Digital traces of the evolution of activist information practices in Kuala Lumpur homelessness advocacy, 2014–2025
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22452/mjlis.vol31no2.4Keywords:
Food aid, Civil society organisations, Community information services, Social media, Malaysia, Qualitative longitudinal researchAbstract
This study traces reported information practices in Kuala Lumpur homelessness advocacy across three periods from 2014 to 2025. It uses a qualitative longitudinal comparison of an existing coded record from seven interview sessions with 16 informants in 2014, four news reports from the 2020 to 2021 Movement Control Order, and 15 documentary items from 2022 to 2025. Prior treatments of the Wave 1 corpus are disclosed in the methods section. Template analysis identifies four recurring practices: surfacing the issue, assessing credibility, coordinating action, and sustaining engagement. The sources describe networked mobilisation in 2014, notification and scheduling arrangements during the pandemic, and later public contestation alongside state-mediated and internal coordination. A news-reported viral incident illustrates how public visibility can also arise outside the focal organisations. Visibility-opacity work is proposed as a sensitising concept, with the explicit qualification that the sources do not establish deliberate concealment or protection from surveillance. Differences in data sources and uneven temporal coverage limit claims about change. The study draws out implications for community information services, information literacy, and the design of records and coordination systems.
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