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Coffeeshop Chit Chat - PAP going onto the Net to fight online !</TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right>
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Have you 'poked' your MP today?
More than half of the 81 PAP Members of Parliament have taken to the social networking site Facebook to complement their online presence. What has their cyber experience been like? Are they still finding their way around or have they got into their stride?
<!-- by line -->By Zakir Hussain
http://www.straitstimes.com/Insight/Story/STIStory_492484.html
FIVE years ago, Ms Penny Low became the first Member of Parliament to blog in a bid to reach out to youth.
The People's Action Party (PAP) Member of Parliament for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC wrote about her experiences hitchhiking across Europe and the United States in her younger days.
Two years later, she was one of the first MPs to set up an account on social networking site Facebook to share her thoughts and keep in touch with friends.
This time, however, she restricted access to people she knew in person - a feature allowed for by the site, which was then relatively new in Singapore.
Not long after, a resident came up to her at a constituency event to ask why she had not accepted his request to be her friend on Facebook.
'I said it was not clear to me he was a constituent,' Ms Low tells Insight. 'From then on, I decided my Facebook would be for friends plus residents plus others.'
It is a decision many other MPs face, but once they take the plunge, they realise how much goodwill and mileage they gain by updating a growing number of residents who spend more time online.
The MPs may get a 'poke' on Facebook - the virtual equivalent of saying 'hi' - or frivolous messages, but they say going online has helped them better engage constituents.
The US-based Facebook says it could not share data on users in Singapore, but a November 2009 study by marketing company Nielsen found 42 per cent of people over 15 were on Facebook - which translates to close to two million users here.
The proportion is greater for younger users: 77 per cent of people in their 20s here are on the site, as against 55 per cent of those in their 30s and 26 per cent of those in their 40s, according to Nielsen.
Ms Low has gone on to wish residents a Happy Chinese New Year on Facebook, and post updates and links to YouTube videos on her work at social enterprise Social Innovation Park, among others.
The site's features also allow her to host grassroots volunteers' photos of her with fellow MPs and residents, and to respond directly to messages from people.
Today, more than half the PAP MPs have taken to Facebook to complement their online presence on the party's main website, the Young PAP website, personal and constituency blogs and Twitter.
This shift is part of the party's ongoing efforts to find its feet on the Internet, a playing field where its overwhelming dominance on the ground and in Parliament is actively challenged.
As political observer Eugene Tan of the Singapore Management University (SMU) notes, the PAP has the smallest footprint online when compared to its presence in the print and broadcast media.
This is because unlike opposition parties which are more aggressive in using new media, it has not had to rely as much on the Internet to get its message across.
But it has realised that it cannot cede cyberspace - where it is more often portrayed negatively - to its competitors.
Mr Tan says: 'The PAP's online endeavour is designed to counter some of these distortions and negative and hostile views.'
Not starting from scratch
THE party is no newcomer to cyberspace. Its youth wing, Young PAP (YP), launched a website in October 1994 - the first by a political party here.
The site included the latest issue of the party's publication Petir, a map of the electoral divisions, several articles written by YP members, and a listing of the YP's activities.
The opposition National Solidarity Party (NSP) started its website a year later, and the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) did so in 1996.
The Internet, however, was in its early stages of growth here, and existed mainly to convey information and facilitate limited discussions. Still, the various parties online were aware of its potential.
As the YP said on its website in 2000: 'Our vision is that some day the virtual community in Singapore will be as important as any physical constituency.'
The PAP launched its site a year later, with news updates, details about the party's past and membership, and audio clips, flash animation and pictures - but no bulletin board or discussion forum.
Then Minister of State for Information and the Arts David Lim, who chaired the PAP Internet Committee, said the party believes 'political discourse is probably best done face to face'.
He said cyberspace, with its traditional cloak of anonymity, lent itself to 'less meaningful and thoughtful' discussions than desired, and the PAP did not want its site to be a place 'to vent emotions or to let go certain ideas and expressions'.
Ten years on, the party website has been jazzed up with videos and updates of activities at various constituencies produced by branch activists.
At the party convention last November, bloggers posted updates on Facebook and Twitter for the first time, and participants could text their comments and questions by SMS. Videos of the various speeches were also posted online.
But the absence of discussions or public comments has not changed. That remains the case for the YP website too.
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Have you 'poked' your MP today?
More than half of the 81 PAP Members of Parliament have taken to the social networking site Facebook to complement their online presence. What has their cyber experience been like? Are they still finding their way around or have they got into their stride?
<!-- by line -->By Zakir Hussain
http://www.straitstimes.com/Insight/Story/STIStory_492484.html
FIVE years ago, Ms Penny Low became the first Member of Parliament to blog in a bid to reach out to youth.
The People's Action Party (PAP) Member of Parliament for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC wrote about her experiences hitchhiking across Europe and the United States in her younger days.
Two years later, she was one of the first MPs to set up an account on social networking site Facebook to share her thoughts and keep in touch with friends.
This time, however, she restricted access to people she knew in person - a feature allowed for by the site, which was then relatively new in Singapore.
Not long after, a resident came up to her at a constituency event to ask why she had not accepted his request to be her friend on Facebook.
'I said it was not clear to me he was a constituent,' Ms Low tells Insight. 'From then on, I decided my Facebook would be for friends plus residents plus others.'
It is a decision many other MPs face, but once they take the plunge, they realise how much goodwill and mileage they gain by updating a growing number of residents who spend more time online.
The MPs may get a 'poke' on Facebook - the virtual equivalent of saying 'hi' - or frivolous messages, but they say going online has helped them better engage constituents.
The US-based Facebook says it could not share data on users in Singapore, but a November 2009 study by marketing company Nielsen found 42 per cent of people over 15 were on Facebook - which translates to close to two million users here.
The proportion is greater for younger users: 77 per cent of people in their 20s here are on the site, as against 55 per cent of those in their 30s and 26 per cent of those in their 40s, according to Nielsen.
Ms Low has gone on to wish residents a Happy Chinese New Year on Facebook, and post updates and links to YouTube videos on her work at social enterprise Social Innovation Park, among others.
The site's features also allow her to host grassroots volunteers' photos of her with fellow MPs and residents, and to respond directly to messages from people.
Today, more than half the PAP MPs have taken to Facebook to complement their online presence on the party's main website, the Young PAP website, personal and constituency blogs and Twitter.
This shift is part of the party's ongoing efforts to find its feet on the Internet, a playing field where its overwhelming dominance on the ground and in Parliament is actively challenged.
As political observer Eugene Tan of the Singapore Management University (SMU) notes, the PAP has the smallest footprint online when compared to its presence in the print and broadcast media.
This is because unlike opposition parties which are more aggressive in using new media, it has not had to rely as much on the Internet to get its message across.
But it has realised that it cannot cede cyberspace - where it is more often portrayed negatively - to its competitors.
Mr Tan says: 'The PAP's online endeavour is designed to counter some of these distortions and negative and hostile views.'
Not starting from scratch
THE party is no newcomer to cyberspace. Its youth wing, Young PAP (YP), launched a website in October 1994 - the first by a political party here.
The site included the latest issue of the party's publication Petir, a map of the electoral divisions, several articles written by YP members, and a listing of the YP's activities.
The opposition National Solidarity Party (NSP) started its website a year later, and the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) did so in 1996.
The Internet, however, was in its early stages of growth here, and existed mainly to convey information and facilitate limited discussions. Still, the various parties online were aware of its potential.
As the YP said on its website in 2000: 'Our vision is that some day the virtual community in Singapore will be as important as any physical constituency.'
The PAP launched its site a year later, with news updates, details about the party's past and membership, and audio clips, flash animation and pictures - but no bulletin board or discussion forum.
Then Minister of State for Information and the Arts David Lim, who chaired the PAP Internet Committee, said the party believes 'political discourse is probably best done face to face'.
He said cyberspace, with its traditional cloak of anonymity, lent itself to 'less meaningful and thoughtful' discussions than desired, and the PAP did not want its site to be a place 'to vent emotions or to let go certain ideas and expressions'.
Ten years on, the party website has been jazzed up with videos and updates of activities at various constituencies produced by branch activists.
At the party convention last November, bloggers posted updates on Facebook and Twitter for the first time, and participants could text their comments and questions by SMS. Videos of the various speeches were also posted online.
But the absence of discussions or public comments has not changed. That remains the case for the YP website too.
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