Perpetual development journalism? Balance and framing in the 2006 Singapore election coverage

This study sought to determine if Singapore's press model has evolved beyond the development model to take on characteristics of other press models. It examined balance and framing in election coverage in the Straits Times, Singapore's dominant English newspaper, over 16 days before the 2006 Singapore General Election. As expected under the development model, and contrary to expectations under the social responsibility model, we found coverage of the competing parties lacked balance, as indicated by more coverage with a more favorable tone for the ruling People's Action Party. In framing, we found game frames predominated over issue frames, as predicted by media intrusion theory, in which commercial media favor competitive aspects of campaigns as a result of following commercial journalistic values. This finding contradicts the expectation that development journalism would likely have more issue frames, since it emphasizes issues and policies, and suggests that some commercial journalistic imperatives outweigh development model imperatives in the Singapore press. Keywords: development journalismbalancemedia intrusionframingelectionSingaporecontent analysis Acknowledgements We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the journal's editor for comments that improved this article, and to Professors Benjamin H. Detenber and W. Wayne Fu, who gave helpful feedback on an earlier version. Notes 1. In the 2006 General Election, the PAP fielded candidates for all 84 seats in Parliament, and 82 were victorious, including 37 who ran uncontested. The Workers' Party fielded 20 candidates, and 1, an incumbent, won; the Singapore Democratic Alliance fielded 20 candidates, and 1, an incumbent, won; the Singapore Democratic Party fielded 7 candidates, none of whom were victorious. Currently, 9 wards are represented by individual members of Parliament; the remainder are represented by panels of candidates who stand for election together (Elections Department of Singapore, Citation2006). The PAP preserved its number of seats in Parliament, winning 66.6% of the popular vote. ('PAP wins,' 2006).