Media and University Capture: Lessons from Tracking Invisible Censorship

Studying controls on freedom of expression in Singapore is made harder by the internationalisation and institutionalisation of censorship. Repression is much less visible and salient than in societies where interventions take the form of arrests and bans, for example. Mainstream news media and universities in Singapore have been prevented from becoming sites of counter-hegemomic discourse, mostly with the cooperation of media freedom and academics, without recourse to extreme repression. In the case of media, the state protects a media oligopoly from competition through a discretionary licensing system. It has also bailed out the sole newspaper publishing company, turning it from a public listed corporation to government-funded trust. As for academia, the state has strongly supported the university sector and turned Singapore into a global hub for higher education, while imposing strict supervision on research, teaching, and public outreach on topics that challenge the ruling party’s perspective on various controversial issues. The government’s sensitivities have been internalised in the management of universities, just as in media, resulting in a rampant culture of self-censorship.