PERCEPTION TOWARDS BANGSA MALAYSIA AND EXPRESSIONS OF SOLIDARITY AMONG YOUNG MALAYSIAN BLOGGERS

In the process of nationbuilding, solidarity is a factor that depends on racial integration among its people.  As racial integration is a crucial but slow process, voices of the younger generation indicating solidarity among them can seen as be a strong indicator that racial integration is at work.  In the Malaysian context, unity in diversity is the focal point in moving towards solidarity in its multiethnic and multicultural landscape. As studies have shown the proliferation of blogs as means of communication among young Malaysians, the focus of this study is to investigate the language of student bloggers from different ethnic groups to glean elements of racial integration and the acceptance of the Bangsa Malaysia concept among them.  A blog was set up by the researchers to foster a virtual discourse community for 13 months.  A combination of discourse analysis and social presence theory was used in the analysis of data.  This not only gives an insight of the language used but also their perspective of other bloggers.  The study found that the language features of bloggers fostered solidarity among the various ethnic groups and exhibited positive support for the general concept of Bangsa Malaysia.