Have you 'poked' your MP today?

Five years ago, the PAP's Penny Low (above) became the first MP to have a blog. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND WEE

Madam Phua tossing yusheng with residents in her Paya Lebar ward on Monday. -- PHOTO: COURTESY OF CYNTHIA CHUA

A photo on Dr Lim's Facebook page of himself and ministers K. Shanmugam and Khaw Boon Wan at a constituency countdown party for 2010. -- PHOTO: COURTESY OF LIM WEE KIAK

Feb 20, 2010

More than half of the 81 PAP Members of Parliament have taken to the social networking site Facebook to complement their online presence. What has their cyber experience been like? Are they still finding their way around or have they got into their stride?

By Zakir Hussain

Enter Web 2.0

ADVANCEMENTS to Internet applications, however, meant websites that leveraged on Web 2.0 technologies - those that allow readers to interact directly with one another and make it easy to produce, publish and share content with little effort - had an advantage over others.

As blogs took off here, Foreign Minister George Yeo became the first Cabinet minister to blog on the sites of two constituency activists in 2006.

Twelve new MPs born after Independence tagged themselves as the post-65ers and started group blog P65.sg to write about their constituency work and discuss topical issues with youth who may not read mainstream media.

The move came after a call by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to new MPs to establish themselves with voters and hold the ground ahead of the next elections, which must be held by February 2012.

Significantly, the blog allowed readers to comment, but soon fell silent as contributions slowed, with some MPs simply posting their parliamentary speeches. It was later relaunched to include a wide range of committed contributors.

But Internet-savvy party members were worried that anti-PAP voices were drowning out the party's views online.

The party began a quiet campaign to get members to go into Internet forums and blogs to rebut anti-establishment views that were rampant.

Still, it lacked an online platform to engage directly with a growing number of netizens on a personal level.

As Facebook, which started in 2004, caught on rapidly in recent years, several MPs began to dabble in it.

Ms Low and Mr Yeo aside, pioneers include Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development, Youth and Sports and Transport Teo Ser Luck, and MPs Zaqy Mohamed of Hong Kah GRC and Lim Wee Kiak of Sembawang GRC.

By comparison, opposition MPs Low Thia Khiang and Sylvia Lim of the Workers' Party (WP) and Mr Chiam See Tong of the Singapore People's Party (SPP) do not have Facebook pages of their own, but have sites managed by their supporters. However, their parties - like the NSP - rely on their websites, which are regularly updated, to get their views across.

As Dr Gillian Koh of the Institute of Policy Studies observes, the opposition is somewhat less trusting of the mainstream media and the key parties have chosen to use the Internet to record speeches in full and give their alternative points of view.

However, they do not seem to directly engage netizens much through their formal sites or blogs.

The situation is different in Facebook pages set up by the WP Youth Wing or Reform Party chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam, which post regular updates of events and photos of walkabouts and activities.

The SDP is the only opposition party that updates its website almost daily and allows readers to post comments on its main website.

zakirh@sph.com.sg

In good governance, we learnt that the government uses a number of channels such as media, Meet-the-people's sessions, emails and Feedback units to communicate with the citizens. The latest is using web 2.0 technologies such as the social network platforms, for example, Facebook. What are your views about them using the new technologies to engage the citizens? Will this be more effective?