Chinese Cultural Preservation, Identity and Community: Examining the roles of Sin Chew Daily in Bridging Chinese Education, Cultural and Religious Rights of the Chinese Community in Malaysia.

Since its existence, Sin Chew Daily (SCD) as the largest circulating Chinese press in Malaysia plays the role of bridging the Chinese community with the ruling government. SCD does this by informing the government of the day about the demands of the Chinese community in terms of Chinese culture, Chinese education and Chinese language in multiethnic Malaysia. As the Chinese culture is an important element to the Chinese community and as the indicator of their cultural identity, the implementation of affirmative action and ethnic based policies that favor the Bumiputeras (literally, sons of the soil) has been deemed as sidelining other Malaysians. As such, the Chinese community has taken up efforts of self-preserving the Chinese language, Chinese culture, and Chinese education and such efforts of preserving and safeguarding the Chinese culture are carried out through various platforms including on SCD. This paper uses content analysis to examine the efforts of Chinese cultural preservation by SCD as it highlights issues of education, cultural and religious rights of the Chinese community to the ruling government from May 1, 2012, to April 30, 2013, one year before the 13th Malaysian General Election (GE13). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]