Professor Terence T. Lee

Singapore won early kudos for its ‘gold standard’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic back in February 2020. It was praised globally for its ability to activate an effective contact tracing system. Riding on this success, the government introduced ‘TraceTogether’, a mobile phone app to enhance contact tracing efforts, using a technology that leverages the Bluetooth feature on smartphones to track proximity between users and record their physical encounters. This paper contends that the roll-out of the app is a form of ‘technological opportunism’ to enhance greater bodily surveillance over its citizens during a time of crisis. The low number of downloads of the app initially (at 20%), before persuasion-coercion strategies were applied to lift the take-up rate to 90%, belies the assumption that surveillance is genuinely widely accepted. This paper details key responses to the app in Singapore, and the government’s decision to make it mandatory during the heart of the pandemic between 2020 to 2022. It considers the implications of technological opportunism, taking advantage of a pandemic to continue in the journey of turning citizens into what Michel Foucault would refer to as ‘subjectified bodies’ to be traced, tracked and codified.

This book provides a broad overview of the theory and practice of creativity and innovation. It is an interdisciplinary study that synthesizes the popular, complex and contemporary discourses on the topic. The approach of the book is centred on praxis, that is, it is grounded strongly in research-based theories, but aims to offer ideas on how to apply creativity and innovation in the everyday context. The authors present an expansive and well-informed perspective on creativity and innovation that transcends any single discipline or specialist area, making the book accessible, readable and memorable. Above all, the reader will be able read the book with a high degree of ease, grasp and retain key and critical concepts of creativity (and the creative process) and innovation (and the innovative process) as well as consider ways of applying them in their everyday lives across all vocations and professional contexts.

Civil society in Singapore has existed in the interstices of society with frequent instances of conflict with the government. The ruling People’s Action Party government has had a long history of quashing its political opponents, and this same approach has influenced how the government deals with social-political dissent, ranging from human rights groups being gazetted and their funding source curtailed, to opposition politicians and free speech advocates sued for libel and contempt of court. This paper examines how the Singapore government has made two significant moves towards online media that appears at once restrictive and accommodating towards dissent. The first is the increase in legal and regulatory burdens on the media, while the second is a perceptibly generous invitation for media freedom advocates to discuss and debate about such legal frameworks. We contend that this dualism, far from signalling inclusive governance with a firm hand, only affirms the Singapore government’s authoritarian tendencies towards media freedom advocates. This paper juxtaposes the evolution of narratives of dissent between the 2013 Amendment to the Broadcasting Act to the 2019 public debate on the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA). We explore the dynamics of resistance and posit that, even with the enlarged space for free speech in Singapore, the practice in public discourse points to further curtailment of such free speech.

This chapter critically reflects on the authors’ involvement in an advocacy group based in Western Australia that comprises people from an asylum-seeking background as well as those who are Australian citizens. The chapter explores how those with lived experience of seeking asylum and those who act in solidarity can work together to respond to structural injustice. Advocacy from the group has resulted in some policy shifts at the local (state government) level, and is now contributing to a broader movement to give expression to local advocacy at the national level as well as grounding that broader movement in local work. We explore what we have learned and gained from our involvement in this group through drawing on Iris Marion Young’s concept of political responsibility for structural injustice as an act of solidarity between people seeking asylum and those who reside in their country of asylum.

This article offers a personal commentary on the influence of Tom O’Regan, my Honours supervisor in the 1990s. Among many other things, he was a major contributor to the ‘cultural policy debate’ in Australia. More than offering an explanation about the subject, O’Regan had warned of the need to strike a balance when debating culture and critiquing cultural policy, and not fall into polemical traps. Making a case for policy independence, he urged academics to participate collaboratively and cooperatively in cultural policy-making processes, instead of primarily engaging in cultural criticisms. I write as well of my firsthand experience of how his cultural policy writings transcended scholarly rationale into the actual policy domain during my time as a media policy professional in Singapore. His ability to apply policy thinking beyond academia underscores why he was – and will remain – a giant of media and cultural studies in Australia and beyond.