It appears that the YPAP has finally realized the failure of its obsolete cyber-strategy so far to utilize the New Media to reach out to netizens and is desperate to make up for lost ground and time.
According to a TODAY report, the YPAP is set to launch an offensive in the weeks ahead, with a revamped website that could feature a more prominent no-holds-barred forum, lively rebuttals by party activists to online chatter, and provocative essays by external writers. (read article here)
The broad strokes of the changes have been communicated to Young People’s Action Party (YP) cadres down to the branch level; and several internal discussions have been conducted since November to solicit views on how to more effectively engage Netizens.
Since the PAP announced the setting up of an internet brigade in 2007 to counter fast-rising anti-establishment sentiments in cyberspace, it has little to show for other than a pathetic P65 blog manned by sleeping MPs and a marginal stake in The Online Citizen (TOC).
In spite of the initial funfare and publicity, the P65 blog has never quite taken off. Deplored and shunned by netizens who saw it as another PAP ploy to “control” them and hampered by constraints on its content, its readership has dwindled over the last 2 years. (at last check, its alexa ranking is only 32, 668).
While TOC was founded by ex-YPAP members Choo Zheng Xi and Andrew Loh, an outcry last year over Choo’s blatant dishonesty in failing to disclose his cosy relationship with PAP MP Ho Geok Choo had led to an exodus of YPAP members from its ranks including its Deputy Chief Editor Ephraim Loy and law undergraduate Koh Kai Jie.
Though the dilution of YPAP’s influence has enabled TOC to masquerade itself as a “non-partisan” socio-political blog quite successfully, the loss of leverage has led to the necessity of YPAP finding another platform to project its voice into blogosphere without which it will find itself crowded out by” rabid” anti-government blogs.
Read rest of article here:
http://wayangparty.com/?p=7376
According to a TODAY report, the YPAP is set to launch an offensive in the weeks ahead, with a revamped website that could feature a more prominent no-holds-barred forum, lively rebuttals by party activists to online chatter, and provocative essays by external writers. (read article here)
The broad strokes of the changes have been communicated to Young People’s Action Party (YP) cadres down to the branch level; and several internal discussions have been conducted since November to solicit views on how to more effectively engage Netizens.
Since the PAP announced the setting up of an internet brigade in 2007 to counter fast-rising anti-establishment sentiments in cyberspace, it has little to show for other than a pathetic P65 blog manned by sleeping MPs and a marginal stake in The Online Citizen (TOC).
In spite of the initial funfare and publicity, the P65 blog has never quite taken off. Deplored and shunned by netizens who saw it as another PAP ploy to “control” them and hampered by constraints on its content, its readership has dwindled over the last 2 years. (at last check, its alexa ranking is only 32, 668).
While TOC was founded by ex-YPAP members Choo Zheng Xi and Andrew Loh, an outcry last year over Choo’s blatant dishonesty in failing to disclose his cosy relationship with PAP MP Ho Geok Choo had led to an exodus of YPAP members from its ranks including its Deputy Chief Editor Ephraim Loy and law undergraduate Koh Kai Jie.
Though the dilution of YPAP’s influence has enabled TOC to masquerade itself as a “non-partisan” socio-political blog quite successfully, the loss of leverage has led to the necessity of YPAP finding another platform to project its voice into blogosphere without which it will find itself crowded out by” rabid” anti-government blogs.
Read rest of article here:
http://wayangparty.com/?p=7376
