Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Jinna Tay, Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore

PROGRAM

ABSTRACT

What goes into the ideological sustenance of an illiberal capitalist democracy? While much of the critical discussion of the media in authoritarian contexts focuses on state power, the emphasis on strong states tends to perpetuate misconceptions about the media as mere tools of the state, sustaining myths about their absolute power.

Turning to the lived everyday experiences of media producers in Singapore, this University of Amsterdam Press book engages questions that explore what it takes to perpetuate authoritarian resilience in the mass media. How, in what terms and through what means, does a politically stable, illiberal Asian state like Singapore formulate its dominant imaginary of social order? What are the television production practices that perform and instantiate the social imaginary, and who are the audiences that are conjured and performed in the process? What are the roles played by imagined audiences in sustaining authoritarian resilience in the media? If, as the book argues, audiences function as the central problematic that engenders anxieties and self-policing amongst producers, can the audience become a surrogate for the authoritarian state?

Session Format
Discussants will offer their analyses of Dr Siao Yuong Fong’s Performing Fear in Television Production: Practices of an Illiberal Democracy followed by a response from the author.

This book launch is the result of a joint initiative by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and the Asia Research Institute (ARI) to support the development of scholarly books of early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences. The speakers’ views are their own and do not represent the official position of the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Siao Yuong Fong is Lecturer in Global Media and Inequality at Lancaster University. She works at the intersections of media and cultural studies, production studies and Asian studies. Previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, her more recent scholarly research focuses on transnational media production in Southeast Asia in relation to the rise of China.

Terence Lee is Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Associate Professor of Politics and Communication at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education, Perth, Western Australia. He is Editor-in-Chief of Communication Research and Practice (a Q1-ranked journal of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA), of which he was a past president). He is the author/editor of several books on Singapore and Southeast Asia, including: Political Regimes and the Media in Asia (with Krishna Sen, Routledge, 2008), The Media, Cultural Control and Government in Singapore (Routledge, 2010); Singapore: Negotiating state and society, 1965-2015 (with Jason Lim, Routledge, 2016); and Global Internet Governance: Influences from Malaysia and Singapore (with Susan Leong, Palgrave, 2021). He has also co-edited, with Kevin YL Tan, a bestselling trilogy series analysing Singapore’s general elections over a decade in 2011, 2015 and 2020 (all with Ethos Books). His recently-published latest book is Creativity and Innovation: Everyday Dynamics and Practice (with Lauren O’Mahony and Pia Lebeck, Palgrave, 2023).

Kai Khiun Liew is a scholar in transnational media and cultural studies in the Asia-Pacific region. Among his research interests include that of the history and the evolution of Singapore’s media culture from the colonial to the contemporary. His recent scholarly works covers that of social minorities in Singapore’s mediascape and his upcoming scholarly publications will discuss the history of social media in the republic. Accompanying his scholarship is his teaching experience in the field of television and film studies at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels for more than a decade. Kai Khiun is currently Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Metropolitan University.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this webinar has been sent out to registered attendees whose registrations are confirmed. Please write to aritm@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the webinar.