Internet spaces and the (re)making of democratic politics: the case of Singapore’s 2011 General Election

摘要

The 2011 Singapore General Election (GE2011) has often been hailed as an ‘Internet Election’, highlighting the role of networked technologies in enabling democratization practices/processes for the unprecedented consolidation of oppositional politics in the city-state. Building on theorizations that broach the interface between social media and digital democracy, this paper critically examines Singaporeans’ myriad engagements with the internet during GE2011 in order to tease out the constructions of social and political debates within these online communities and the extent to which they facilitate democratic discussions. These computer-mediated colliding and emerging of perspectives related to Singapore’s (electoral) politics can in turn set the scene for the (re)production and negotiations of the multifarious meanings of democracy in place. Hence, in addressing these research inquiries, this paper goes beyond GE2011 to reflect on the ways in which web technologies and social media can make a difference to political debates, deliberation and representation in societies where there are limited public avenues for citizenry to articulate their voices/concerns. It also enables documentation of ordinary people’s aspirations and hopes for political change and the sort of democracy they want to see progressively initiated in the Singaporean society.