#respectmypm

By Niki Cheong In the 1990s, a campaign was underway in the United States to get supporters to paste stickers in stores and restaurants that read: “I am a smoker and have spent $____ in your establishments”.

in 2016, a local campaign kicked off in Malaysia that asked social media users to post images of their state flags that read: “I am from < insert Malaysian state > and I … #RespectMyPM”. Any similarities one gathers from these two examples may come as no surprise – after all, many campaigns used in politics these days take a leaf off public relations history.

Observers, such as Australia National University lecturer Dr Ross Tapsell, noted on Twitter that the #RespectMyPM campaign is not dissimilar to one mobilised in Indonesia several years ago in support of President Susilo Bambang Yudhono (#WeLoveYouSBY), despite the former being less obviously created from within a political party.

The Malaysian campaign is believed to have been started by the anonymous Pertahan Negara Kita (Defend Our Country) Facebook account, which does not look like it’s directly linked to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak or his party. I read about the first example from a book called Toxic Sludge is Good For You written by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton. It was first published in 1995 and is subtitled: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry. The first few chapters of the book reads like a historical narrative of the PR industry, including how the first major PR campaign was funded by the US government to spread war propaganda. It also includes observations of what the authors consider to a major milestone in the growth of the PR industry, that is, the battle to paint smoking in a positive light amid increasing negative reports on the consequences of the habit. In short, if we come across anything that sounds like it might be part of a propaganda or PR campaign on the Internet (or anywhere else, really), we should think twice before believing it or worse, sharing it with other people on our social media timelines. Granted, there are those who are digitally savvy enough to constantly attempt to dissect or fact check the information they come across. Sometimes, all it takes is a quick Google search. Other times, all you need is a cynical mind. Take for example the responses to the #RespectMyPM campaign; many people and media outlets, both local and foreign, have discussed how the campaign backfired. In some sense, it has. Besides the reported criticism the campaign has received, there were also attempts to make fun of the hashtag by changing the message. Publisher Amir Muhammad, for example, sent a tweet referring to “PM” as a Facebook private message, while others have played on the AM/PM time reference. Some even hijacked the campaign, creating images with different messages to include #RejectMyPM and calling for the Prime Minister to #RespectMalaysia instead. Other hashtags that have emerged are #SuspectMyPM and #InspectMyPM, referring to corruption scandals that have plagued the Prime Minister in recent times. The fact that hashtag campaigns can be easily manipulated and turned against the original messaging should be expected by anyone working on digital campaigns. Ask any digital marketer worth their salt and they would tell you that the first question that comes to mind when crafting a hashtag is, “Can this be used against us”? But it’s not just hashtags that campaign creators should be worried about in this day and age as on the Internet, everything is malleable. In 2012, Greenpeace led social media users to believe that a Shell captioning campaign was hijacked – when the oil and gas company had nothing to do with the site in question in the first place. All said and done, there is also the possibility that the #RespectMyPM campaign may not have failed as spectacularly as we believe. It really depends on what the aim and intention of the campaign was.

The images have been shared not only by genuine supporters of the Prime Minister, but also by those who did not agree with it. Granted, some of these posts may include messaging that are very critical of the PM and the campaign, but this is also the same Internet where people are more prone to looking at images than reading text. Even if you call a draw on the aforementioned argument, there is the likelihood that the campaign takes on a more insidious approach. It wouldn’t be the first time that distraction is used as a political strategy – in Malaysia and elsewhere – to divert attention from other hot issues. Interestingly, the #RespectMyPM campaign follows the momentous press conference organised by high-profile Malaysians that saw former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad, UMNO stalwart and former Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, opposition as well as civil society leaders come together for the first time to collectively sign a citizen’s declaration calling for Najib’s removal. Two hashtags emerged from the press conference: #SelamatkanMalaysia and #SaveMalaysia. On Twitter, thousands of tweets and retweets emerged using these hashtags and, together with the news cycle, dominated social media timelines. Until, from my observation at least, everyone started talking about #RespectMyPM. It is also interesting that the campaign chose an English hashtag to rally support for the Prime Minister considering that most of the posts from that Facebook account is written in Bahasa Melayu. It begs to be asked then, who this campaign is directly targeted at, given that on the day of the press conference, the #SaveMalaysia hashtag was used (or retweeted) more than double the number of times #SelamatkanMalaysia was. It is not uncommon in politics for individuals or organisations to use proxies as part of their communication strategy. Neither is it a novel idea to use campaigns as a form of distraction or to divert the public’s attention.