Welcome

Here's where you can find out more about my work. My research and writing focus on:
Religious intolerance and free speech: How hate propaganda threatens freedom and equality around the world.
Media independence: How journalism struggles to serve the public interest in the face of external and internal threats.
Singapore media and politics: Authoritarian resilience and the regime's management of political expression.

Latest

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Maya Mirchandani interviewed me about Hate Spin on her programme, "Wide Angle", at Delhi-based The Wire. View the video here.

"FAKE NEWS": The so-called "fake news" issue has gone to the top of the research agenda in communication and media studies. I submitted a paper, Meeting the Challenge of Hate Propaganda, to Singapore's Parliamentary Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods. Visit my hatespin.net site for news reports and videos of my oral testimony at the Select Committee's public hearings. I also spoke on the topic at a Manila conference on Disinformation and Democracy, and at the East-West Center's International Media Conference in Singapore: watch the video of the hour-long panel or read news reports in the Straits Times, Channel News Asia and Mumbrella. I've written an evolving Primer on Disinformation to keep track of the best thinking on the topic.

Coming up

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In Fall 2018, I'll be on sabbatical at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School, as a visiting scholar of its new Center for Media at Risk. My activities there  include teaching a PhD course, "Censorship: A Global Survey", and convening a symposium on cartoon censorship (Friday 7 December) in conjunction with my book project with Sonny Liew.

On religious intolerance and free speech

This timely work provides an essential warning against the misuse of perceived religious-based bias and an unmasking of the real motives of those who incite manufactured offense.” – Publishers Weekly Best Books 2016. Read the review.
LATEST:
An Indonesian translation, Pelintiran Kebencian, is out.

On media freedom and independence

CURRENT PROJECTS

  • Drawing Fire: The Political Censorship of Cartoons — A global study in collaboration with Sonny Liew. Visit our website.
  • Journalism and Authoritarian Resilience — A chapter in the Handbook of Journalism Studies, to be published by Routledge in collaboration with the International Communication Association.
  • Media and Power in Southeast Asia — A book to be co-authored with Gayathry Venkiteswaran and published by Cambridge University Press.
  • Ethical best practices – A multi-country study of ethical standards of exemplary Asian media organisations, supported by a General Research Fund grant from the HK University Grants Committee. Article in the South China Morning Post.
  • Journalism, Press Freedom and Censorship – Forthcoming in the Handbook of Communication Science.
  • Asian Journalism – A forthcoming encyclopaedia entry. Read the draft here.

WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY 2017 ACADEMIC CONFERENCE
Organised in conjunction with UNESCO's observance of World Press Freedom Day in Jakarta, HKBU's Academic Conference on the Safety of Journalists drew speakers from four continents. For more details, please visit our conference site. Several papers from the conference have been published in Media Asia 44(1).

DOWNLOADABLE

  • In my article in Journalism, I argue against misguided moral relativism in journalism studies. Journalism has a shared normative commitment to democracy. “Diversity around a democratic core: The universal and the particular in journalism”  is in issue 14(4) of the journal.
  • UNESCO's report, World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development, is here. My chapter on media independence in Asia is here.
  • Visit my e-learning website explaining freedom of expression.
  • Sustaining Independent Journalism is a publication based on an Asia Journalism Forum conference I organised. A free PDF is available on Scribd.
  • My MediaAsia blog hosts my talks and essays on media issues in Asia, focusing on journalism and freedom of expression.

Singapore media and politics

SINGAPORE, INCOMPLETE

This book of essays on Singapore politics grew from articles I've written in my blogs over the years, and also includes new material.

LEE KUAN YEW'S LEGACY

 I've written a chapter on Lee Kuan Yew's philosophy on media, "Neoliberal 'good governance' in lieu of rights: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore experiment", for the volume Speech and Society in the Digital Age, edited by Monroe Price and Nicole Stremlau (Cambridge University Press).

MY BLOGS ON SINGAPORE

Air-Conditioned Nation  — Essays on Singapore politics and society.
Freedom From The Press — On media in Singapore. Formerly Journalism.SG.

My teaching

At Hong Kong Baptist University, I currently teach a PhD course on communication theory and Masters and Undergraduate courses in journalism and society.
I supervise doctoral and MPhil research in journalism studies.

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