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Political economy of media and culture in peripheral Singapore: A theory of controlled commodification
Abstract
Due to critical flaws in the existing studies, this study advances a new theory--the theory of controlled commodification--for the analysis of media and culture in the peripheral capitalism of Singapore. Since political independence, the state in Singapore has pursued a developmental policy based on the principles of the market economy that has given rise to its newly industrialized status. It promotes the development of the capitalist institutional framework, structures, and practices for the commodification process, yet restricts the process where it pertains to the flow of commodities effected through the exchange mechanism of the marketplace. The critical manifestation of this fundamental contradiction is in the media-cultural terrain. The existing approaches, in failing to grasp or address this contradiction, have provided a theoretically inadequate account of Singapore's media and culture. Thus they are overly narrow or localized (as in the works of media freedom, development media, and communication developmentalism) or overly broad or globalized (as in the cultural dependency perspective) or ahistorical in treating the convergence and conflict of the local-global forces (as in Galtung's structural theory of imperialism). The theory of controlled commodification is premised upon a historical appreciation of the local-global articulation of the commodification process within such peripheral capitalism as Singapore. Constructed from the two Marxian media-cultural approaches of Western Marxism and the Marxian political economy, the theory assumes the centrality of the (Singapore) state--as a managerial state for (global) capital--in the constitution of media operating as a commercial, profit-oriented institution in a market economy. Adopted for the analysis of Singapore's print and electronic media, together with its politics and culture, the theory of controlled commodification sheds the much needed light on the intricate relationship between state control of media and culture, on the one hand, and the commodification process, on the other--i.e., the very contradiction of peripheral Singapore, itself. Although controlled commodification is developed specifically in relation to Singapore, its theoretical thrust is argued to be applicable to other peripheral capitalism as well.
Subject Area
Mass communications|Asian History|Social research|History
Recommended Citation
Kokkeong, Wong, "Political economy of media and culture in peripheral Singapore: A theory of controlled commodification" (1991). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9120902.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9120902