by Royce Radcliffe

Created on: July 29, 2008   Last Updated: August 01, 2008

I find it interesting that if you google for information about the media in Singapore the first things that come up are stories about massive government funding, the newspaper websites themselves, media registration pages... but almost no criticism. Singapore's media is one of the absolute worst in the world in terms of self oppression and government favoritism but its otherwise sophisticated population seeming to be obvlivious or complicit which this censorshiph as well makes what is happening in that country with regard to the media a bonafide sociological phenomenon.

The media in Singapore is heavily regulated as an extension of their government's generally dismal view of freedom of speech. The irony here is that this same government launched the Media 21 Initiative in 2002 with the effort of being one of the world's largest media hubs. On July twenty seventh of this very year Singapore allocated seventy million dollars for its interactive media sector, illustrating their continuing support for this goal. As the years have gone by since the implementation of this plan the media controls employed by Singapore have become more and more evident to the world at large, thus leading one to wonder if more of that money is going toward empowering the media or regulating it in the process.

The most obvious recorded instance of this policy comes in the form of the still standing Newspaper and Printing Presses Act of 1974 which states: "No person shall print or publish or assist in the printing or publishing of any newspaper in Singapore unless the chief editor or the proprietor of the newspaper has previously obtained a permit granted by the Minister authorising the publication thereof, which permit the Minister may in his discretion grant, refuse or revoke, or grant subject to conditions to be endorsed thereon."

The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts is the enforcement branch of this and similar laws. Its job is to both approve or disapprove of media content in the country and scour the small island for media that does not conform to government standards.

Almost all forms of media in the country are controlled by the government, either directly or through shareholding programs. There are few instances where the government directly intervenes but the fact is that they usually do not have to in the first place. By now the media outlets, many inherently corrupt due to the aforementioned shareholding policies, have fully conformed and exert an extreme amount

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