Niki Cheong

I am Lecturer in Digital Culture and Society at King's College London. My research interest sits at the intersection of media, politics and digital culture/internet studies. I completed my PhD at the University of Nottingham in 2020, where I investigated cybertroopers and the online manipulation of political information in Malaysia. My doctoral thesis was awarded Best Dissertation in 2021 by the Association of Internet Researchers.

Previously, I spent about a decade in journalism, including six years at Malaysia's largest English daily, The Star. As editor of its digital platform R.AGE, I spearheaded digital innovations in journalism and led the team to winning international awards.

My column The Bangsar Boy, featuring socio-cultural commentary about Malaysia, ran for almost 11 years, and in 2017, was published as a book by MPH Publishing titled Growing Up In KL: 10 Years of The Bangsar Boy.

News and Updates

Journal Article

My first lead author journal article Queering the ‘resourcing’ of LGBTQ+ young people in the Asia Pacific (co-authored with Amelia Johns and Paul Byron, 2023) was published in Information, Communication and Society, as part of the Decolonising the Internet special issue.

UNESCO/UNDP Report

The report from a UNESCO/UNDP-funded research project I was part of mapping and reviewing online resources for young LGBTI+ youth and young key populations in the Asia-Pacific region has recently been published.

Journal Article

My journal article has been published in Continuum (Co-authored with Amelia Johns, 2021). The affective pressures of WhatsApp: from safe spaces to conspiratorial publics. Click here to read the article.

Book Chapter

My book chapter - Malaysia: Disinformation as a response to the ‘opposition playground’ - has been published in From Grassroots Activism to Disinformation: Social Media in Southeast Asia, edited by Aim Sinpeng and Ross Tapsell and published by ISEAS Publishing, Singapore.

Book Chapter

My book chapter - Internet-led political journalism: Challenging hybrid regime resilience in Malaysia - was published in The Routledge Companion to Political Journalism (eds: James Morrison, Jen Birks and Mike Berry, 2021).

Award

For my PhD thesis - Cybertroopers and the online manipulation of political communication: The Barisan Nasional years - I am the recipient of the 2021 Best Dissertation Award by the Association of Internet Researchers.

Journal Article

My co-authored journal article - and 11-country comparative media study of the newspaper coverage of the 2016 Paralympic Games - has been published in Disability and Society. Click here to read the article.