THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE SINGAPORE PRESS

Abstract

News is a window on the world. Through its frame, we learn of ourselves and others, of our institutions, leaders, and life styles, and those of other nations and their peoples. But the news frame is not merely a vehicle for transmitting facts about ourselves and others, it is a source through which institutionalized ideology or hegemony is conveyed. This study, in tracing the history of the Singapore press, addresses this issue of the ideological function of news. Threats to the transmission of hegemony in news are analyzed in the case study of the Far Eastern Economic Review affair. Finally, the day-to-day manufacture of reality into news is examined from the perspective of journalists from the local press. In so doing, this study validates the ethnomethodological paradigm of news as a constructed reality.