QotW8: Yawning Bread's No Yawn

Blog’s Title: Yawning Bread

Blog's URL: http://www.yawningbread.org
Blogger’s Name: Au Waipang
Blogger’s Occupation: Citizen Blogger
Blog’s D.O.B.: October 1996
Technorati Rank: None (Technorati does not consider it a blog due to its URL). However, it has 1,855 links to it.

The general tone of this blog is critical and focuses largely on issues that are related to the gay community. A homosexual himself, Mr. Au relates and analyzes the impact of global events on the gay community in a more or less impartial manner while underscoring the local government’s homophobic tendencies, as well as, the growing of acceptance of homosexuals in Singapore.

In one of his recent posts on the prosecution of gays in the early 1990s, Mr. Au supported his assertion that the jailing and charging of gay men were unjust and deliberate by scrutinizing numerous newspaper reports regarding such incidents. He then stated that “The Straits Times seemed to see it as part of its nation-building role to make an example of these hapless men” by publishing the names, jobs, and photographs of the accused, as well as, describing the actual acts in graphic detail to induce disgust in its readers. It should be noted that he substantiates most of his posts with surveys, studies, and news articles.

This particular post garnered numerous comments, many of which disagreed with his stance on the issue. For example, a comment by Boon stated that:

“After reading your article, my impression of gays is a world filled with sleaze and casual sex. If your intention is to pin the blame on the Government, it has failed to gain my sympathy.”

Instead of being offended, however, Mr. Au replies that he merely states “the empirical: that there is indeed a lot of sleaze, casual sex and paid sex in this world”, and that he tries “to write without making moral judgements of others”.

The conversations that ensue following this entry is a debate of sorts, whereby individuals offer their two cents worth or refute what has already been said. This open discussion follows the tone which Mr. Au has set by being both critical and logical as well.

Do blogs allow for greater democracy in Singapore?

In my opinion, blogs may allow for greater democracy in Singapore especially when they pertain to parts of the community that tend to be marginalized, namely women and gays. However, this is only the case online in virtual Singapore, where government surveillance is more difficult to maintain, and blogs harder to litigate.

According to Alinta Thornton, male dominance of the Internet is still the case in many countries (Thornton, 2002). This is the case in Singapore as well. Think about it, of the famous bloggers in Singapore how many are female, much less gay?

Fortunately, although “studies have pointed out that the absence of gender cues in bulletin board discussion groups does not eliminate sexism or even the hierarchies of gender that pervade society generally” (Poster, (1)), the gender balance is changing rapidly due to the Internet and blogs. This is because depending on the topics discussed, bloggers tend to signify their status “by using signifiers external to the Internet” such as, academic standing and published works, or “by internal signifiers” like the worth of their contributions and their style of expression. In other words, such methods of establishing identity and building online reputation may be the reasons behind “the diminution of prevailing hierarchies of race, class, age, status and especially gender” (Poster, (1)).

This gradual disregard for gender works in the favor of YawningBread.org as it champions the rights of gays – members of society who often go unheeded, especially in Singapore. As aforementioned, the fact that electronic beings are difficult to govern increases the possibility of changing the nature of political authority, and thus democracy in Singapore.

In fact, according to Poster, “the Internet seems to discourage the endowment of individuals with inflated status”. This is apparent from the undermining of scholarly authority formation “by locating and disseminating texts on the Internet” (1). It can thus be inferred that blogs such as Yawning Bread may subject political authorities to a similar fate.

Despite this optimistic view of the possible effects of blogging on democracy, I find it difficult to fathom much change coming about in the real world of Singapore. While the last national elections proved interesting due to the large number of blogs that documented the rallies and campaigning efforts of the numerous political parties, highlighted the biased reporting by the local media, and provided the masses with information about the opposition; the People’s Action Party (PAP) still won the majority of parliamentary seats.

However, the number of people who supported the opposition exceeded the PAP’s expectations, highlighting the fact that blogs and other modes of online communication did play a large part in getting the opposition’s message across to the public.

This example alone shows that despite having an impact on democracy in Singapore, blogs and other online media are not yet powerful enough to bring about political changes in real life.

In conclusion, blogs do allow for greater democracy in Singapore, insofar as the members of the public are informed of non-mainstream political ideals. However, the implementation of such ideals is still a work-in-progress.

References

Au, W. (2007, March). The good ol’ days of jail and caning for immorality. Yawning Bread. Retrieved March 23 from http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2007/yax- 722.htm

Poster, M. (1) Cyberdemocracy. Internet and the Public Sphere. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.humanities.uci.edu/mposter/writings/democ.html

Thornton, A. (2002, October). Does Internet Create Democracy. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc