Awam Social Media Influence and Impact Towards Public Policy Process in Malaysia Maliki bin Mohamad, M44 ABSTRACT Social media analytics can serve as an important complement to traditional social science data collection and analysis. Therefore, this study proposed to examine the extent to which social media influence and impact on the formulation of public policy in Malaysia. Before the advent of social media, the dissemination of information was one-way in which it could be controlled by the government. The policies introduced by the government were not discussed directly by the people due to the lack of a suitable medium. However, the emergence of social media over a decade has altered the dimension of communication between governments and citizens. Social media has opened channels for a more participatory government, new social dynamic, and a more inclusive civil society. The policies introduced by the government are open to debate as social media is open and accessible to a wider audience, involving ordinary people, activists, NGOs, and others. In order to facilitate empowerment and citizens’ participation in social, political, and economic life, a suitable model has to be developed to enhance policy processes in a digital age system. The study shows that further research is required to make a full used of citizens’ engagement in social media by using suitable tools. Citizen’s comments can be scraped using social media scraping tools, which will provide us with lots of information. Then, the scraped data can be analyze using social media sentiment analysis tools to determined citizens’ attitude towards a particular topic by measuring their tone, context, and feelings. Tracking this sentiment allows us to understand the overall satisfaction, and will provides insights for current and upcoming public policy decisions.