Seah, R., 2009, Strengthening the hegemony without censorship: A study of the lack of censorship towards alternative online media in Singapore, Honours Thesis, National University of Singapore.
INTRODUCTION
During Singapore’s General Elections in 2006, a new phenomenon emerged on the Internet. In spite of proximate rulings that Singaporeans were disallowed from expressing political opinions in cyberspace[1] and that the streaming of explicit political content by individuals during the election period was prohibited under the Election Advertising Regulations,[2] a small group of Singaporeans set waves in the political culture through a seemingly innocuous activity – blogging.
Amongst this online community were bloggers with pseudonyms such as Mr. Brown[3] and Mr. Miyagi.[4] Both of them successfully managed to continue with online commentary on the general elections through their blogs. They continued posting podcasts, explicitly stating that they were not of a political nature, yet alluding to the People’s Action Party with obscure metaphors, such as references to Greek mythology. They invented tongue-in-cheek slogans such as “Remember, Prison Got No Broadband,” and referred to the mainstream news organisation Channel News Asia as CNA, Chengdu News Asia.[5] Naming the local news organisation after a province in China was a snide reference to its choice of a photograph in a news article on the banning of podcasting during the Singapore general elections. Instead of using a photograph associated with Singapore, the news organisation published a generic photo of people using computers in Chengdu.
Mr. Miyagi and Mr. Brown were not the only ones who commented on the state’s prohibitions during the election period. Other websites, such as XML-syndicated Tomorrow.sg also ran a post on the governmental regulations, which garnered a hit count of more than ten thousand reads and a discussion thread.[6]
Even though all of these incidents happened on a relatively small scale and might not have reached a majority of the general Singapore population of more than four million, a new political era was born. The Internet proved to be a space where alternative political discussions could take place, and it became a “hotbed of activity during the election period.”[7] The city state’s attempts to control the flow of political expression on the Internet was being circumvented by a few individuals who dished out commentary from the comfort of their own computers. Even as the Singapore government, branded the poster child of “soft authoritarianism,”[8] had no intention of surrendering political control, they were beginning to recognise the existence of the growing tension between developing an economically vibrant economy and the concomitant awakening of an increasingly complex social and political structure.[9] Indeed, as Pamela Varley argued, the Internet’s bypassing of the stricture of formal political organisations and the scrutiny of government heightened the possibility that democracy could be a possibility in the future.[10]
In addition to this potential for democratic discourse, the Internet offers a heightened level of interactivity that other forms of communication are unable to provide. This particular characteristic has given rise to a new dynamic relationship and interaction between journalists and consumers and a new form of journalism.
This study aims to investigate the development of this new form, citizen journalism, and frame it within the Singapore context. As George and others have noted, various websites maintained by private individuals have sprung up with the purpose of bringing in diverse topics and viewpoints that the mainstream media have failed to publish, unintentionally or otherwise.[11] These websites can manifest in a variety of ways: discussion groups, user-generated content, weblogs, collaborative sharing, peer-2-peer, and XML syndication.[12] They offer scrutiny over government, in the form of commentary that is the thoughts and opinions of private individuals who may be “turned off” by the “pro-establishment stance” heavily associated with the Straits Times.[13] Apart from observing and commenting on the government’s actions, these individuals have also taken to watching the mainstream press, which is controlled by the government.[14]
The burgeoning presence of such discussions online is an unprecedented occurrence in politically hermetic Singapore, where the government has employed several ways to maintain hegemony.[15] Several websites claiming to be of the same nature and aim have sprouted up since then. In acknowledgement of the growing online presence of a participatory culture on the Internet, even the state-controlled media have jumped on the bandwagon, creating an online portal they can call their own. Singapore Press Holdings hailed its online publication, STOMP, which is an abbreviation for Straits Times Online Mobile Print, as the “largest citizen journalism media platform” in Singapore.[16] The claim begs the question whether STOMP is indeed practicing citizen journalism. Scholars define citizen journalism as the act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.[17]
One criterion of whether these websites can accurately identify themselves as outlets of citizen journalism it is worthy to investigate whether they fulfil the democratic function of citizen journalism. This study attempts to ascertain whether the most prominent of these websites in Singapore “provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.”[18] Such knowledge will contribute to an understanding of a the growing participatory culture in Singapore. However, before diving intoundertaking an analysis of such websites in Singapore, this study will first attempt to craft an overview of citizen journalism as understood from existing literature. The melding of Internet and journalism, the manifestations of citizen journalism and its functions will be discussed. Following that, in order to contextualise this study, an overview of the Singapore government and the its attitude toward the Internet will be delved into to be examined.
The Internet and its Role in Transforming Journalism
The interactivity of the Internet has profound effects on the way professional journalists work and gather information. Journalists now find that amateur websites often possess that personal touch, and connect with readers better than they do, and offer competing or complementary information about news and current affairs.[19] With the empowerment of readers to choose from a plethora of news sources, one of the most pressing challenges that traditional journalists have had to accept is the partial loss of their gatekeeping status.[20] Editors play The the role of the gatekeeper as they decides what, when and how the public needs to know. The gatekeeping role, and it constitutes an essential quality control mechanism in institutional journalism.[21] The But the original “top-down” model[22] that sustained most news organizations in the traditional journalistic process does not apply on the Internet. Gunter argued that with the Internet, sources can bring the information straight to the public, cutting out the need for a journalistic middleman. The potential for a shift in the social role of journalism was already noted as early as 1992 by Rosen et al.,[23] who predicted that the emergence of a public space would allow for the establishment and interaction of virtual communities. The emergence of such communities paved the way for citizen journalism to flourish.
Introducing Citizen Journalism
Journalism that is practiced on the Internet comes in various forms and functions. Indeed, the phenomenon is an emergent one, and there is a lack of a concrete and ubiquitous definition for the various terms that float around. The form of journalism practised on the Internet also goes by more niche labels, such as civic journalism, participatory journalism, citizen journalism, and public journalism. For this study, the concept that will be studied will be that of citizen journalism, where the onus is on citizens to report the news and generate content. The overlapping nature of all these new forms of journalism also means that literature that includes the other niche labels of journalism will also be discussed.
According to a 2003 report commissioned by The Media Center at the American Press Institute, citizen journalism occurs when the public “plays” an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. Citizen journalism is not restricted, but it is about greater perspectives.[24] Futurist on media trends Watts Wacker further argued that this need for a greater range of perspectives stems from the notion that the world is moving, changing, too quickly. As a result, a lot of confusion arises from the decline of common cultural references with which people identify. As a result, pPeople seek a wider range of perspectives in order to deal with their confusion, and this pursuit is carried out online, as people trawl for information, both from a professional and an amateur perspective.
The emergence of a participatory online culture stems from the idea that human beings are inherently social beings and engage in daily social interaction with the people around them. This communication translates itself to the web. Even then, the nature of heightened interactivity on the web, coupled with a growing number of digital platforms for social networking, signify to millions of web users a newfound access to a sense of community. This community may be digital in form, but the issues and the topics of discussion are, without a doubt, close to the hearts of people.
In the Media Center report, Bowman and Willis postulated that our traditional reliability reliance on the concept of journalistic credibility is obsolete, or “dead.” This can be reinforced with Wacker’s proposition that “knowing what other people think news is is more important.”[25] than credibility. It appears as if several forms of citizen journalism on the web encourage the divergence of viewpoints. Bowman and Willis argued that there is evidence that people are “actively seeking new perspectives beyond those provided by mainstream media.”[26]
Citizen journalism provides an increased opportunity for people to share a variety of opinions and information among their communities. This has the potential to circumvent traditional media's role as “privileged, trusted and informed intermediaries of the news,” and editing traditions.[27]
Democracy as the Function of Citizen Journalism
No longer the exclusive purview of news organizations, news websites are being produced increasingly by individuals, small groups of interested people, and corporations of every size. Anyone can be a reporter or commentator on the web. The interactive nature of the Internet brings about an era where journalism has moved into a dyadic relationship, where the journalist becomes a “forum leader” or “mediator,” rather than a dictator of what information will become news. The audience becomes a prosumer, a hybrid of producer and consumer.[30] These independent websites have given people new expectations in their search for new information. They have made the “production and distribution of news more democratic.”[31]
Institutions that once determined the production and distribution of news now find themselves in a vast arena of competition that not only challenges the power they wield but may rewrite the very definition of news.
Journalism has a democratic function. The emergence of this phenomenon has reinforced a tangible advancement of the democratic function that journalism is associated with. Its The fundamental and central purpose of journalism is to tell the truth so that people will have the information they need for self-government.[32] Democracy’s global growth is enhanced by the Internet’s bypassing of the restrictions of formal political organizations and scrutiny of government authorities.[33] Ultimately, Kovach and Rosenstiel have argued, that “the primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing.”[34] Democracy’s global growth[35] is enhanced by the Internet’s frequent circumvention of the restrictions of formal political organizations and the scrutiny of government authorities.[36] With that, citizen journalism may very well expand journalism’s role in maintaining democracy. The new interaction in journalism resembles conversation, much like original democratic discourse occurring in the public houses and coffeehouses four hundred years ago.[37]
The overarching democratic function of citizen journalism has been expounded on by Jesper Stromback, who posited four models of democracy that could have significant implications for journalism and journalistic demands on citizens.[38] The models he discussed were procedural democracy, competitive democracy, participative democracy, and deliberative democracy. The implications for citizen journalism as discussed under these four models of democracy will form the basic framework of this study to investigate whether self-identified citizen journalism websites fulfil the necessary democratic functions.
Procedural Democracy
Procedural democracy proceeds from the minimum requirements a country has to fulfill in order to be democratic.[39] According to Stromback, this means that in practicing citizen journalism, participants should be able to act as a watchdog, or act as a “burglar alarm,” through exposing the expose of wrongdoings.[40] Citizen journalism has the capacity to fulfil these functions, because it can widen the disclosure circle through information sharing, thus contributing to the truth-finding process.[41] Citizen journalism can also take on the role of watchdog over the government, a duty previously held exclusively held by institutionalised news media. Traditionally, the news media serve as a watchdog over government, pushing people beyond complacency and offering a voice to the forgotten.[42] However, news organisations are constrained by time, finances and manpower to cover all the issues and news. With thatAs a result, journalists may intentionally or unintentionally may overlook issues. With active citizens carefully observing the mainstream media, even if a news organization decides not to publish a story, chances are, there will be a website that will. The news media also monitors many bloggers, sometimes reporting on issues that are broken by them. Therefore, citizen journalism plays an important role by stepping into the void left by traditional news media.
Competitive Democracy
Also referred to as electoral democracy, competitive democracy entails the institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to make a decisions by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s votes.[43] This entails process involves journalists acting as a watchdog or “burglar alarm,” over the competitionas discussed earlier. AlsoAs traditional journalists have done historically, citizen journalists should focus on political actors, their records, and the platforms on which they operate.[44]
Participatory Democracy
In the participatory democracy model, people are therefore expected to be engaged in civic and public life. They should participate in different kinds of community activities, and learn how to cooperate in order to achieve collective goals.[45] These collective goals should align with The Common Good, a notion that Clifford Christians argued as being the defining principle of journalism. The basic premise of the Common Good is a “fundamental concept of social morality,”[46] and an intention to work in the best interest of the public. Citizen journalism has the capacity to perpetuate the Common Good, because it harnesses the interactive nature of the Internet, which greatly enhances mediation between decision makers and citizens.[47] Ultimately, democracy is requires fidelity to the common good, about “caring for those who cannot or will not take part in the conversation – the foreigner, the aged, the child, the dissident, and the unlettered.[48]”
In order to achieve that goal for public interest fidelity to the common good, it is imperative that citizen journalism becomes an effective avenue for voices to be heard. Therefore, citizen journalism should also produce public dialogue in the public interest or about issues of public concern.
However, the effectiveness of public dialogue in citizen journalism has been subjected to considerable debate. Author Ed Baker was quoted in The Idea of Public Journalism as saying that public journalism might create a “false sense of participatory involvement without challenging entrenched elite interests.”[49]
Despite that, citizen journalism can invite help develop democratic participation on websites through the “development of distinct groups organized around affinity and interest.”[50] In such websites, groups are relatively small and homogeneous, enlarging opportunities for democratic participation by demarcating a space for individuals to express themselves on issues that might not be welcome elsewhere. This creates the conditions for “discursive contestation.” Serving as “bases and training grounds for agitational activities directed towards wider publics,” these “counter-publics” enable individuals to achieve together a degree of participation that they could have never achieved alone.[51]
ThereforeThis newfound ability for discursive contestation means that, citizen journalists should be able to have exercise the autonomy to set the agenda, mobilise the citizens’ interest, engage and participate in public life, focus on solving problems, frame politics as an open and accessible process, and link active citizens together.[52]
Deliberative Democracy
The notion of deliberative democracy includes collective decision-making with the participation of individuals who will be affected by the decision and who are committed to the values of rationality and impartiality.[53] This pursuit of rationality and impartiality can be exercised in two ways – the presence of a self-correcting mechanism and the availability of alternative views.
Self-correcting mechanism
Since citizen journalism is a powerful manifestation of the interactive qualities of the web, many people believe that this interactivity will spark a dramatic change in journalism itself.[54] Manifestations of citizen journalism, such as weblogs, have some elements of traditional journalism in that they dispense information to an audience. However, they also lack the traditional editing process[55] and this characteristic has led critics to question the credibility of citizen journalism.
However, in the Media Center report, Bowman and Willis postulated that our traditional reliance on journalistic credibility is obsolete, or “dead.” This can be reinforced with Wacker’s proposition that “knowing what other people think news is is more important.”[56] Wacker was referring to the idea that what is dictated as newsworthy or important is no longer solely decided by the mainstream press, or the big players. Rather, it appears as if there has been a shift, and that citizens are now deciding and selecting the content or agenda that they deem as important to them. This can be seen in the several forms of citizen journalism on the web, which not only provide a much greater array of information, but also encourage the divergence of viewpoints. Bowman and Willis argued for this, saying that there is evidence that people are “actively seeking new perspectives beyond those provided by mainstream media.”[57]
Proponents In addition to that, proponents of citizen journalism argue that if the information presented is erroneous, it is a “self-correcting entity”[58] with a mechanism whereby people can either correct or dispute the information.
Critics also question the objectivity of citizen journalism. The “usually tacit, unspoken rules of mainstream reporting will more likely than not be rendered problematic by bloggers providing alternative accounts, facts, or interpretations.”[59] This means that the blogger-as-reporter’s “objective” decisions about how best to write a story might be subjected to the scrutiny of the citizens.[60] Furthermore, several forms of citizen journalism adhere to some sort of “publish, then filter,” model. The filtering function has the purpose of self-correction and of separating the meaningful information from the chatter. Proponents argue, and this will promote meaningful discussion.
Providing alternative views
The presence of a multitude of bloggers on the Internet indicates the likelihood that there will beof an increase in the number of alternative points of view in news and national and regional debates and discussions.
Manifestations of Citizen journalism can also specialize in niche topics or areas, and can be a source of “up-to-date information that no media organization attempts to match.”[61] It has been argued that a “vast majority of readers” will still turn to traditional media sources when a major news event breaks.[62] Nevertheless, when such an event occurs, weblogs will most likely add “depth, analysis, alternative perspectives, foreign views, and occasionally first-person accounts that contravene reports in the mainstream press.”[63] Thus, citizen journalism can be complementary to the news-making process.
Therefore, in line with if citizen journalists are to play a role in deliberative democracy, the implications for citizen journalism can be applied as follows. Citizen journalists they should be able to act for inclusive discussion, mobilise citizen’s interests, engage in public discussions, and foster public discussions, which are characterised by rationality, impartiality, intellectual honesty and equality.[64]
Censorship, politics and its effect on the Singapore state
Singapore has one of the most comprehensive strategies for the development of Information information Technologiestechnologies (IT), and this is supported by huge state-led infrastructure investments.[65] However, as policy makers commit themselves to turning the island into an information hub that trades ideas, their authoritarian leaders they have no intention of surrendering political control in the process.[66]
Since the inception ofattaining independence in the year 1965, Singapore has been a state ruled by one political party, the People’s Action Party. The PAP has ensured its continual continued control through the continual implementation of a variety of laws. One of these is the Internal Security Act, [67] which was one of the most prominent methods used by the Singapore government to invoke the intimidation ofintimidate political adversaries and to thwart oppositional inclination amongst the Singaporean people, especially prior to the 21st century.[68] According to Garry Rodan, there are other measures put in place, such as a “sophisticated and systematic combination of legal limits on independent social and political activities” and “extensive mechanisms of political cooption to channel contention through state-controlled institutions on the other.”[69] One of these other measures is the Sedition Act, which has been increasingly employed with increasing tenacity by the government, especially in this the past decade. The Sedition Act outlaws any form of expression that ignites “hatred or contempt against the Singapore government,” raises discontent amongst the citizens of Singapore, and promotes feelings of “ill-will or hostility” amongst different races and classes in Singapore.[70] The Act was used on three bloggers in 2005, who were charged for writing racist comments on their blogs.[71] The following year, one more blogger was charged with publishing caricatures mocking Jesus Christ.[72] That same year, a law practitioner lawyer named Gopalan Nair created a blog[73] and used it as a platform to criticise judge Judge Belinda Ang of the Supreme Court for the way she handled a defamation lawsuit involving former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and his son, current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, against opposition politician Chee Soon Juan and his sister Chee Siok Chin.[74] Nair was openly critical of the outcome, where Ang ruled in favour of the Lees and was charged with the Sedition Act.[75] Nair continued blogging, and even challenged the authorities to arrest him by putting his personal particulars on the blog.[76] He was arrestedcharged in 2008 and charged under the Sedition Act.[77] After several months’ detention, he was released[78] and He is banned from returning to Singapore.[79]
One other law, the Computer Misuse Act,[80] gave gives the authorities the power to intercept online messages and decode encrypted messages.[81] From the late 1990s onwards, the Singapore Broadcasting Authority has been monitoring Internet activity. It requires Internet Service Providers to ban access to information that is deemed objectionable.[82] This extends to barring access to political content, especially at election time.[83] Bloggers and other Internet content providers are required have to register with the Media Development Authority if they want to openly and regularly defend apublish political linecontent, and this registration does not allow them to express political opinion during election periods.[84]
These restrictions can have consequences on the development of a democratic society. , as Rodan further charges that these laws serve to not only “fundamentally hamper” PAP’s formal opponentsopposition, but also carry with them the spillover effect of dampening “political pluralism.” This dampening of political pluralism is further extended as the cause oflies at the root of the populace’s general apathy and disinterest in politics.[85]
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[8] Naim, M. (2002). “The FP Interview: Singapore’s Big Gamble,” Foreign Policy,No. 130. P. 434
[9] Rodan, G. (1998) “The Internet and Political Control in Singapore,” in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 113, No. 1, pp. 63-89. The Academy of Political Science.
[10] Varley, P. (1996). “Electronic Democracy,” Technology Review 94 (Nov./Dec. 1991): 43051; Asiaweek, 15.
[11] George, C. (2006). Contentious Journalism and the Internet: Towards Democratic Discourse in Malaysia and Singapore. Institute of Policy Studies (Singapore).
[12] Gunter, B. (2003). “News Presentation on the Net,” in News and the Net. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[13] 2 Sep. 2006, “Looking the Media Storm in the Eye,” in The Straits Times. Singapore Press Holdings.
[14] Liang, S. (2004). Nation-building and Press Freedom: A Legal History of the Press in Singapore. National University of Singapore.
[15] Liang, S. (2004). Nation-building and Press Freedom: A Legal History of the Press in Singapore. National University of Singapore.
[16] Sep. 26, 2006. “Get STOMP on your mobile phone,” in My Paper. Singapore Press Holdings. Access link:
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[17] Bowman, S. & Willis, C. (2003). We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information. The Media Center at the American Press Institute.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Domingo, D. & Heinonen, A. (2008). “Weblogs and Journalism: A typology to Explore the Blurring Boundaries,” in Nordicom Review 29. 1, pp. 3-15
[20] Gunter, B. (2003). “The Future of News Online,” in News and the Net. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
[21] Singer, J.B. (2005). “The Political j-blogger. ‘Normalizing’ a New Media Form to Fit Old Norms and
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[85] Rodan, G. (1998) “The Internet and Political Control in Singapore,” in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 113, No. 1, pp. 63-89. The Academy of Political Science.
