A critical analysis of the Straits Times' reporting on the Singapore Armed Forces : the RSS courageous and dunking incidents in 2003

Abstract

The Singapore press has mostly been characterised within the nation-building or development journalism mould. This case study combines content analysis with interviews to evaluate a largely unexplored aspect in local communications studies research; the press-military dynamic in Singapore. Employing the Gramscian concept of hegemony and Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model to trace the evolution of the government-press relationship in Singapore, the study examines the approaches adopted by Mindef and Straits Times after two separate incidents involving deaths in the SAE in 2003. The analysis is focused on evaluating the contending sets of institutional pressures, constraintsa and challenges of both organisations in fulfilling their respective duties to the public, in seeking to explain the causes of and the culpability for each of the incidents.