Independent Online Media under an Authoritarian Regime: A Case study of "TOC" Anti- State control ''s strategies On Amos Yee

• Main Authors: Ting-Yi Lim, 林婷憶
• Other Authors: Lihyun Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/7kc57f

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 新聞研究所 === 105 === Abstract According to Freedom House’s annual evaluation of the state of global freedom, Singapore is rated partly free for years. Singapore government has been delivering national hegemony through education system and mass media. Laws restrict media and disagreements resulted in a conservative social atmosphere and Singaporean been political apathetic. Singapore economies have long earned praise for rapid and sustained growth, due to government high effectiveness and high-pressure ruling, which attract foreign investments. However, Singapore political democratization progress has not been widely recognized, in contrast to their economy achievements. In 2015, Singapore court ruling that a 16-year-old blogger, Amos Yee, arrested for posting a video about the late Prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, be held for two weeks for psychiatric review. In defense of human right, Singapore local online media “TOC” (The Online Citizen) challenged judicial judgement through exclusive interview, in which foreign media shared the news report and this gather strength to anti- government control on Yee’s case. Under the pressure from both local and international human right organization and public’s criticism, Yee was freed immediately following the trial. (The court found Yee guilty and sentenced him to four weeks in jail, however sentencing was backdated.) Thus, this case study of Amos Yee is based on the perspective of anti- government control to analyze how “TOC” developed anti-control strategies. This includes how “TOC” editors gathered, and what kind of discourse analysis it used on Yee case. To understand independent media anti-control context, this study include how Singapore government suppressed online expression. Through in-depth interviews with members of “TOC” and frame analysis, this research discovers that “TOC” has limited resources. Thus, this independent media use Guerrilla strategy, which selectively focus on certain news, in order to report in depth and strengthen news value. Also, “TOC” faces competition from mainstream media, thus it resort to counter-attack strategy and focus on critical angle to attract viewership. Last but not least, “TOC” gathered views and opinions, and clarified views after examine mainstream media discourse, which emphasize the importance of universal values, such as freedom of speech. To conclude, “TOC” uses freedom of speech as a foundation to break the supportive relations between government and mainstream media, which the latter justified government control strategies to appease the public. Through revealing the whole picture, the public can re-evaluate and examine how government control will affect freedom of speech in Singapore. Pushing boundaries can be considered as the important achievement in this anti-government control movement; also it is a revelation for challenging government control in the future.