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Full-Text Articles in Communication

Regulating Online Hate Speech: The Singapore Experiment, Siyuan Chen Dec 2023

Regulating Online Hate Speech: The Singapore Experiment, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In Singapore, the introduction of the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019 (POFMA) generated considerable debate and feedback. One of the main concerns was whether the law would unduly restrict the freedom of expression. In focusing on the provisions of POFMA that could possibly apply to hate speech, this paper situates the criticisms within the larger framework of international human rights law and international practices and proposes some ways forward to improve the regulatory framework for online hate speech.


A Framework For Assessing Accountability In Collaborative Governance: A Process-Based Approach, Seulki Lee, Sonia M. Ospina Mar 2022

A Framework For Assessing Accountability In Collaborative Governance: A Process-Based Approach, Seulki Lee, Sonia M. Ospina

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Despite the complexities involved around the accountability mechanisms of collaborative governance, little is known about how to assess accountability at the network level and disentangle possible accountability deficits. This study first explicates the nature of collaborative governance accountability in contrast to accountability in traditional public administration and market-based governance. The analysis shows how collaborative governance accountability is distinctive: (a) accountability relationships shift from bilateral to multilateral; (b) horizontal as well as vertical accountability relationships are involved; (c) not only formal standards but also informal norms are used; and (d) accountability challenges move from control/audit issues to trust-building and paradox management …


Nationalism And International Disputes In China: Implications For Transnational Corporations As Corporate Diplomats, Lisa Tam, Soojin Kim Jan 2017

Nationalism And International Disputes In China: Implications For Transnational Corporations As Corporate Diplomats, Lisa Tam, Soojin Kim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

For decades, the territorial dispute between China and Japan over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands has caused diplomatic deteriorations in Sino-Japanese relations. When there is extensive media coverage on news about the dispute, nationalist sentiments in both two countries would be triggered and could be expressed through detrimental behaviors towards transnational corporations (hereinafter TNCs). While TNCs play a significant political function as corporate diplomats for their home countries, they are subject to the risk of crises when their home countries are involved in political and economic conflicts with the foreign countries in which they have operations. Against this backdrop, …


Use Our Diversity To Strengthen Social Cohesion, Tan K. B. Eugene Feb 2016

Use Our Diversity To Strengthen Social Cohesion, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Two Cabinet Ministers recently offered a sobering view of the state of ethnic relations in Singapore, against the backdrop of rising religiosity and global terrorism. Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam spoke of four threats to social cohesion, including Muslims growing more distant from the rest of society and feelings of Islamophobia among non-Muslims. Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli reiterated the importance of practising religion suited to the local context and for Muslims not to be influenced by radical foreign ideologies — often easily spread through social media.


How Narrative Focus And A Statistical Map Shape Health Policy Support Among State Legislators, Jeff Niederdeppe, Sungjong Roh, Caitlin Dreisbach Feb 2016

How Narrative Focus And A Statistical Map Shape Health Policy Support Among State Legislators, Jeff Niederdeppe, Sungjong Roh, Caitlin Dreisbach

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study attempts to advance theorizing about health policy advocacy with combinations of narrative focus and a statistical map in an attempt to increase state legislators’ support for policies to address the issue of obesity by reducing food deserts. Specifically, we examine state legislators’ responses to variations in narrative focus (individual vs. community) about causes and solutions for food deserts in U.S. communities, and a statistical map (presence vs. absence) depicting the prevalence of food deserts across the United States. Using a Web-based randomized experiment (N = 496), we show that narrative focus and the statistical map interact to produce …


The Word Outside And The Pictures In Our Heads: Contingent Framing Effects Of Labels On Health Policy Preferences By Political Ideology, Sungjong Roh, Jeff Niederdeppe Jan 2016

The Word Outside And The Pictures In Our Heads: Contingent Framing Effects Of Labels On Health Policy Preferences By Political Ideology, Sungjong Roh, Jeff Niederdeppe

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study uses data from systematic Web image search results and two randomized survey experiments to analyze how frames commonly used in public debates about health issues, oper- ationalized here as alternative word choices, influence public support for health policy reforms. In Study 1, analyses of Bing (N = 1,719), Google (N = 1,872), and Yahoo Images (N = 1,657) search results suggest that the images returned from the search query “sugar-sweetened beverage” are more likely to evoke health-related concepts than images returned from a search query about “soda.” In contrast, “soda” search queries were more likely to incorporate brand-related …


In A Funk Over Trump, David Chan Jan 2016

In A Funk Over Trump, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Cynicism, for instance about startling turns in global affairs, can be toxic. A dose of healthy scepticism is a much better approach. Trust is an important foundation in interactions between people, and this applies in relationships between friends, employee and employer, or citizens and the government. At the government level, recent surprise world events, such as Brexit, when Britons voted to leave the European Union, and last week's election of anti-establishment figure Donald Trump to the United States presidency, suggest a disruption of that foundation of trust. One challenge from such a turn of events is the rise of cynicism. …


Pushing Aggressively For Political Renewal, Tan K. B. Eugene Sep 2015

Pushing Aggressively For Political Renewal, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In one of the most anticipated Cabinet reshuffles that precedes the cusp of a leadership transition, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong did not disappoint and kept to his word to “push aggressively” for political renewal and succession. While change amid continuity is an apt description for the new line-up, there is no doubting that the emphasis is clearly on change.


Communicating About Marine Disease: The Effects Of Message Frames On Policy Support, Katherine A. Mccomas, Jonathon P. Schuldt, Colleen A. Burge, Sungjong Roh Jul 2015

Communicating About Marine Disease: The Effects Of Message Frames On Policy Support, Katherine A. Mccomas, Jonathon P. Schuldt, Colleen A. Burge, Sungjong Roh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Oceans are suffering from the dual climatic pressures of warming temperatures and acidification, increasing the presence of disease risks that affect marine organisms and public health. Through a randomized field-based experiment, this study examines the effects of communicating about risks to marine organisms and public health on people’s support for policies aimed at mitigating those risks as a function of different message frames. To maximize the salience of these issues, participants were recruited from ferry passengers (N1⁄4543) in the San Juan Islands of Washington State in the summer of 2013 and randomized to read one of four fictitious news articles …


Questionnaire Design Effects In Climate Change Surveys: Implications For The Partisan Divide, Jonathon P. Schuldt, Sungjong Roh, Norbert Schwarz Mar 2015

Questionnaire Design Effects In Climate Change Surveys: Implications For The Partisan Divide, Jonathon P. Schuldt, Sungjong Roh, Norbert Schwarz

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Despite strong agreement among scientists, public opinion surveys reveal wide partisan disagreement on climate issues in the united States. we suggest that this divide may be exaggerated by questionnaire design variables. Following a brief literature review, we report on a national survey experiment involving U.S. Democrats and Republicans (n = 2,041) (fielded August 25–September 5, 2012) that examined the effects of question wording and order on the belief that climate change exists, perceptions of scientific consensus, and support for limiting greenhouse gas emissions. wording a questionnaire in terms of “global warming” (versus “climate change”) reduced Republicans’ (but not Democrats’) existence …


How Motivated Reasoning And Temporal Frames May Polarize Opinions About Wildlife Disease Risk, Sungjong Roh, Katherine A. Mccomas, Laura N. Rickard, Daniel J. Decker Mar 2015

How Motivated Reasoning And Temporal Frames May Polarize Opinions About Wildlife Disease Risk, Sungjong Roh, Katherine A. Mccomas, Laura N. Rickard, Daniel J. Decker

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We draw from theories of motivated reasoning, dual-processing models, and attribution of responsibility to examine how scientific messages may increase public polarization with respect to emerging risk issues such as Lyme disease. A nationally representative sample of Americans (N = 460) read messages about Lyme disease that varied the framing of responsibility for the prevalence of the disease (human/wildlife vs. wildlife only) and when its effects will occur (today vs. in the next 10 years). The influence of framing was contingent on participants’ partisanship, which resulted in a boomerang effect among Republicans and increased the degree of political polarization regarding …


Acknowledging Individual Responsibility While Emphasizing Social Determinants In Narratives To Promote Obesity-Reducing Public Policy: A Randomized Experiment, Jeff Niederdeppe, Sungjong Roh, Michael A. Shapiro Feb 2015

Acknowledging Individual Responsibility While Emphasizing Social Determinants In Narratives To Promote Obesity-Reducing Public Policy: A Randomized Experiment, Jeff Niederdeppe, Sungjong Roh, Michael A. Shapiro

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study tests whether policy narratives designed to increase support for obesity-reducing public policies should explicitly acknowledge individual responsibility while emphasizing social, physical, and economic (social) determinants of obesity. We use a web-based, randomized experiment with a nationally representative sample of American adults (n = 718) to test hypotheses derived from theory and research on narrative persuasion. Respondents exposed to narratives that acknowledged individual responsibility while emphasizing obesity’s social determinants were less likely to engage in counterargument and felt more empathy for the story’s main character than those exposed to a message that did not acknowledge individual responsibility. Counterarguing and …


Media Frames And Cognitive Accessibility: What Do "Global Warming" And "Climate Change" Evoke Partisan Minds?, Jonathon P. Schuldt, Sungjong Roh May 2014

Media Frames And Cognitive Accessibility: What Do "Global Warming" And "Climate Change" Evoke Partisan Minds?, Jonathon P. Schuldt, Sungjong Roh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Decades of research demonstrate that how the public thinks about a given issue is affected by how it is framed by the media. Typically, studies of framing vary how an issue is portrayed (often, by altering the text of written communication) and compare subsequent beliefs, attitudes, or preferences—taking a framing effect as evidence that a media frame (or frame in communication) instantiated a particular audience frame (or frame in thought). Less work, however, has attempted to measure frames in thought directly, which may illuminate cognitive mechanisms that underlie framing effects. In this vein, we describe a Web experiment (n = …


Social Sensing For Urban Crisis Management: The Case Of Singapore Haze, Philips Kokoh Prasetyo, Ming Gao, Ee Peng Lim, Christie N. Scollon Nov 2013

Social Sensing For Urban Crisis Management: The Case Of Singapore Haze, Philips Kokoh Prasetyo, Ming Gao, Ee Peng Lim, Christie N. Scollon

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Sensing social media for trends and events has become possible as increasing number of users rely on social media to share information. In the event of a major disaster or social event, one can therefore study the event quickly by gathering and analyzing social media data. One can also design appropriate responses such as allocating resources to the affected areas, sharing event related information, and managing public anxiety. Past research on social event studies using social media often focused on one type of data analysis (e.g., hashtag clusters, diffusion of events, influential users, etc.) on a single social media data …


Growing Singapore's Funny Bone: Laughing In The Face Of Dangers, Pitfalls And Politicians, Singapore Management University Sep 2011

Growing Singapore's Funny Bone: Laughing In The Face Of Dangers, Pitfalls And Politicians, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

There was once a time in Singapore when the mocking of authority figures would be regarded as a no-go zone. Leaders and politicians were rarely subjects of comedy for such jokes would be considered too distasteful and disrespectful for mass consumption. Acceptable local comedy, as such, was limited to the physical and sometimes lowbrow variety.


Promoting Third Sector Leadership: Letting A Thousand Flowers Bloom, Filippo Addarii, Ben Rattenbury Jan 2009

Promoting Third Sector Leadership: Letting A Thousand Flowers Bloom, Filippo Addarii, Ben Rattenbury

Social Space

How do we foster leadership and social innovation in the third sector? Filippo Addarii and Ben Rattenbury share a European method through the peer-led Euclid Network.


Do We Stand On Common Ground? A Threat Appraisal Model For Terror Alerts Issued By The Department Of Homeland Security, Augustine Pang, Jin Yan, Glen T. Cameron Jun 2006

Do We Stand On Common Ground? A Threat Appraisal Model For Terror Alerts Issued By The Department Of Homeland Security, Augustine Pang, Jin Yan, Glen T. Cameron

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The fabric and faces of threat, and the expediency and efficiency in the communication of threat, are examined with a threat appraisal model. This model is empirically tested on an ongoing communication challenge, the issuance of terror alerts by the United States' Department of Homeland Security (DHS), focusing on how threat is appraised by both the conservative and liberal audiences. Findings showed a shared view by the DHS and conservative audiences on the levels and nature of threats; liberal audiences thought otherwise. Though there appeared to be a consensus between the conservative and liberal audiences on the efficacy of threat …