Dr Cheong, who left The Star in 2015 to pursue his PhD at the University of Nottingham, also wrote the column Bangsar Boy in the paper which ran for 11 years and was later compiled in a book. Photo: AZMAN GHANI/ The Star A former Star editor’s dissertation on cybertrooping has won the 2021 Best Dissertation Award from the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). Former R.AGE editor Dr Niki Cheong was recognised by AoIR, a society of scholars dedicated to the advancement of inter-disciplinary Internet studies, for his dissertation “Cybertrooping and the Online Manipulation of Political Communication in Malaysia: The Barisan Nasional Years”.