Posted by admin on September 23, 2008
Mr Brown (Blogger Lee
Kin Mun)’s hilarious “Bak Chor Mee” blog post shot to fame two
years ago just before the General Elections. This incident made
Chinese paper readers who usually do not surf the internet start to
notice the presence of new media.
Since PM Lee Hsien Loong
announced the intention to liberalise the internet and new media
hemisphere in the National Day Rally, the government-commissioned
new media working group has also expressed in their report that the
government should pay more attention to the voices of web users. In
addition, they also recommended that the government should examine
how to better use the new media communication channel to connect
with web users.
The newspapers readers
who do not participate in online forums may have the impression
that web users have a uniform voice, just like the government uses
a uniform approach to propagate its ideologies and policies. Some
readers are only aware of the existence of Mr Brown or assume that
most bloggers are similar to him.
On the contrary, the
blogosphere and mainstream society are the same. They are a common
space formed by people with varied viewpoints, inclinations,
parties, objectives and temperaments.
If newspaper readers
receive emails occasionally from their friends which includes
hyperlinks to certain blogs, short videos or critiques that claim
to shed the light on certain issues or uncover the wrongdoings of
certain political figures, please do not believe them readily, or
assume all web users think the same way. Other web users may also
have strong opposing opinions, and thus various conspiracy theories
and personal attacks abound.
Local English current
affairs website “theonlinecitizen.com” is a recent example. This
blog was set up after the last General Elections and covers news,
interest topics, current affairs comics, columns and even
translates part of the articles to mandarin to enlarge its reader
base. It offers an alternative view to politics and mainstream
media reports and is one of the top local websites of its
kind.
However, this week
someone resurfaced the conspiracy theories that were the hot topic
in february earlier this year in the forum sammyboy.com. The user
claimed that the persons in charge of “theonlinecitizen.com” are
secretly put in place by PAP to act as internet spies. Allegedly,
they offer alternative opinions on the surface, but in reality do
not attack the key government blog sites.
The writer went on to
claim that mainstream media were listening to instructions from
‘above’ to support “theonlinecitizen.com” and help it to gain
popularity and therefore cause the genuine anti-government blogs to
lose favour with web users.
These writers also
pointed out that the person behind “theonlinecitizen.com” , Andrew
Loh had switched allegiance from the PAP to WP and now no longer
with WP. The other founder, Choo Zhengxi (NUS Law Faculty
undergraduate) had previously worked as the speech writer for the
West Coast GRC nominee Ho Geok Choo, drawing a salary of $500 for
five consecutive months. Last but not least, one of the editors of
“theonlinecitizen.com”, Ephraim Loy (SMU Political Science
undergraduate) is a member of Young PAP and have participated in
various grassroots activites and maintains the same blog with the
Foreign Affairs Minister.
The writers also
highlighted that since the last elections, PAP has established a
new media working group headed by the education minister and one of
its objectives is to establish 20 communications representatives to
participate in online forums and blogs to deflect and object to
anti-government messages. It’s claimed that “theonlinecitizen.com”
is one of its products.
This sounds like an
exciting scene right out of the popular Hong Kong movie “Infernal
Affairs”. When interviewed yesterday, the founders of
“theonlinecitizen.com” denied that they were a propagation tool set
up by PAP. Andrew Loh mentioned that they always used their real
names in these activities and had nothing to hide, in contrast to
the forum writers who hide behind anonymity.
This is just one of the
methods on the internet to ‘dish dirt’ on and slander others. The
real truth is of no interest to non web users. However, such online
furore has brought to question the issue of whether web space can
tolerate moderate, non-extremist opinions.
People who are
anti-government likes to congregate in web forums, because they
feel that mainstream media does not give them an opportunity to air
their views. Hence, they are intolerant of any pro-government
voices in such forums. Political blogs and forum topics are
frequently critical towards policies, the government and PAP. On
top of this, some web users feel that moderate viewpoints have no
‘marketability’ and the arguments that draw the most attention are
the most harsh and extremist arguments. Thus, sites like
“theonlinecitizen.com” which are moderate and non-confrontational
are thus labelled as pro-government.
Highly anti-government
web users not only gauge blogs by such benchmarks, they also ask
the same of opposition parties. The Workers Party, who successfully
placed two members in Parliament, is widely acknowledged as the
most successful opposition party, but in the internet world, it is
slammed by a small group of web users. They claim that giving WP a
vote is equivalent to giving PAP a vote.
In the last elections,
Ng Eng Hen nicknamed the Workers’ Party the “Wayang Party” (Wayang
Kulit Party) which prompted blogger Fang Zhi Yuan to set up a
blog named wayangparty.wordpress.com to criticise WP, along with
all the other Singaporean opposition parties as putting up a ’show’
for Singapore citizens to watch. Fang felt that the opposition
parties do not dare to seek redress for the citizens and do not
have concrete opposition tactics. They are merely there to help PAP
validate their claim that Singapore parliament is not a one party
monopoly.
However, when some
bloggers who blog on current affairs were interviewed, they opined
that they will not be demoralised by the small group of extremist
views and do not agree that fierce online arguments showed that
local web users were immature.
National Solidarity
Party leader Mr Goh Meng Seng said “Extremist viewpoints may draw the
attention of people and garner the support of other extremists, but
most web users will still want to hear balanced, moderate, mature
arguments. This is also the reason why the SDP website is rapidly
losing its readers.”
Mr Goh was thrust into
the web forums arguments more than one year ago and was forced to
leave the “Worker’s Party”, but he does not feel that such
extremists online arguments will hinder the general development and
maturity of web forum users. “If the web only allowed one form of
viewpoint, then it would be no different from
communism”.
Mr Choo has adopted
a calm attitude towards the personal attacks against him on online
forums. “When someone criticises my opinions of current affairs, I
will treat their opinions seriously and debate with him actively.
However, I will not be bothered if they launch personal
attacks.”
The above article was an English
translation of a
Zaobao article published on 20 September 2008. The
translator wishes to remain annonymous and is a friend of Mr Ng
E-Jay (sgpolitics.net)
http://www.sgpolitics.net
