ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the normative guidelines, formulated by the political leaders that are actually being implemented through legal and institutional constraints to “guide the behavior of communication systems”. Mass media communication is therefore a “double-edged weapon,” as Mr. Jek Yeun Thong, then Minister for Culture, put it in 1971. Logically, the propositions lead to the conclusion that the operation of the mass media must be properly controlled and supervised. The fear of foreign control of local mass media has since become a common theme and has been presented as a legitimate reason for imposing political control and stringent legal constraints on communication systems in Singapore. The Emergency Act prohibits all members of the Singapore armed forces from communicating with newspapers. The existence of the mentioned laws and their efficient enforcement means that the government of Singapore can effectively, directly or indirectly, control and utilize the mass communication system to pursue its defined objectives of nation-building.
