24 May 2006

PAP must address 'negative Internet'

SHE was a new face representing the People's Action Party, but when Ms Denise Phua surfed the Internet during the recent General Election, the tone of the postings stunned her.

They were overwhelmingly slanted against the ruling party.

Gasp!

"I know that something has gone wrong when more than 85 per cent (of the traffic) writes negatively about the PAP," she said at a post-mortem of the GE organised last night by the National University of Singapore Society.

Hallelujah! Someone finally realises something is wrong!


"This is something that the PAP would do well to take into account ... and to manage this channel of communication," she added.

Oh wait... what is wrong isn't the PAP's policies, but us. And the solution to this isn't changing their policies and mindset, but "managing us"

Ms Phua stressed that she was not dismissing the views posted on the Internet nor even disagreeing with them. Her concern was more that the coverage was not balanced.

1. The bloggosphere has absolutely no obligation to be balanced, because we are not some amorphous body, but made up of individual bloggers voicing their opinion. And if that opinion happens to be skewed... don't blame us, but yourself.

2. What about our austere media? How balanced were they?

Nowhere, for example, was it mentioned that this particular GE was not a snap poll or that the Opposition had the freedom to hold rallies of its own. But given the fact that cyber-traffic goes out to the world, Ms Phua felt that a foreigner reading about elections in Singapore would only have a chance to hear one side of the story — that too, a somewhat skewed one.

Er.... it was definitely mentioned that opposition parties are free to hold their rallies... because the bloggosphere is flooded with videos and photos of the rallies. It was the mainstream media which consistently failed to provide coverage of the opposition.

Again, she mentioned that her party would do well to think about this medium.
Is that a way of warning us to shut up?
One member of the audience pointed out that if the Internet was skewed in one direction then, surely, the local media had gone in the other direction, giving far more coverage to the ruling party

Finally, a voice of reason!

Perhaps, rebutted Ms Phua, this was on account of the fact that the PAP had fielded far more candidates in the GE than the Opposition — and the coverage was a reflection of that.

Rule number one of singapore media: For every reasonable statement, a stupid statement always has to follow, preferably from a politican. Oh please.... the opposition fielded candidates in more than half of the constituencies! You are telling me that one tiny paragraph for them, compared to pages and pages devoted to the life histories of PAP candidates, is fair coverage?


Dr Chee Soon Juan, secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party, objected not merely to the extent of coverage that his party had received in the media, but also to the tone of it. He said that even the photographs of his party's candidates used in local newspapers were "not flattering". Someone from the audience mentioned that Dr Chee sounded more "reasonable" than the image he had formed of him. "That is because what you read about me is a relentless campaign of character assassination," said Dr Chee.

To be fair, I am surprised this comment made it to print... I have to give the Today reporter/editor credit for this.

A member of the audience observed that the local media, during the recent GE, had been more balanced than in the past.

Oh yeah... nowadays, they don't report statements calling candidates racists. They call them liars. And they publish photos of rallies five days after everyone else has seen them on the bloggosphere.

Another issue that cropped up related to voting secrecy. Mr Perry Tong from the Workers' Party acknowledged that he had no doubt whatsoever that the vote was secret and it was "as good as impossible" for someone to find out how an individual had voted.
Political scientist Dr Ho Khai Leong then said he was surprised that the Opposition had not used this fact to their advantage to persuade more people to vote for them.
But Dr Chee said the fears did exist.
"And even if people's fears are irrational, you still have to address them," he added. — Derrick A Paulo
Although I have practically demolished the article, I have this to say about Today. This is about as balanced an article you are going to get from SPH, and all they have done is report utter rubbish from Denise Phua, not endorse it. They have added quite contrasting statements from CSJ, and I'll give them points for that.

In conclusion: don't flame the article. Flame the statements made in it by our dear Denise Phua, which is what I've done, mostly.

Link
Mr Wang's comments on this article

19 comments:

dfgd said...

I can't wait to see how Denise Phua and the other PAP members are going to "manage this channel of communication". Didn't they try that before the election by announcing to all that political blogging and podcasts were banned during the election period.

That little ban, if you look back at the hype and fear it generated was nothing more than an empty threat.

The Singaporean state is losing control of the Singaporean mindset.

And there is nothing they can do except utter threats that turn out to be empty or utter a threat a then round up 200 people for incarceration.

Option two would lead to greater world condemnation and their true colours would be visible to all.

Anonymous said...

why are blogs negative? first, where else can the negative people go to? second, there are so few good things to say that have not been said before already; even the PAP guys keep repeating the same things

they need to hire some creative writers to produce more and better messages

Anonymous said...

problem is the miw have been bred to hear what they love to listen only. i think that class 95 tv commercial with the guy self-sensoring his comments to the man on his son's tennis talents aptly describes the pap mindset.
hi denise, you look so beautiful when you put on your white uniform. we are so thankful to have you as our mp. you are such a godsend.

akikonomu said...

If you disagree with what bloggers say about your party, I challenge you to start your own blogs. This is advice that Papalee would heartily endorse.

rench00 said...

trust me. they will soon start their own. i wouldn't be surprised if they get people to masquerade as 'ordinary citizens' to go wax lyrical about PAP.

but somehow... i think those blogs will probably just end up being the object of much ridicule and derision.

would like to point out minor mistake with this post though. Today is not an SPH publication. it's a Mediacorp newspaper. in other words, we still aren't really getting much balanced stuff from SPH.

akikonomu said...

rench: you make the interesting assumption that any pro-whiteshirt blog cannot be from real ordinary citizens. Can you explain why? After all, 2 out of 3 real ordinary citizens voted for them this month.

Anonymous said...

PAP got the headcounts, the lack is in fresh emssages; they are too used to governing a silent majority

TheJourneySoFar said...

Er.. could you provide a URL to this article?

Anonymous said...

As an ardent PAP supporter, it is time Singapore began to wheal the big axe. Close the internet, we do not wish Singaporeans to read the truth; ban agencies such as reuters, AP, Bloomberg etc. Intern all foreign journalists, and take legal action against foreign press every time they publish an anti Singapore feature.
Foreign companies must be closed and taken by the state after their financies have been seized.
From now on there is no place for any expats, our universities are educating enough singaporeans to take all the jobs whatever the levels.

Anonymous said...

that's what happened in Cuba

rench00 said...

aki:
i didn't assume or in any way implied that i assumed that none of the pro-PAP blogs would be set up by ordinary citizens. i just said that i wouldn't be surprised that PAP would do such a thing. so what is possible is that there will be some pro-PAP blogs that are set up by PAP members masquerading ordinary citizens and some pro-PAP blogs set up by truly non-partisan Singaporeans.

Anonymous said...

actually it wont be so easy; what would these blogs say? if they all sound like SPH/mediacorp, they are no use; but do they know how to sound different? do they dare do be different?

akikonomu said...

rench, the question Ms Phua didn't ask, or perhaps didn't want to ask is this:
Why, when there are little to no barriers to entry, is the Singaporean blogosphere either mindlessly apathetic or strongly liberal and anti-whiteshirt? Why, wheen there are little to no barriers to entry, do we not see more pro-whiteshirt bloggers around?

Anonymous said...

because they wont have anything different to say, not because being different is difficult, but because they have not been taught how to do it in their whole life

Anonymous said...

A view from overseas:

"overwhelmingly slanted" and "not balanced"?

Was the good lady referring to the ST?

If not, have a dose of your own medicine! Its good for you.

rench00 said...

aki:
the question you asked is completely irrelevant to the original one you posed.

but i still take your point that, despite the low entry barriers, there still doesn't seem to be any spontaneous pro-PAP blogs. i don't know why. perhaps people feel that the PAP dailies (i.e. the ST) is around, there's no more need for any more.

but apparently, the slanted view that the mainstream media has is working against the PAP.

Anonymous said...

simple; PAP guys would all give the same "sample answers", so not much point in putting into blogs; the anti guys have variety

Anonymous said...

This lady, Denise Phua, I wonder if she knows that Today, ST and CNA are also online and available to everyone in the world who has internet access, and that their coverage is apallingly unbalanced in favour of the ruling party.

Anonymous said...

she knows that alright, and thinks it is right because PAP is the majority; and she thinks the blogs should show the same majority; since they do not, there might be a conspiracy