Umno To Use New Media To Attract The Young

SHAH ALAM, May 11 (Bernama) — Umno will harness the power of the new media to attract the young towards the party but not in the way the opposition has been using them to undermine leaders of other parties.

Umno information chief Ahmad Maslan said the strategy would be among the steps he would take in the efforts to woo the young towards Umno apart from holding face-to-face meetings to get an insight into their aspirations for the party.

"We will speak their language because they are now speaking in the new media terms like blogs and Facebook, but in doing so we will say the truth.

"We will not use the new media to spread lies because that is just not us. Let them (opposition) say what they want because lies are not something that the people would always believe.

"One day they would want to find the truth and I am confident that what the Barisan Nasional (BN) is doing is the right thing," he told reporters after meeting his predecessor, Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib here today.

Ahmad, who was appointed to the post on April 24, said the meeting was to discuss with Muhammad the role and responsibility of an Umno information chief.

On pro-opposition blogs which glorified certain opposition leaders, Ahmad, who is Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, said Umno would not be doing the same as the party would focus more on party policy and direction.

"We are not into personality cult… leaders come and go. What remains is Umno and BN," he said.

Meanwhile, Muhammad said he believed Ahmad would be able to discharge his duties well.

"It's only that the society is now more critical and exposed to all types of information.

"We, therefore, need to go deeper in understanding them… to think about how we can attract a generation that is exposed the free-flowing of information," he said.

— BERNAMA