Creative restructuring of Singapore media: Research Lacunas

In February 2002, the Singapore Government initiated ‘Remaking Singapore’ (The Prime Minister’s Office Press Release) as the nation-state faced its worst economic downturn since its Independence in 1965. Amidst this broad effort to fundamentally review Singapore’s strategies for economic growth and survival as a nation, the media sector also underwent a series of restructuring exercises, which began in April 2000 with the introduction of competition between the two core local print and broadcast media players. The broader plan to develop Singapore into a “global media city” was drawn up in the ‘Media 21’ of the ‘Creative Industries Development Strategy’, released in late 2002. Policy developments and discourses in such instances suggest that Singapore is calling out and giving urgent recognition to an apparent shift in the “new economy” – from a knowledge-based one, to one that is increasingly creativity-based. Merely from these observations, Singapore’s media scene today appears more complex than it was before the introduction of media restructuring. The following discussion explores some potential areas of research arising from the assumption that the Singapore media sector has and is continuing to undertake reforms in an effort to remain viable in the globalising economy that is not only knowledge-based, but increasingly creativity-based