Singabloodypore

For those very few out there who might be interested I thought it only polite to inform you of what I have been up to for the last few months. Well I have provided a summary below and at the end of the article you can get the address to email me if you want access to the entire document. You might have to wait a few days so please be patient.

Summary

This paper analyses the socio-political implications of blogs in Singapore. The study is situated within the wider framework of the internet being heralded as the greatest force for democratisation the world has ever seen (Pitrodi 1993), and at the same time another means of disseminating propaganda, fear and intimidation (Rodan 1997). Pitrodi's claim that the internet will create democracy is founded on an increase in political participation that it allows. Here it is argued that the increase in political participation that the internet allows does not necessarily result in democratisation. The non-democratic nature of Singapore society inhibits the development of an online Habermasian public sphere. However, rather than acting as a tool for the dissemination of propaganda, fear and intimidation, the internet acts as a means of reinforcing the dominant ideology of social cohesion or survivalism. My specific research questions are: How involved in creating a counter public based on an alternative ideology is the Singapore socio-political blogosphere? Which blogs are central to this process? Which blogs are more interconnected? Are there cliques? What styles of discourse appear in the Singapore socio-political blogosphere?

The 'authoritarian' nature of the Singapore regime is outlined by applying non-democratic theory. The normative ideal of the Habermasian public sphere is applied to blogs in general and then to the Singapore socio-political blogosphere. It explores the extent to which the internet is being used by Singaporeans to construct a public sphere open to all.

This ethnography of the Singapore socio-political blogosphere looks in detail at how the social events are experienced and in turn shaped by social actors. As a researcher with extensive experience of living in Singapore and as a member of the Singapore socio-political blogosphere for over four years, I question how the Singapore socio-political blogosphere is developing in relation to the dominant ideology of 'survivalism' in Singapore.

The textual data that is analysed is collected using two overlapping approaches. The first is a list compiled by the bloggers within the network and the second approach utilised online software for creating maps of online social networks. The data, analysed using Fairclough's (2003) critical discourse analysis approach is that of a corpus of twenty-nine articles written about an event that occurred within the Singapore socio-political blogosphere in July of 2006.

Hines (2000) argues that there is a place for an ethnographic approach “as a means to question assumptions inherent in the predictions of radically different futures”. The methodological considerations of doing an online ethnography are investigated including an attempt to overcome the technologically determined focus of previous research. The researcher is clearly visible within the network of bloggers being analysed and also appears in the textual data. The IP addresses and real names of those involved are not made known unless they appear in the textual data. The Singapore socio-political blogosphere in terms of the styles or characters being used by bloggers in their texts are wide and varied with bloggers shifting between styles, akin to a 'citizen' style.

Although Singapore socio-political blogosphere is close to the Habermasian ideal of the public sphere, it is a flawed one at present in that it does not provide an alternative to the dominant ideology of 'survivalism'. I uncovered a total of eight different styles of discourse employed by the various bloggers within the corpus of data. A politician style of discourse occurred 49 times, personal 39, citizen 28, academic 22, journalist 19, activist 10, expert 9 and priest 1. The most dominant form of ideology was that of social cohesion which scored 127 occurrences followed by a discourse of globalism (48) and anti-globalisation (22).

Those blogs that do engage in creating a public based on an alternative ideology are Diary of a Singapore Mind, Heavenly Sword, MrBrown, Xenoboy, Singapore Election, A Writers Blog, i-Speak, Molly Meek, e pur si muove and Post Hoc Ergo. The frequency at which such discourse occurs is very limited. The blogs that are more interconnected with at least 10 or more incoming links from within the Singapore socio-political blogosphere are Singabloodypore, Singapore Angle, Yawning Bread, MrBrown and e pur si muove. Careful scrutiny of the map generated during the data collection period indicates that there are no cliques.

This study of a single event provides limited support to the position that the non-democratic nature of Singapore society inhibits the development of an online Habermasian public sphere. However, rather than acting as a tool for the dissemination of propaganda, fear and intimidation, the internet acts as a means of reinforcing the dominant ideology of social cohesion or survivalism.

To gain access to the complete paper you can either email and I can send you the document or I can provide you with the password to access the document here.