Professor Terence T. Lee

This insightful presentation started with fascinating statistics around Facebook, its market share, growth and its impact on society. One of the facts that grabbed our attention was the fact that “…some people buy computers to go on Facebook…” and the question for researches around impact of new media on people’s lifestyles. Terence also highlights the way Facebook impacts news media, health, reputation and points out the increasing trends in video posting (in comparison to the world’s largest video website owned by google, YouTube). With this in mind, naturally there is a variety of other problems, to mention a few: Recorded cases cyberstalking and measures taken to prevent it. Background checks by employers on potential staff members. Parents spying on their kids online activities. Parental neglect and the case of a child drowning while mother was playing a Facebook game. Is Facebook, a wrong model for a social network? Should social networks be more anonymous as far as user interaction and personal data go? Perhaps not. the whole purpose of the social media is that users do want to be seen and heard by others. Although there was much talk about Facebook in particular this presentation was more about regulation and governance of new media than anything else. Terence argues that not much has changed and like with any new and emerging medium, there are waves, or spikes in its regulation. What start of rebellious and anarchistic ends up being properly regulated eventually. We’re currently seeing that happen with new media. In this case regulatory procedures might take a new shape and form. The session ends with the “Top Ten Facebook Rules”: 1. DON’T post your phone number or address 2. DO customise your security settings 3. DON’T post photos of yourself or others which could compromise reputations 4. DON’T reveal too much information 5. DON’T hold ‘open-house’ parties 6. DON’T expose yourself to legal issues 7. DO watch your language 8. DON’T accept all ‘friend’ requests 9. DON’T post your mother’s maiden name 10. DO log out

Not much has been written critically about the symbolic role and function of cultural policy in Singapore. For many, Singaporean cultural policy is about media censorship and/or the maintenance of social and political control. For others, the motivation is purely economic, that is, cultural policy has a unique ability to extract economic worth from each and every able Singaporean. Whilst outlining (pre-)existing cultural policy positions, this paper looks at recent policy frameworks in Singapore (namely: Singapore 21, 1999 and The Renaissance City Report, 2000). It suggests that these statements are aimed at convincing citizens of the need to embrace socio-cultural change for the good of the nation. To ensure that these messages reach and engage the people, the Singapore Government employs a popularisation strategy where popular cultural items – most notably national pop-songs, music video clips and images of Singapore as youthful and ‘cool’ – are heavily mobilised. This paper looks specifically at the mass appeal of government-commissioned national songs and their accompanying music video clips. As this paper will evince, most of the lyrics and video images of national songs are not only powerful purveyors of the myth of nationhood, they are also essential tools of cultural policy as social and cultural change in Singapore. It is important to realise that these ‘new’ policy positions do not negate the ‘old’ ones. Instead, as this paper will show, the strategy of popularisation via the mass distribution of national songs has an immediate effect of reinforcing the hegemony of the economic and the legitimisation of the political in Singapore.