Engagement@web 2.0 between the government and citizens in Singapore: dialogic communication on Facebook?

Responding to the rapid adoption of new technologies, political parties, both incumbent parties and minor ones, have been quick to leverage web 2.0 technologies for party communication and mobilization. A coterie of work addressed how social media such as Facebook are used as political tools for the promotion of candidate and party campaign platforms. However, a present bias is observed as current literature focus on western democracies. To bridge the gap, this study examines the gradual, yet significant, evolution in technology deployment by the ruling elite in Singapore. This paper traces the developments in e-engagement to bridge the affective gap between the ruling elite and an increasingly IT-savvy population, one which has demonstrated its astuteness in using new media to articulate its disenchantment. Developments in the last five years indicate that the government's earlier endeavor to centralize and streamline its political engagement via a single portal, REACH, is insufficient to say the least. Between the general election in 2006 and the watershed election in May 2011, the repertoire of media tools deployed by the political elite has broadened, with the inclusion of personal blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. In this paper, we apply Kent and Taylor's public relations dialogic communication framework to examine how Facebook fosters greater mutuality, propinquity, and empathy between the government and the electorate. However, problems arising from new technologies themselves inadvertently create risks and challenge the government's ability to commit to dialogic communication.

[1]  Richard D. Waters,et al.  Applying the dialogic theory to social networking sites , 2011 .

[2]  Maureen Taylor.  Public Relations in Advocacy: Stem Cell Research Organizations' Use of the Internet in Resource Mobilization , 2010 .

[3]  Scott A. Fritzen.  Discipline and Democratize: Patterns of Bureaucratic Accountability in Southeast Asia , 2007 .

[4]  Stacey D. Schesser.  A New Domain for Public Speech: Opening Public Spaces Online , 2006 .

[5]  D. Resnick,et al.  Politics on the Internet: The Normalization of Cyberspace , 1999 .

[6]  Sarmad Alshawi,et al.  E-government evaluation: Citizen's perspective in developing countries , 2009, Inf. Technol. Dev..

[7]  Thompson S. H. Teo,et al.  Citizen Trust Development for E-Government Adoption and Usage: Insights from Young Adults in Singapore , 2009, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[8]  Michael L. Kent,et al.  Toward a dialogic theory of public relations , 2002 .

[9]  G. Rodan.  Special Issue on electronic media, markets and civil society in East and Southeast Asia: Introduction , 2003 .

[10]  Cherian George.  The Internet and the Narrow Tailoring Dilemma for “Asian” Democracies , 2003 .

[11]  Han Woo Park,et al.  GOVERNMENT-CIVIC GROUP CONFLICTS AND COMMUNICATION STRATEGY: A TEXT ANALYSIS OF TV DEBATES ON KOREA'S IMPORT OF U.S. BEEF , 2012 .

[12]  Angus Whyte,et al.  Analysis and Evaluation of E-Consultations , 2002 .

[13]  J. V. Laer,et al.  INTERNET AND SOCIAL MOVEMENT ACTION REPERTOIRES: Opportunities and limitations , 2010 .

[14]  Not Your Parents' Presidential Debates: Examining the Effects of the CNN/YouTube Debates on Young Citizens' Civic Engagement , 2009 .

[15]  Poh Kam Wong,et al.  Competing at the Frontier: The Changing Role of Technology Policy in Singapore's Economic Strategy , 2003 .

[16]  Peter Van Aelst,et al.  INTERNET AND SOCIAL MOVEMENT ACTION REPERTOIRES , 2010 .

[17]  Michael Margolis,et al.  Major parties dominate, minor parties struggle : US elections and the Internet , 2003 .

[18]  Rachel Gibson,et al.  U.K. Political Parties and the Internet , 1998 .

[19]  Khalil Md Nor,et al.  Obstacles Facing the Adoption of E-Government Services in Jordan , 2010 .

[20]  Brian Mcnair.  An Introduction to Political Communication , 1995 .

[21]  Jeffrey E. Kottemann,et al.  Socioeconomic Foundations Enabling E-Business and E-Government , 2010, Inf. Technol. Dev..

[22]  Brian McNair.  An Introduction to Political Communication (5th Edition) , 2011 .

[23]  Joy Gordon,et al.  University websites and dialogic features for building relationships with potential students , 2009 .

[24]  T. Flew.  New Media: An Introduction , 2003 .

[25]  O. G. Ling,et al.  8. Relationship between State and Civil Society in Singapore: Clarifying the Concepts, Assessing the Ground , 2004 .

[26]  Atreyi Kankanhalli,et al.  A framework of ICT exploitation for e-participation initiatives , 2008, CACM.

[27]  Zaheer Baber,et al.  'Sites' of resistance: alternative websites and state-society relations. , 2002, The British journal of sociology.

[28]  Michael L. Kent,et al.  Building Dialogic Relationships through the World Wide Web. , 1998 .

[29]  A. Pym,et al.  Terms of use : Click here GENDER-BASED ATTITUDES , HIV MISCONCEPTIONS AND FEELINGS TOWARDS MARGINALIZED GROUPS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH STIGMATIZATION IN MUMBAI , INDIA , 2014 .

[30]  Steven Sams,et al.  Networked Politics on Cyworld: The Text and Sentiment of Korean Political Profiles , 2011 .

[31]  Michael L. Kent,et al.  Activist practitioner perspectives of website public relations: Why aren’t activist websites fulfilling the dialogic promise? , 2012 .