Singabloodypore

From the Snurblog

The next speaker is Eva Tang Hsiang-Yi from National ChengChi University in Taiwan, but she's presenting work on the pseudonymous Singaporean blogger and podcaster Mr Brown (whose real name is also well-known, however). Media in Singapore are state-controlled and strongly supportive of government policies; there is a considerable amount of media censorship (if officially operated through self-censorship and a "light-touch approach" to regulation), and the Internet has become an important source of alternative information. Key sources of alternative views are presented as satirical humour through sites such as Talking Cock and the Mr. Brown Show.

The Mr. Brown podcasts started with a series of recorded conversations between friends, and evolved into talkshows with invited guests; they are positioned as "persistently non-political podcasts" in spite of their use of news and current affairs as topical content. One means of doing this is to use role-play, and there are frequent word-plays and puns, also using fictitious names which echo the names of real politicians - all of this assumes the understanding of listeners familiar with the real events. The show therefore serves as a valve for listeners oppressed by the government - this is a form of soft power and enables a creeping democratisation of the media.

Next up is Cherian George, also from Nanyang. He also describes the role of citizen journalism in Singapore, and begins with the reportage of citizen journalists from opposition rallies - a photo of a large crowd at one such rally, published on the wonderfully named blog Yawning Bread, became a very celebrated example, and went against standard reporting in the Singaporean mainstream media, which usually shuns the use of wide-angle photographs showing large crowds (perhaps because opposition rallies typically draw much larger crowds than those of the ruling party).

This points to the way that citizen journalism is beginning to undermine the long-established conventions of reporting in the government-operated mainstream media in the country. Media licencing, legal restrictions, and unwritten conventions on what is considered to be out of bounds for reporting, all apply strongly to the mainstream media, but cannot be applied effectively to citizen journalism sources.

Notably, the government hasn't attempted to try to enforce them for citizen journalism sites even where the legal instruments to do so do exist. Indeed, the government's restraint in exercising control is probably a smart move, as it avoids a significant backlash from the populace and thereby slows any loss of legitimacy (Eva's 'creeping democracy') which may result over time from the work of citizen journalists.