TY - CHAP
T1 - Images of the migrant worker in Singapore’s mainstream news media
T2 - prospects for integration
AU - Tan, Kenneth Paul
PY - 2014/10/30
Y1 - 2014/10/30
N2 - This chapter sets up a context-specific framework of stereotype analysis for assessing the prospects of ‘integrating’ migrant workers within Singapore society. The framework explores how they are represented – and how their representations are reproduced, circulated and transformed – in Singapore’s mainstream news media. In particular, the chapter analyses articles (news reports, readers’ letters and commentaries) published in the English-language press over a three-month period surrounding the announcement of the Singapore Budget 2011 in a general election year. The analysis locates, in these articles, stereotypes of low wage and unskilled or semi-skilled migrant workers, estimated to number 856,000 in 2009, who have been admitted on renewable short-term ‘R Pass’ work permits mainly for employment in the construction, hospitality, and services sectors (Solidarity for Migrant Workers, 2011, p. 1). The analysis also locates stereotypes of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) as a special class of these migrant workers who are entirely female, excluded from Singapore’s Employment Act and physically constrained for the most part of their lives in Singapore within the walls of their employers’ households. They are reported to number more than 201,000 in 2010 (Kor, 2011).
AB - This chapter sets up a context-specific framework of stereotype analysis for assessing the prospects of ‘integrating’ migrant workers within Singapore society. The framework explores how they are represented – and how their representations are reproduced, circulated and transformed – in Singapore’s mainstream news media. In particular, the chapter analyses articles (news reports, readers’ letters and commentaries) published in the English-language press over a three-month period surrounding the announcement of the Singapore Budget 2011 in a general election year. The analysis locates, in these articles, stereotypes of low wage and unskilled or semi-skilled migrant workers, estimated to number 856,000 in 2009, who have been admitted on renewable short-term ‘R Pass’ work permits mainly for employment in the construction, hospitality, and services sectors (Solidarity for Migrant Workers, 2011, p. 1). The analysis also locates stereotypes of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) as a special class of these migrant workers who are entirely female, excluded from Singapore’s Employment Act and physically constrained for the most part of their lives in Singapore within the walls of their employers’ households. They are reported to number more than 201,000 in 2010 (Kor, 2011).
UR - https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781315794822-15/images-migrant-worker-singapore-mainstream-news-media-prospects-integration-yap-mui-teng-gillian-koh-debbie-soon?context=ubx&refId=7159e4a5-62bf-4ff5-a0e2-a06b634db476
UR - https://www.routledge.com/Migration-and-Integration-in-Singapore-Policies-and-Practice/Mui-Teng-Koh-Soon/p/book/9781138014220
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84960279527&partnerID=MN8TOARS
U2 - 10.4324/9781315794822
DO - 10.4324/9781315794822
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9781138014220
SN - 9781138094956
T3 - Routledge Research On Public and Social Policy in Asia
SP - 160
EP - 191
BT - Migration and Integration in Singapore
A2 - Teng, Yap Mui
A2 - Koh, Gillian
A2 - Soon, Debbie
PB - Routledge
CY - London
ER -