10 - The Media and the Flow of Information

Summary

Introduction

If there is one image that captures and explains the impact of the West on the media, it is the printing press. Although the first presses were invented in China and Korea, it was the Europeans who exploited it for mass consumption. Accompanying the technology are the values of the country of its origin; in the case of Singapore, the source was Britain. Singapore's early newspapers, as well as its first radio station, were started by Britons under colonial British media laws. From the British, Singapore derived the more universally accepted restrictions of defamation and copyright (once, the right given by the monarch to make copies), as well as the Official Secrets Act, the Internal Security Act, and the much-amended Newspaper and Printing Presses Act.

The modern image that captures and explains the impact of America on the media in Singapore and around the world is a computer wired to the Internet. The key components that make up the Internet — a computer chip running on software and connected to other units by a telephone system — were invented in the United States. Already, American values are being passed along through the adoption of the Internet.

For the foreseeable future, the influences on the media will likely come from the United States. This chapter argues that even if controls on the media could be said to have worked in the 1970s and 1980s, and perhaps even in the 1990s, they are unlikely to work in the foreseeable future. Because of technology and other reasons, Singapore's media laws and regulations will need to be revisited to realize her ambition to become a major world city. Just as the traditional mass media have developed differently in Singapore compared with Great Britain, so the use of the Internet is likely to develop differently in Singapore compared with the United States. This means the laws and controls on the media will not mirror that of the United States.

Colonial Legacy

The history of press regulation by the British Government has not been linear. In 1835, the British Government abolished a law that required newspapers to submit pre-publication copies of the paper to the colonial governor for vetting. In celebration, the Singapore Free Presswas started that year.