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EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERYCHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
Part Two: The BlogosphereAssistant Professor Natalie Pang
Party Websites and Blogs: The Good, The Bad, and The ToxicAssistant Professor Natalie PangDivision of Information StudiesWee Kim Wee School of Communication and InformationNanyang Technological University
About the study
• Period of Study: April 27th – 8th May
• Nomination Day to a day after polling day
• 833 Blog posts examined
• 764 Blog posts coded & analyzed
• 200 blogs in total
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About the study
• 10 coders split into 2 teams
• 1 team coding factual content
• 1 team coding qualitative content
• All coders undergone training on coding frame to establish familiarity
• All coders then underwent 1 round of coding tests using the same posts to establish reliability between coders
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List of blogs (showing top 20)No. Blog Name Count
1 The Satay Club 35
2 The Online Citizen 34
3 Singapore Election 2011 33
4 Singapore Notes 26
5 mrbrown: L'infantile terrible of Singapore 20
6 Diary of a Singaporean Mind 18
7 Hun Boon's Blog 17
8 Thoughts of a Cynical investor 17
9 The Owl 15
10 Yawning Bread 15
11 Singapore Election Watch 14
12 SpotlightOnSingapore 14
13 Yee Jenn Jong 1413 Yee Jenn Jong 14
14 Yours Truly Singapore 14
15 New Asia Republic 13
16 Molitics Writing Silence 12
17 pressrun.net 12
18 Sgpolitics.net 12
19 life one degree north, one‐o‐three degrees east 11
20 Think Happiness 11
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Originality & Media Type
Originality
Primary Secondary Both
Videos (2%) 13 (1%) 11 (13%) 10 (3%)
Podcasts (1%) 5 (0%) 1 (1%) 3 (1%)
Photos (32%) 344 (33%) 33 (39%) 80 (25%)
Texts (53%) 560 (54%) 28 (33%) 176 (54%)
Ill t ti (12%) 109 (11%) 11 (13%) 56 (17%)Illustrations (12%) 109 (11%) 11 (13%) 56 (17%)
1031 84 325
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Secondary ContentLocal Media
Foreign Media
Other Blogs
CitizenMedia
Social Media
Party Pages
ElectionsDept
Others
Video (13%)
11
Podcast (1%)
1
Photos (39%)
5 1 18 3 4 2
TextText (33%)
8 3 1 3 3 1 2 7
Illustration (13%)
2 6 3
24 (29%) 4 (5%) 2 (2%) 23 (27%) 12 (14%) 5 (6%) 2 (2%) 12 (14%)
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Party MentionsPAP WP SDP NSP SPP RP SDA
558148
105
4845 30
285
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Party Mentions
200
250
218
100
150 147
126
Positive
Positive+Neutral
Positive+Negative
Neutral
Negative+Neutral
0
50
PAP WP SDP NSP SPP RP SDA
11
46
9 103
11
12
39
12
5
1
26
1 21
39
2631
1 21
8 12
11 2
1
Negative
8
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What were bloggers really talking about?
247
302
307
11%
13%
14%
Political system
Candidate’s quality
Governance
96
99
103
111
114
115
116
127
170
5%
5%
5%
5%
5%
6%
8%
Si ’ id tit
Number of seats contested
Cost of living
Minister’s salary
Elections online
Foreigners’ unease
Fair play
Media surveillance
Housing cost
Hearing people’s voices
12
14
15
25
29
32
51
74
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Party quality
Education
Leadership quality
Transport
Election strategy
Healthcare
Generation Y
Singapore’s identity
No. of mentions
9
Issues & Valence
120
140123
40
60
80
100
120
20
47
66 70
60
56
99
64Pro‐PAP
Anti‐PAP
Neutral
Anti‐Opp
0
20
Governance (14%) Candidate’s
quality (13%) Political system (11%) Hearing
people’s voices (8%)
Housing cost (6%)
20
72
16
3
19 2136
012
2 32
821
4
pp
Pro‐Opp
10
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Online Talk on Politicians (1)Rank
Most mentioned (by no. of blogs)
Most mentioned with positive valence
Most mentioned with neutral valence
Most mentioned with negative valence
1 Lee Kuan Yew (193) Low Thia Khiang (69) Lee Kuan Yew (82) Lee Kuan Yew (93)
2Lee Hsien Loong
(161)Nicole Seah (68) Lee Hsien Loong (81) Lee Hsien Loong (70)
3Low Thia Khiang
(126)George Yeo (58) Low Thia Khiang (59) Vivian Balakrishnan (63)
4 George Yeo (123) Chen Show Mao (53) George Yeo (59) Tin Pei Ling (53)
5Goh Chok Tong
(101)Chiam See Tong (48) Goh Chok Tong (48) Mah Bow Tan (49)
6 Nicole Seah (93) Lee Kuan Yew (45) Vincent Wijeysingha (40) Goh Chok Tong (42)
7Vivian Balakrishnan
(90)Lee Hsien Loong (43) Nicole Seah (32) Wong Kan Seng (38)
8Chen Show Mao
(74)Sylvia Lim (34) Sylvia Lim (31) George Yeo (36)
9 Chiam See Tong (73) Tan Jee Say (27) Tan Jee Say (30) Chiam See Tong (20)
10Vincent Wijeysingha
(65)Goh Chok Tong (22) Vivian Balakrishnan (27) Khaw Boon Wan (20) 11
RankMost mentioned (by no. of blogs)
Most mentioned with positive valence
Most mentioned with neutral valence
Most mentioned with negative valence
11 Tin Pei Ling (65)Vincent Wijeysingha
(22)Chiam See Tong (26) Lui Tuck Yew (18)
Online Talk on Politicians (2)
(22)
12 Tan Jee Say (62) J B Jeyeratnam (17) Chen Show Mao (24) Nicole Seah (14)
13 Sylvia Lim (62) Pritam Singh (16) Kenneth Jeyeratnam (17) Lim Hwee Hua (13)
14 Mah Bow Tan (62) Ang Yong Guan (10) Tin Pei Ling (17) Tan Jee Say (12)
15 Wong Kan Seng (49) Yaw Shin Leong (9) Mah Bow Tan (15) Chee Soon Juan (10)
16 Pritam Singh (31) Chee Soon Juan (8) Pritam Singh (15) Low Thia Khiang (10)
17 J B Jeyaretnam (33) Gerald Giam (8) J B Jeyeratnam (14) Vincent Wijeysingha (10)
18Chee Soon Juan
(27)Vivian Balakrishnan (8) James Gomez (14) Yaacob Ibrahim (9)
19Khaw Boon Wan
(27)Yee Jenn Jong (8) Lim Swee Say (14) Lim Boon Heng (8)
20 James Gomez (19) Michelle Lee (7) Lim Hwee Hua (13) Chan Chun Sing (7)12
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Question & Answers
Thank you for your time