Carol Soon and Jui Liang Sim: Chinese-language bloggers in Singapore

Engaging Minds, Exchanging Ideas

ENGAGING MINDS, EXCHANGING IDEAS

Chinese-language bloggers

in Singapore: Apoliticised

and blogging alone

Carol Soon & Sim Jui Liang


Background* Public discourse

surrounding blogs - English

and “socio-political blogs”

* Academic research –

Political participation and

civic engagement;

Collective identity, structural

availability, structural

proximity (e.g. Soon, 2013;

Soon & Kluver, 2014)

* Vernacular languages and

technology use for

education


Research aims

• What are the salient characteristics of the Chinese

blogosphere in Singapore?

• To what extent are Chinese blogs politicised?

• Scant attention to non-English blogs despite

Singapore being a multi-ethnic society, with the

Chinese being the largest ethnic community


Methodology

• Keyword searches via commercial search engines

• Snowballing the sample and content analysis

• Criteria:

- Active blogs

- At least 50% of blog content written in Chinese language

- Blogs must be related to Singapore

- At least 50% of blog content must be related to Singapore if

blogger’s nationality/residency is undetermined


Findings

• Through keyword searches and seven rounds of

snowballing – 201 Chinese blogs

• The mean age of Chinese blogs was five years, 27%

have been active for four to six years, 33% of the

blogs were six to 10 years old

• Chinese blogs were of medium activity with the

majority (48%) being updated within the last three

months


0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Last month Last threemonths

Last six months Last one year

20%

4%

48%

28%

Based on content analysis, information available for 100% of study population.

Recency of update


0 5 10 15 20 25

20s

30s

40s - 50s

60s

70s

Age group

Frequency

Based on content analysis, information available for 24% (n=49) of study population.

2%

2%

47%

6%

43%

Age of bloggers



42%

Gender

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

9058%

Males

Females

42%


Professions


Creative industries

Media

Education

Engineering

Finance

Entrepreneur

Non-profit

Accountancy

Advertising

Architecture

Pharmaceuticals

Psychology

8%

20%

25%14%

5%

5%

3% 3% 3% 3%

3%

8%

3%


Popular blog types

Personal

60%

Aggregator

2%

K-Log

10%

Mixed

28%



Personal-type: fungtasia


K-log:咖啡山墓碑(Bukit Brown Tomb)


Aggregator: 新国志(New Governance)


Mixed-type: 安娜私房话(Anna’s closet)



1%

3%

3%

4%

4%

7%

19%

22%

31%

31%

36%

46%

49%

75%

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Sports

Others

Humour

Business & economy

Technology & science

Religion & spirituality

Politics

Education & academia

Arts & culture

Social issues

Entertainment

Interests & hobbies (lifestyle)

Family & friends

Personal experiences

Number of blogs

Issues blogged about


• 19% had occasional commentaries on certain policies

or political issues

Chinese bloggers as apoliticised

• Contrarian viewpoints on politics and policies were

rare and not sustained

• “Politics” as blogged about were not limited to

Singapore politics; e.g. Singapore-based Malaysians

blogging about political campaigns and elections in

their country of origin


• About 4% are socio-political blogs


• These blogs adopted a more balanced and moderate

approach

• English bloggers in Singapore tend to be critical of the

government and its policies, majority being acerbic in

their criticisms


无垠的蓝天 (Unlimited Blue Skies)



• Absence of endorsement of popular campaigns

organised by civil society

• Same socio-political issues were featured prominently

in English blogs

• Almost 90% of blogs had badges but few indications of

their affiliations or support for well-known socio-

political campaigns and movements in Singapore, e.g.

“Repeal 377A”, Pink Dot Sg and Save Bukit Brown



• Mainstream media was used as a source of

information and reference, not adversary

• In contrast, English socio-political blogs use

mainstream media as an object of critique (Hussein,

2008; Soon & Kluver, 2014)


Blogging alone

• Blogging as a personal activity than community-related

one

• Majority of blogs focused on personal experiences,

expressed personal views and showcased pastimes

• Little evidence of communication among the blogs

• Chinese blogs were not used to galvanise support for

specific causes (e.g. http://bukitbrowntomb.blogspot.sg/)


Conclusion

• Blogs’ apolitical nature could be due to the “chilling

effect” of earlier clampdowns on Chinese student

movements in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as on the

Chinese media and theatre in the 1970s

• “Public voicing of grievances within a discourse of

race” also led to one being labelled as a “racial

chauvinist” (Chua, 1985)

• Chinese blogs in Singapore do not play a large role in

contributing to public discourse

Carol Soon and Jui Liang Sim: Chinese-language bloggers in Singapore

Government & Nonprofit

Transcript of Carol Soon and Jui Liang Sim: Chinese-language bloggers in Singapore