I Adopt -
Blog's Title: a writer's blog: my life, my thoughts
Blog's URL: http://ephraim.blogspot.com/
Blogger's name: Ephraim
Blogger's occupation: Citizen blogger (but he's with the Youth PAP, and very active in the political scene...I wonder where that puts him)
Blogger's DOB: 19/8/2002
Blogger's Technorati rank: 54,599 (179 links from 73 blogs)
Blog Intro -
Ephraim Loy's blog has 2 main contributors and they are Ephraim himself and Singapore's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr George Yong-Boon Yeo. His blog features a lot of events that Minister George Yeo attends because he is one of the ministers for the Hougang-Punggol GRC. Besides blogging about his own life, he also blogs somewhat on the political scene. The way that he writes about the political scene is very subtle. What he does for example is when he attends an event, he will talke about the event in general and then touch on what was spoken of during the event. He then adds his own comments which seem to be hedging on the maybe and maybe not answers.
An example of his hedging would be the below:
"[more goodies]channel news asia reported yesterday that political watchers predict that, no it's not the date, the next ge will likely be fought upon bread and butter issues...
Some four years later, political watchers say such issues will still form the backbone of the upcoming contest, due by June next year.
then today, the straits times reports that jobs have been a steady figure, if not increasing still..i shall not speculate if that is an election ploy...."
Democracy in Singapore from blogs? Is it possible?
On Alina Thornton's article of "Does the Internet create Democracy", the notion of the public sphere was developed be Habermas. He stated that the publis sphere is "part of social life where citizens can exchange views on matters of importance to the common good, so that public opinion can be formed[, t]his public sphere comes into being when people gather to discuss issues of political concern" (Thornton, 2002. p. 8).
With that in mind, quite a few blogs in Singapore have started commenting about the political scene in Singapore. Although quite a few bloggers comment and occassionally criticize the local political scene, many go under psedonyms thinking that they will not be as easily found. An example would be during the 2006 elections when many Singaporeans posted videos of the opposition rallies. Even though it is possible for the governments to track down the bloggers, they found no neccesity to do so because the PAP thought that the "the lack of knowledge about these websites among the general populace, . . ." (Giam, 2006, para. 5).
So is it possible in the future for the democracy of Singapore to come from the Internet? I think that that is going to be impossible. It is because of two reasons - the ban on podcasting during elections and the government's distrust for the "free-wheeling world of cyberspace" (Giam, 2006, para. 20).
In 2006, the government came up with a ban for all podcasting and vodcasting during the elections. It was in response to "to the Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) plans to circumvent the government-controlled mainstream media by reaching out to the electorate using sound and video clips on its website" (para. 3).
The second reason that democracy cannot be created through the Internet is that the government does not trust the world of the Internet. This is because the comments that people may make on their blogs may or may not be the truth. According to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, he said that "Singaporeans [need] to be “sceptical” and not believe everything they read, as “there will be half truths and untruths which will circulate, and you won’t know which is which" (para. 20).
Therefore, democracy created from the Internet does not seem like a likely thing to come in the near future because the Singaporean government must be willing to "incorporate this process into their standard practices" (Thornton, 2002, p. 41). Maybe this will only come about when the government is infused with younger people from the Internet-surfing generation. Let's wait and see how this goes.
References:
Giam, G. (2006). [On-line]. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from the World Wide Web:http://theonlinecitizen.com/2006/12/31/review-the-politics-of-singapores-new-media-in-2006/
Thornton, A. (2002). [On-line]. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.zip.com.au/~athornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc
Blog's Title: a writer's blog: my life, my thoughts
Blog's URL: http://ephraim.blogspot.com/
Blogger's name: Ephraim
Blogger's occupation: Citizen blogger (but he's with the Youth PAP, and very active in the political scene...I wonder where that puts him)
Blogger's DOB: 19/8/2002
Blogger's Technorati rank: 54,599 (179 links from 73 blogs)
Blog Intro -
Ephraim Loy's blog has 2 main contributors and they are Ephraim himself and Singapore's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr George Yong-Boon Yeo. His blog features a lot of events that Minister George Yeo attends because he is one of the ministers for the Hougang-Punggol GRC. Besides blogging about his own life, he also blogs somewhat on the political scene. The way that he writes about the political scene is very subtle. What he does for example is when he attends an event, he will talke about the event in general and then touch on what was spoken of during the event. He then adds his own comments which seem to be hedging on the maybe and maybe not answers.
An example of his hedging would be the below:
"[more goodies]channel news asia reported yesterday that political watchers predict that, no it's not the date, the next ge will likely be fought upon bread and butter issues...
Some four years later, political watchers say such issues will still form the backbone of the upcoming contest, due by June next year.
then today, the straits times reports that jobs have been a steady figure, if not increasing still..i shall not speculate if that is an election ploy...."
Democracy in Singapore from blogs? Is it possible?
On Alina Thornton's article of "Does the Internet create Democracy", the notion of the public sphere was developed be Habermas. He stated that the publis sphere is "part of social life where citizens can exchange views on matters of importance to the common good, so that public opinion can be formed[, t]his public sphere comes into being when people gather to discuss issues of political concern" (Thornton, 2002. p. 8).
With that in mind, quite a few blogs in Singapore have started commenting about the political scene in Singapore. Although quite a few bloggers comment and occassionally criticize the local political scene, many go under psedonyms thinking that they will not be as easily found. An example would be during the 2006 elections when many Singaporeans posted videos of the opposition rallies. Even though it is possible for the governments to track down the bloggers, they found no neccesity to do so because the PAP thought that the "the lack of knowledge about these websites among the general populace, . . ." (Giam, 2006, para. 5).
So is it possible in the future for the democracy of Singapore to come from the Internet? I think that that is going to be impossible. It is because of two reasons - the ban on podcasting during elections and the government's distrust for the "free-wheeling world of cyberspace" (Giam, 2006, para. 20).
In 2006, the government came up with a ban for all podcasting and vodcasting during the elections. It was in response to "to the Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) plans to circumvent the government-controlled mainstream media by reaching out to the electorate using sound and video clips on its website" (para. 3).
The second reason that democracy cannot be created through the Internet is that the government does not trust the world of the Internet. This is because the comments that people may make on their blogs may or may not be the truth. According to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, he said that "Singaporeans [need] to be “sceptical” and not believe everything they read, as “there will be half truths and untruths which will circulate, and you won’t know which is which" (para. 20).
Therefore, democracy created from the Internet does not seem like a likely thing to come in the near future because the Singaporean government must be willing to "incorporate this process into their standard practices" (Thornton, 2002, p. 41). Maybe this will only come about when the government is infused with younger people from the Internet-surfing generation. Let's wait and see how this goes.
References:
Giam, G. (2006). [On-line]. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from the World Wide Web:http://theonlinecitizen.com/2006/12/31/review-the-politics-of-singapores-new-media-in-2006/
Thornton, A. (2002). [On-line]. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.zip.com.au/~athornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc
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