VIDEO | 2:40 mins

The system in which the Malaysian media are forced to work in is keeping Malaysia in a "neo-authoritarian" state instead of a democratic one, an academic said.

Presenting how media coverage during the previous election had a heavy BN bias, University of Nottingham associate professor of media and communications Tessa Houghton said that the situation is unfortunate as Malaysians deserve better.

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"This is one of the major factors holding back Malaysia from being a true democracy.

"Media is limited and not allowed to do their work, which is sad because Malaysian people are more democratic...," she told a roundtable discussion at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia today.

Houghton was, however, challenged on this by a member of the roundtable, who said that media bias occurs even in Europe and western democracies.

NONE Houghton ( right ) was also questioned on how she had come to this conclusion from the University of Nottingham-Centre of Independent Journalism (CIJ) study , which found that there was a heavy media bias to the BN during the 13th general election.

To this, Houghton said that while it is true that media bias occurs elsewhere too, it is "not an excuse to having it here".

"Elsewhere, there is no overwhelming control. My idea of an ideal system is having diversity of bias which is not the case here because there is vast majority of bias to the BN," she said.

She added that there are concerns over the lack of balance in print and television news as this would impact those who have limited access to other means of information, particularly in rural areas.

"(They) will have had limited access to fair and equal informaion about their political environment," she said.

She added that whether or not the media catches up, there is already "huge amount of acceptance of differing opinions on society" and that the engagement with politics is "stunning".

"My hope is that Malaysians get the system, including a media system, they deserve."

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