PAP and the new media

A Straits Times reader complains, No room for proper debate in anti-PAP new media.

That makes me wonder, why hasn’t the People’s Action Party made better use of the new media?

When I visited the PAP website today, there was no warm thank-you message to the voters for its election victory. It won 60 per cent of the votes and 81 of the 87 elected seats in parliament, but no hurrahs or thanks on the website. It simply showed the election results – and the election manifesto video was still playing on the home page.

The Workers’ Party website, on the contrary, thanked the voters who helped it win in Aljunied and Hougang as well as those who voted for it in East Coast, Nee Soon, Moulmein-Kallang, Joo Chiat, Punggol East and Sengkang West.

The Singapore Democratic Party website also thanked its supporters though it didn’t win any seats.

The PAP also has a Facebook page, where Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong chatted with young Singaporeans before the May 7 elections.

This afternoon, on the PAP’s Facebook page, people were commenting on food prices and ministers’ salaries.

A Straits Times report on the Japanese Prime Minister’s decision to go without pay until the nuclear plant crisis is over, triggered the comments. “Let’s be happy our country is rich enough to pay our ministers’ astronomical salary,” said one. Said another: “As long as I get value for my money… I don’t pick on their pay.”

“Dear PM Lee,” said another Facebook user, “food prices are going higher and higher. Please do something about it.”

Someone suggested the PM should begin blogging or speak to the nation regularly.

Communication is important. The PM created a buzz when he said sorry for housing and transport woes and overcrowding, due to foreigners, at a lunchtime rally at Boat Quay just before the elections. It was flashed all over Facebook, Twitter and the internet. That’s only natural in a city as wired up as Singapore. Its five million people include 2.35 million Facebook users and 1.76 million on Twitter, according to official data from Socialbakers.com and Sysomos, reported Yahoo News Singapore in March.

And yet the PAP has not even got around to thanking the voters on the internet.

Doesn’t it expect them to visit its website? Can communications be outsourced?

The United Nations agency, Unesco, has publicly said the Singapore media is heavily regulated by the government and maintains a “pro-government stance”. To be fair, the newspapers gave more coverage to the opposition parties this time. They could not risk alienating their readers. After all, 40 per cent of the vote went to the opposition.

Noting the rise of citizen journalism in Singapore, Unesco said:

With the proliferation of the new media, blogger groups like The Online Citizen (TOC), Yawning Bread and Fridae (the last two cater specifically to the country’s booming gay community) have emerged as sites of alternative discourse on important socio-political issues like domestic politics, rights of gays and senior citizens.

Alternatives to what? The mass media, of course.

Yes, the alternative media has the mass media to thank for its growth and popularity. People read Yawning Bread and The Online Citizen to get a different take from what’s on offer from the Straits Times and Channel NewsAsia.

I am not saying the local newspapers and television channels are tosh. I was particularly struck by Janadas Devan’s article in the Straits Times, where he said about the rise of the opposition parties:

For better or worse, we will have politics again – as we did between 1959 and 1966, the period it took the PAP to establish its dominance.

The 60 per cent vote for the PAP was its lowest since independence, said others, but he found a historical parallel. That’s what makes newspapers worth reading: informed commentary.

The Straits Times, however, with all the ads it gets, needs more newsprint than it could possibly fill up with killer columns.

The new media, meanwhile, has made it possible for people to spread their own views – and these are resonating with other people. The mass media is no longer enough to satisfy the masses – not when they can create their own media.

Like others, the PAP, too, could have been more active online. It’s great when others praise you, but a little self-promotion never hurts.