Digital Carnivalesque: Power Discourse And Counter Narratives In Singapore Social Media 981152050X, 9789811520501, 9789811520518

Table of contents :
Resurgence of Authoritarian Populism......Page 7
The Internet Milieu and the Role of Humor......Page 8
Catch Me if You Can: Humor as a Double-Edged Sword......Page 9
Acknowledgment......Page 10
References......Page 11
Contents......Page 13
1.1 Introduction......Page 16
1.2 Studying Dimensions of Power in Online Discourse......Page 19
1.3 Roadmap of the Book......Page 20
References......Page 22
2.1 Introduction......Page 25
2.2 Marxist Theory of Power......Page 26
2.3 Gramscian Hegemony......Page 27
2.4 Foucauldian Power as Omnipresent......Page 29
2.5 Bourdieu’s Analysis of Class......Page 32
2.6 The Tactics of the Weak in Everyday Practices......Page 35
2.7 Power in the Hidden Transcripts......Page 37
2.8 Carnivalesque as Performative Resistance......Page 40
2.9 Summary......Page 42
References......Page 44
3.1 Introduction......Page 46
3.2.2 Politicizing Participation in the Digital Economy......Page 47
3.3.1 Habermas’ Public Sphere......Page 49
3.3.2 Critique of Habermasian Notions of Public Sphere and Deliberation......Page 50
3.3.3 The Changing Nature of Politics and Communication in Digital Media......Page 51
3.4.1 Digital Space as an Embodied and Networked Public......Page 53
3.4.2 Digital Performance and Performativity of Self......Page 54
3.5 Summary......Page 56
References......Page 57
4.1 Introduction......Page 60
4.2 Ideology of Pragmatism......Page 61
4.3 A Neo-confucian System of Political Rule......Page 62
4.5 The Rule of Law and Hegemonic Instrumentality in Curbing Expressions Through Media Platforms......Page 63
4.5.1 Press......Page 64
4.5.2 Artistic Performances and Films......Page 65
4.5.3 Cyberspace......Page 66
4.6 Effects of Calibrated Governance and the Social Cost of Globalization......Page 70
4.7 Online Subpolitical Discourse in Singapore......Page 72
References......Page 75
5.1 Introduction......Page 79
5.2 Differentiating Authentic from Pseudo-carnivalesque Performances......Page 81
5.3 Appropriation of Carnivalesque in Cinematic Productions......Page 82
5.4 Why the Notion of Carnivalesque as Social Critique Is Problematic with Critical Scholarship......Page 84
5.5 Comparative Studies......Page 85
5.6 Summary......Page 86
References......Page 87
6.1 Introduction......Page 89
6.2 Synopsis and Context......Page 90
6.3.1.3 Grooming......Page 91
6.3.1.5 Setting......Page 93
6.3.1.6 Kinesics and the Use of Props......Page 94
6.3.1.7 Speech/Verbal Mode......Page 100
6.3.2 Semiotic Resources in Representing Anton Casey......Page 103
6.3.3 Grotesque Realism......Page 105
6.4.1 Critique of Social Concerns......Page 106
6.4.2 Inversion of Social Hierarchies......Page 108
6.4.3 Ambivalent Laughter......Page 109
6.5.1.1 mrbrown: The Performer......Page 114
6.5.1.2 Mr Brown Index: Once You’ve Lost Mr Brown, You’ve Lost Public Opinion (Ong, 2014)......Page 116
Glossary......Page 117
References......Page 118
7.1 Introduction......Page 121
7.2 Synopsis and Context......Page 122
7.3.1.1 Performative Genre......Page 123
7.3.1.2 Name......Page 125
7.3.1.3 Grooming......Page 127
7.3.1.4 Language......Page 128
7.3.1.5 Setting......Page 129
7.3.1.6 Kinesics and the Use of Props......Page 130
7.3.1.7 Speech/Verbal Mode......Page 149
7.3.1.8 Grotesque Realism......Page 150
7.4.1 Social Critique and the Inversion of Social Hierarchies......Page 151
7.5 Further Thoughts: Dr. Jiajia & BigBro......Page 153
7.6.1 Carnivalesque Form: Manipulating Semiotic Resources, Grotesque Realism, and Others......Page 155
7.6.2 Interrogating Carnivalesque Function......Page 157
Transcription......Page 159
References......Page 161
8.1 Introduction......Page 162
8.2 Foucauldian Governmentality in Governing Singapore Media Landscape......Page 163
8.3 Bourdieusian Cultural Perspective in Understanding Artistic Performances......Page 166
8.4 Shifting Power Dynamics in Vernacular Digital Discourses......Page 168
8.5.1 Carnivalesque as Subpolitics......Page 170
8.5.2 Carnivalesque Humor as Tool of Social Critique in Singapore (Says Who?)......Page 172
8.6 Concluding Remarks......Page 175
References......Page 176

Citation preview

Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education 10 Series Editors: Aaron Koh · Victoria Carrington

Hoi-Yi Katy Kan

Digital Carnivalesque Power Discourse and Counter Narratives in Singapore Social Media

Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education Volume 10

Series Editors Aaron Koh, Faculty of Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N. T., Hong Kong Victoria Carrington, School of Education, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Australia

We live in a time where the complex nature and implications of social, political and cultural issues for individuals and groups is increasingly clear. While this may lead some to focus on smaller and smaller units of analysis in the hope that by understanding the parts we may begin to understand the whole, this book series is premised on the strongly held view that researchers, practitioners and policy makers interested in education will increasingly need to integrate knowledge gained from a range of disciplinary and theoretical sources in order to frame and address these complex issues. A transdisciplinary approach takes account the uncertainty of knowledge and the complexity of social and cultural issues relevant to education. It acknowledges that there will be unresolved tensions and that these should be seen as productive. With this in mind, the reflexive and critical nature of cultural studies and its focus on the processes and currents that construct our daily lives has made it a central point of reference for many working in the contemporary social sciences and education. This book series seeks to foreground transdisciplinary and cultural studies influenced scholarship with a view to building conversations, ideas and sustainable networks of knowledge that may prove crucial to the ongoing development and relevance of the field of educational studies. The series will place a premium on manuscripts that critically engage with key educational issues from a position that draws from cultural studies or demonstrates a transdisciplinary approach. This can take the form of reports of new empirical research, critical discussions and/or theoretical pieces. In addition, the series editors are particularly keen to accept work that takes as its focus issues that draw from the wider Asia Pacific region but that may have relevance more globally, however all proposals that reflect the diversity of contemporary educational research will be considered. Series Editors: Aaron Koh (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) Victoria Carrington (University of Tasmania) Editorial Board: Angel Lin (Simon Fraser University, Canada), Angelia Poon (National Institute of Education, Singapore), Anna Hickey-Moody (RMIT, Australia),Barbara Comber (University of South Australia, Australia), Catherine Beavis (Deakin University, Australia), Cameron McCarthy (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA), Chen Kuan-Hsing (National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan), C. J. W.-L. Wee (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), Daniel Goh (National University of Singapore, Singapore), Jackie Marsh (University of Sheffield, UK), Jane Kenway (Monash University, Australia), Jennifer A Sandlin (Arizona State University, Tempe, USA), Jennifer Rowsell (Brock University, Canada), Jo-Anne Dillabough, (University of Cambridge, UK), Megan Watkins (University of Western Sydney, Australia), Mary Lou Rasmussen (Australia National University, Australia), Terence Chong (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore) Book proposals for this series may be submitted to the Senior Editorial Assistant: Lay Peng Ang E-mail: [email protected] More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11200

Hoi-Yi Katy Kan

Digital Carnivalesque Power Discourse and Counter Narratives in Singapore Social Media

Hoi-Yi Katy Kan Centre for English Language Communication National University of Singapore Singapore, Singapore

ISSN 2345-7708     ISSN 2345-7716 (electronic) Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education ISBN 978-981-15-2050-1    ISBN 978-981-15-2051-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2051-8 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

To God, without whom I wouldn't have the inspirations, insights, knowledge, words, patience, courage or energy to press on.

Preface

Comedy is a mirror. If you don’t like the mirror, then change your clothes. (Redd, The Cultural Frontline, 2019)

Resurgence of Authoritarian Populism The controversial Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation (POFMA) Bill was passed on May 8, 2019, in Singapore, one of Asia’s thriving metropolises that is not unfamiliar with its poor human rights record in the eyes of western critics (Human Rights Watch, 2019). Notwithstanding the deeply contentious nature of POFMA especially among activists and academics as a hegemonic tool of the incumbent People’s Action Party (PAP) government to effect self-censorship in political discourse (Au-Yong, 2019, May 8), the Bill was tabled in early April 2019 and passed along partisan lines after a 2-day parliamentary debate (Tham, 2019, May 9; Hussain, 2019, May 8). While much of popular discourse is coming to terms with the “apocalyptic” reality in the new age of POFMA, from an alternate perspective, one cannot help but acknowledge the audacious resolve of the PAP government in its attempt to pull the brakes on the phenomenon associated with the twenty-first-­ century digital milieu (Castells, 2010; Jenkins, 2006) – one where communication is simultaneously ubiquitous and potentially viral – by means of twentieth-century system of legislative maneuvers. Oddly, to the majority of ordinary citizens in Singapore who have tacitly endorsed the state ideology of pragmatism rooted in the country’s official narrative, this protectionist move might have been framed as a sensible move to procure “peace” in today’s deeply troubled world. From ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the mishandling of the extradition bill by the Hong Kong government in Asia to the rise of hate crimes (e.g., Islamophobia) and Identitarian movements (e.g., Brexit in the UK and anti-immigration sentimentality in Trump’s America) in the western sphere, the resurgence of authoritarian populism, generally indexed in

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the shift from the use of soft power to hard power, seems to be the modus operandi of sovereign states in quelling threats in recent years (Appadurai, 2017). Of course, to those who espouse the ideology of pragmatism as a time-honored way of governance in the city-state, all is (still) well. However, in the larger theatre of global political power display, how do we make sense of agency of the people? In Democracy Fatigue (Appadurai, 2017), Appadurai argues that in response to the sense of disillusion with the ideals of democracy, citizens of democratic states have abandoned the option to “repair” democracy deliberatively. Instead, they have chosen to “exit” from democracy itself through the electoral process. This is where I wish to mark the point of departure for this book. While the political process of election remains an enshrined symbol of democracy and a formal channel for the people to enact change, we have to acknowledge the emergence of the Internet milieu as a game changer in reshaping political participation in the twenty-first century. After all, the seismic social change brought forth by digital times is on a scale that the world has not witnessed since the Industrial Revolution more than 200 years ago. Not only has the Internet reordered the world in terms of information (power) access for macrostructures; it has informed the way ordinary citizens access channels to enact voice. For this reason, it is necessary for us to understand the nature of the Internet in order to appreciate the way ordinary citizens choose to enact their (political) voice in everyday discourse.

The Internet Milieu and the Role of Humor The Internet embodies a participatory culture (Jenkins, 2006) where the celebration of the mundane through acts of “self-mediation” (Chouliaraki, 2010) appears to be a primary concern of netizens (e.g., travel updates, food adventures). Together with the central focus that is placed on everyday self-expression, there is a simultaneous fragmentation of online communication into issue politics (Habermas, 2006) and an emergence of two phenomena: a new breed of power holders and an expression of power that operates at an affective level (boyd, 2010). With the proliferation of social media sites in today’s more embodied and networked public, the organization of online communications centers around one’s personal connections (boyd & Ellison, 2008) and is often accompanied by the production of user-generated contents (Ito et  al., 2009) and imbued with a sense of performance (Kan, 2018). In this current ecosystem, an emergent group of power holders or “information brokers1” (boyd, 2010, p.  34) shape cultural norms and practices in their domains of influence. Another phenomenon associated with the age of new media is the exercise of power along the affective dimension. This new sentimentality is described by boyd (2010) in the way social media users are selective toward responding to competing information that jostle for their attention. In

 Privileged individuals who attract followers based on their expert status in niche domains.

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particular, mediatized contents that “anger, excite, energize, entertain, or otherwise create emotional response[s]” (p. 30) are likely to be more successful in attracting the attention of online users. Given the centrality of emotion sentimentality in enacting one’s voice in social media, there appears to be a keen interest in the use of the humor, specifically the comedic genre (e.g., satires, parodies), among netizens for various purposes. The key question to ask is “Why humor?” Is humor simply a cathartic tool that provides reprieve to ordinary citizens from the heaviness of mundaneness? Or is humor a versatile tool, often disguised under the cloak of performance, that provokes agentic resolutions? In order to systematically interrogate the role of humor in today’s performative digital culture, this book distils the key differences between humor as banal and humor as critical (and political) through the comparative studies of two YouTube videos produced by Singaporean social media personalities. In so doing, it proposes not only newer scholarly lenses to examine the aestheticization of hegemonic ideologies, it also offers a new semiotic discourse analysis framework to examine power performances in comedic vernacular discourse.

Catch Me if You Can: Humor as a Double-Edged Sword Humor possesses the qualities of being elusive, multilayered, nuanced, fluid, and temporal. Because of its nature, on the one hand, it is seemingly impossible to tease apart the performance of humor into constituent parts and then reconstitute it within rational discourse for the purpose of deliberation. Simply put, the nature of humor is “incongruous” (Bourdieu, 1993, p. 31) with rationality. Hence, given its “fleeting” nature, it may give relief to ordinary citizens to perform politics in social media without attracting the ire of authorities. On the other hand, the very nature of humor itself eludes the masses. Satires and parodies, often synonymous with the performance of humor, demand the manipulation of literary tropes (e.g., sarcasm, pun, wit) as well as the deployment of multimodal cues (e.g., music, comedic actions) within the performative space for the actualization of social meanings for audiences. In other words, due to the internal logics of literary texts that require a certain level of “sophisticated and reflective knowing” (Sullivan, 2010, p. 363) and a high-order or expert knowledge processing that involves the “sensing [of one]self within consciousness” (p. 362), the consumption of satirical literary productions may serve as a mere cathartic tool (Marc, 2009) to most while being potentially emancipative to others (Gray et al., 2009; Thompson, 2009). In other words, paradoxically, the ambiguous internal logics of satires and parodies possess the capacity to retard the very emancipative potentials that they may embody.

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Last Bastion of Hope: The Seriousness of Laughter In order for the potentials of laughter to be realized among the masses, what is needed is a way to demystify the ambiguity surrounding satirical productions. Only then can the emancipative ideals of critical laughter be realized within the performative space among “insider” audiences. In both western and oriental civilizations, carnivalization of social relations is an old-age conception that dates back to the times of Aristotle, Socrates, and Aristophanes (Dmitriev, 2006) in the west and to the Ming Dynasty in China (Zhang, n.d.; Zhao & Zhou, 2018). From the traditions of sending “mocking” comic Valentine’s cards in Victorian Britain (Pollen, 2014) to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on American network CBS, the “licence to deride” (p. 127) enduring social norms and to “speak truth to power” (Gray et al., 2009, p. 6) has shadowed the presence of dominant macrostructures in western civilization. Clearly, while this is a different framing of humor from the instrumentality of humor in communist China, where Xiangsheng2 is promoted only for cultural resonance rather than as politics (Zhang, n.d.), the potentials of critical laughter in such authoritarian states are possibly merely hidden but never quite absent. With the proliferation of moving images in the mediatized age (e.g., YouTube, IG videos), the emergent potentials of satires as cultural products of digital times are only limited by its ambiguous internal logics that are hard to grasp in the minds of the masses. In sum, in the face of a nationalist surge worldwide, the digital performances of politics in the likes of satires and parodies have become an important avenue for citizens’ participation in political life. In order to enable this process, what is needed, more than ever, is a systematic approach to distinguish frivolous laughter from more critical laughter.

Acknowledgment This book would not have seen daylight if there had been an absence of trust from several giants in my life. Most tangibly and in the scholarly sphere, A/P Csilla Weninger, A/P Aaron Koh, A/P Joel Robert Gwynne, and A/P Warren Liew played pivotal roles in shaping the final products, first, in the form of my thesis and, now, this book. In particular, A/P Csilla Weninger undertook the mammoth task to coax this self-professed reluctant scholar that she has had much to contribute. I remember I wanted out from the PhD journey three times in the first 2 years. A/P Weninger befriended me and walked in solidarity with me. The rest, as they say, is history. A/P  Cross talk is a traditional Chinese comedic performing art.

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Aaron Koh’s influence, on the other hand, felt like a lightning bolt. His insights were razor sharp, his words laconic, and his commitment unwavering. Lastly, I reserve my heartfelt gratitude to my spouse, Edmond, who has steadied me in rough times and urged me to push forward in calmer seasons.

Singapore, Singapore  Hoi-Yi Katy Kan

References Appadurai, A. (2017). Democracy fatigue. The Great Regression. Great Britain, UK: Polity Press. Au-Yong, R. (2019, May 8). Parliament: Fake news law does not stifle academic research; scholars’ real concern is about political discourse, says Ong Ye Kung. The Straits Times. Retrieved from https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/ parliament-fake-news-law-does-not-stifle-academic-research-scholars-real-concern-is-about Bourdieu, P. (1993). The field of cultural production, or the economic world reversed. In R. Johnson (Ed.), The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature. New  York: Columbia University Press. boyd, D. (2010). Streams of content, limited attention: The flow of information through social media. Educause Review, (September/October): 27–36. boyd, D., & Ellison, N.  B. (2008). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 210–230. Castells, M. (2010). The information age: Economy, society, and culture, Vol. 1: The rise of the network society (2nd ed.). Singapore, Singapore: Wiley-Blackwell. Chouliaraki, L. (2010). Self-mediation: New media and citizenship. Critical Discourse Studies, 7(4), 227–232. Dmitriev, A, V. (2006). Humor and politics. Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia, 44(3), 64–100. Gray, J., Jones, J. P., & Thompson, E. (2009). The state of satire, the satire of state. In J. Gray, J.  P. Jones, & E.  Thompson (Eds.), Satire TV: Politics and comedy in the post-network era (pp. 3–36). New York: New York University Press. Habermas, J. (2006). Political communication in media society: Does democracy still enjoy an epistemic dimension? The impact of normative theory on empirical research. Communication Theory, 16, 411–426. Human Rights Watch (2019). Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/ country-chapters/singapore#73fccc Hussain, A. (2019, May 8). Singapore’s fake news law passed amid partisan divide. Yahoo News. Retrieved from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/singapores-fake-news-law-passed-amid-partisandivide-143613491.html Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M., Boyd, D., Cody, R., Herr, B., et al. (2009). Hanging out, messing around, geeking out: Living and learning with new media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press. Kan, H-Y, K. (2018). Digital Carnivalesque: Exploring discourse, power and counter-narratives in Singaporean YouTube videos. PhD thesis. Nanyang Technological University. Marc, D. (2009). Foreword. In J. Gray, J. P. Jones, & E. Thompson (Eds.), Satire TV: Politics and comedy in the post-network era (pp. ix–xiv). New York: New York University Press. Pollen, A. (2014). The Valentine has fallen upon evil days: Mocking Victorian valentines and the ambivalent laughter of the carnivalesque. Early Popular Visual Culture, 12(2), 127–173.

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Sullivan, P. (2010). Vygotskian dialectics and Bakhtinian dialogics. Theory & Psychology, 20(3), 362–378. Tham, Y-C. (2019, May 9). MPs pass fake news law 72–9, after two-day debate. The Straits Times. Singapore Press Holdings. Thompson, E. (2009). Good demo, bad taste: South Park as carnivalesque satire. In J. Gray, J. P. Jones, & E. Thompson (Eds.), Satire TV: Politics and comedy in the post-network era (pp. 213– 232). New York: New York University Press. Zhang, P. (n.d.). Laugh it off: Xiangsheng style. Shine. Retrieved from https://www.shine.cn/ feature/art-culture/1711136300/ Zhao, J., & Zhou, S. (2018). Social Network and Place: The inheritance of development of Beijing crosstalk performing art. Sustainability, 10, 1–18.

Contents

1 Power as Performance in the Twenty-First Century Digital Playground ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 1.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 1.2 Studying Dimensions of Power in Online Discourse�����������������������    4 1.3 Roadmap of the Book ����������������������������������������������������������������������    5 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    7 2 Power����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   11 2.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   11 2.2 Marxist Theory of Power������������������������������������������������������������������   12 2.3 Gramscian Hegemony����������������������������������������������������������������������   13 2.4 Foucauldian Power as Omnipresent��������������������������������������������������   15 2.5 Bourdieu’s Analysis of Class������������������������������������������������������������   18 2.6 The Tactics of the Weak in Everyday Practices��������������������������������   21 2.7 Power in the Hidden Transcripts������������������������������������������������������   23 2.8 Carnivalesque as Performative Resistance����������������������������������������   26 2.9 Summary ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   28 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   30 3 Digital Times����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   33 3.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   33 3.2 Digital Culture����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   34 3.2.1 Digital Culture as Participatory and Convergent������������������   34 3.2.2 Politicizing Participation in the Digital Economy����������������   34 3.3 Communication and the Politics of (Digital) Public Spheres ����������   36 3.3.1 Habermas’ Public Sphere������������������������������������������������������   36 3.3.2 Critique of Habermasian Notions of Public Sphere and Deliberation��������������������������������������������������������   37 3.3.3 The Changing Nature of Politics and Communication in Digital Media����������������������������������   38 3.4 Digital Participation: The Performance of Self in an Embodied and Networked Public��������������������������������������������   40 xiii

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3.4.1 Digital Space as an Embodied and Networked Public����������������������������������������������������������   40 3.4.2 Digital Performance and Performativity of Self ������������������   41 3.5 Summary ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   43 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   44 4 Politics and Social Media in Singapore����������������������������������������������������   47 4.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   47 4.2 Ideology of Pragmatism��������������������������������������������������������������������   48 4.3 A Neo-confucian System of Political Rule��������������������������������������   49 4.4 Governance of the City-State: A Shift from Repression to Calibrated Coercion����������������������������������������������������������������������   50 4.5 The Rule of Law and Hegemonic Instrumentality in Curbing Expressions Through Media Platforms��������������������������   50 4.5.1 Press��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   51 4.5.2 Artistic Performances and Films������������������������������������������   52 4.5.3 Cyberspace����������������������������������������������������������������������������   53 4.6 Effects of Calibrated Governance and the Social Cost of Globalization������������������������������������������������������������������������   57 4.7 Online Subpolitical Discourse in Singapore ������������������������������������   59 4.8 Summary ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   62 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   62 5 Carnivalesque as Theoretical Framework����������������������������������������������   67 5.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   67 5.2 Differentiating Authentic from Pseudo-carnivalesque Performances����������������������������������������   69 5.3 Appropriation of Carnivalesque in Cinematic Productions������������������������������������������������������������������   70 5.4 Why the Notion of Carnivalesque as Social Critique Is Problematic with Critical Scholarship����������������������������   72 5.5 Comparative Studies ������������������������������������������������������������������������   73 5.6 Summary ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   74 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   75 6 mrbrown Show: Who Say We Smelly?����������������������������������������������������   77 6.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   77 6.2 Synopsis and Context������������������������������������������������������������������������   78 6.3 Carnivalesque Form��������������������������������������������������������������������������   79 6.3.1 Semiotic Resources in Performing Kim Huat����������������������   79 6.3.2 Semiotic Resources in Representing Anton Casey��������������������������������������������������������������������������   91 6.3.3 Grotesque Realism����������������������������������������������������������������   93 6.4 Carnivalesque Function��������������������������������������������������������������������   94 6.4.1 Critique of Social Concerns��������������������������������������������������   94 6.4.2 Inversion of Social Hierarchies��������������������������������������������   96

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6.4.3 Ambivalent Laughter������������������������������������������������������������   97 6.5 Further Thoughts: mrbrown and His Many Aliases��������������������������  102 6.5.1 Lee Kin Mun: The Private/Public Man��������������������������������  102 Glossary ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  105 Transcript ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  106 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  106 7 Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)��������������������������������������������������������  109 7.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  109 7.2 Synopsis and Context������������������������������������������������������������������������  110 7.3 Carnivalesque Form��������������������������������������������������������������������������  111 7.3.1 Semiotic Resources in Performing Casey and Taxi Driver���������������������������������������������������������������������  111 7.4 Carnivalesque Function��������������������������������������������������������������������  139 7.4.1 Social Critique and the Inversion of Social Hierarchies������������������������������������������������������������  139 7.4.2 Ambivalent Laughter������������������������������������������������������������  141 7.5 Further Thoughts: Dr. Jiajia & BigBro ��������������������������������������������  141 7.6 A Synthesis: Kim Huat, Casey, and Taxi Driver as (Pseudo) Carnivalesque Performance������������������������������������������  143 7.6.1 Carnivalesque Form: Manipulating Semiotic Resources, Grotesque Realism, and Others ����������������������������������������������������������������������������  143 7.6.2 Interrogating Carnivalesque Function����������������������������������  145 Glossary ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  147 Transcription����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  147 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  149 8 Power As Constantly Reconstituting and the Prospects of Carnivalesque Politics ��������������������������������������������������������������������������  151 8.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  151 8.2 Foucauldian Governmentality in Governing Singapore Media Landscape ������������������������������������������������������������  152 8.3 Bourdieusian Cultural Perspective in Understanding Artistic Performances ������������������������������������������  155 8.4 Shifting Power Dynamics in Vernacular Digital Discourses����������������������������������������������������������������������������  157 8.5 Bakhtinian Carnivalesque as Subpolitics and Tool of Social Critique������������������������������������������������������������������������������  159 8.5.1 Carnivalesque as Subpolitics������������������������������������������������  159 8.5.2 Carnivalesque Humor as Tool of Social Critique in Singapore (Says Who?)��������������������������������������  161 8.6 Concluding Remarks������������������������������������������������������������������������  164 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  165

Chapter 1

Power as Performance in the Twenty-First Century Digital Playground

Abstract  The participatory practices in social media are often about the sharing of mediatized contents across networks of social media “friends.” Much of these mediatized contents are appropriations of comedic genres (e.g., satire, slapstick) for the purpose of gaining social approval or acquiring “likes.” In light of this, this chapter first frames a key problematic for this book from the perspective of critical scholarship, which laments the lack of rational dialogue associated with this form of digital participation, thereby masking the urgency for netizens to focus on serious socio-­ political matters that plague our deeply troubled and divisive world. However, as the feminist statement “the personal is political” implies, this chapter subsequently challenges the framing of all comedic acts as apolitical and argues for an interdisciplinary approach to be adopted to examine the performance of power relations associated with comedic contents in social media. In particular, this chapter proposes a discourse analytical approach that could afford the necessary lens to examine discursive sociological manifestations of power relations in the digital economy.

1.1  Introduction The emergence of the Internet has had a profound impact on social life in the twenty-first century. In the context of social media, technological affordances such as meta-tools (e.g., “like,” “share,” and “comments” functions on Facebook) and meta-tagging capability (i.e., hashtag) have enabled new and renewed social connections within networks of social media “friends” (Jenkins, 2009). Also, accessibility to low-cost or free media creation apps has reified the potential to broaden the boundaries of one’s social networks through the sharing and distribution of creative mediatized contents. The flourishing of these digital actions speaks to the nature of the Internet as simultaneously ubiquitous and participatory (Jenkins, 2006). While the sharing of mediatized contents is posited as a form of participatory practice in the social mediascape among cultural studies scholars (Jenkins, 2006), critical scholars have questioned the political resonance in participatory practices such as the posting of curated selfies, constant streaming of Instagram stories, and the creation of mundane Internet memes (Chouliaraki, 2010; Hartley, 2010; Myers, 2010). To understand why these expressions are particularly problematic with

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H.-Y. K. Kan, Digital Carnivalesque, Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2051-8_1

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c­ ritical scholars, we need to understand the aim of Critical Theory, which undergirds contemporary strands of critical scholarships. Critical scholarship is rooted in the Western European Marxist tradition most notably known as the Frankfurt School. In its original formulation, the enterprise of Critical Theory (capitalized when associated with the original meaning) is interested with structural transformation of social hierarchies in capitalist societies for the purpose of “restoring” power to the poor (or “powerless,” “marginalized”) (Horkheimer, 1972). In Critical Theory, the rhetoric of “emancipation from slavery” (Horkheimer, 1972, p. 246) is a famed dictum. Over the decades, Critical Theory has inspired the proliferation of contemporary strands of critical theories. While these various strands are different in the domains of scholarly inquiry (e.g., linguistics, pedagogy, communication, and media studies), they are motivated to uncover unequal power relations in dominant discourses across various social contexts. In the context of social media, critical scholars such as Bennett and Iyengar (2010) have dismissed the deluge of media productions on social mediascape as “entertainment fare” (p. 36), while others have labeled such online performances as a mere narcissistic celebration of the “private, the ordinary, the everyday” (Turner, 2010, p. 22). Invariably, critical researchers argue that the lack of rational dialogue associated with this form of digital participation inevitably deprives media users of the potential for democratic exchanges (Bohman, 2004; Chouliaraki, 2010; Habermas, 2006; Woodly, 2008). In so doing, it masks the real need to have serious conversations about power dynamics. However, situated along “entertainment fare” (Bennett & Iyengar, 2010, p. 36) are contentious mediatized contents that could be potentially socio-political in nature. Examples include YouTube videos that satirize political gaffes and scandals, open letters on WordPress.com that debate aspects of national policies, microblog posts on Twitter and Tumblr where ordinary citizens formulate and share personal responses on various concerns, or even the sharing of media graphics as symbols of resistance for lobbying activities. This social reality invites one to contemplate the following questions: Are all “mundane” media productions merely narcissistic? Do they (implicitly or explicitly) engender political agendas? To problematize the concern further (and deeper), I now discuss the tension as played out in the context of Singapore’s social mediascape. Since its independence 54 years ago, Singapore has been under the political rule of a single political party – the People’s Action Party (PAP). In regulating the civil society, the PAP government has frequently invoked the rhetoric of fear and uncertainty as a way to appeal to the “common sense” of its people to choose social harmony and self-censorship over “socially divisive” notions such as social justice and freedom of speech (George, 2011, September 13). In instances of nonconformity, the Singapore government, who has been known to be litigious and heavy-handed in meting out punishments for retributive and deterrent reasons, would fine-tune its regulatory and policy frameworks as a way to tighten its grip over the young nation. For instance, in a protectionist move to curb and monitor digital expressions, a regulatory amendment was made in 2013 to the country’s Class Licence scheme (MDA, 2014). In addition to stringent requirements to license selective individual journalism blogs and

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­ ebsites, a performance bond of S$50,000 and a mandatory immediate takedown w notice of the news in question by the governmental agency are enforced. And more recently, the controversial Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) Bill was passed in May 2019 to prevent and suppress the circulation of false statements of facts electronically and to counteract the effects of such communication so as to “enhance transparency of online political advertisements, and for related matters” (Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act Bill, 2019). From the perspective of critics in the country-state (Loh, 2013; Vijayan, 2015), and among democratic societies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the west (Amnesty International, 2015; Human Rights Watch, 2019), these political measures are often viewed as infringements upon human rights, especially the right to freedom of expression. Socially, the draconian stance of the incumbent government in response to the critical voices seems to convey the image of the PAP leadership as somewhat straight-laced, formal, and serious in style. Against this backdrop of Singapore’s political scene, the social media presence of Singapore’s incumbent Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, portrays an endearing personality. Lee has an active Facebook presence (Lee, n.d.) (1.2 million followers as of July 5, 2019). Many of the uploaded pictures depict the leader as “one of us” (e.g., queuing in line for meals at a hawker center, taking wefie with community members, family shots). He uses hashtags to discuss both state matters (e.g., #SGCares, #ABCWaters) and causal topics (#justforfun, #jalanjalan). Another PAP leader, Khaw Boon Wan, the former National Development Minister, also maintains an active social media presence through Facebook and WordPress.com. In particular, Khaw has a preference to use blogs (WordPress) as an informal platform to reach out to the citizens in both his former portfolio as Minister of National Development and his current post as Minister of Transport. In these capacities, he uses the blogs to “share some of his thoughts, considerations, and suggestions on issues” pertaining to policies and development in both ministries (https://motsingapore.wordpress.com/about/). In discussing state matters using a social media platform, Khaw moves away from formal discussion of policy matters in traditional and limited forums (e.g., state-sanctioned dailies, parliamentary debates). Lastly, the Member of Parliament, Baey Yam Keng, has been touted as “selfie crush” (Ong, 2013) or PAP Mr. Selfie, due to the public sharing of his private pictures (e.g., working out at the gym, meals with family members, at a cosplay event). In all three examples above, the creation of mediatized contents on social media by public servants could have “softened” the image of the PAP leadership and rendered PAP cadres as “one of us” with netizens. This may impinge on the readiness of ordinary citizens to take a stand on crucial socio-political issues when needed since the lens to differentiate the personal from the official domains becomes murky. More importantly, in light of the party’s generally punitive stance toward the freedom of personal expression both in the traditional and digital domains, this playful and light-hearted engagement with the people through social media appears ironic and questionably exploitative in intent.

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Another example in the context of the island-state involves the online activities of two well-known social media personalities, mrbrown (mrbrown, n.d.) and Dr. Jiajia (Dr Jiajia & BigBro’s Show, n.d.), which calls to question certain social conditions of participation in social media that could not be fully explicated through the lens of critical scholarship. While both personalities are popular in vernacular discourse for their regular contributions of comedic mediatized contents that poke fun at all aspects of social life, including the government, there are also collaborative works between these social media personalities and various state agencies and corporate sponsors for economic benefits. For instance, mrbrown represented the National Environment Agency (NEA) in a video against dengue fever in Do the Mozzie Wipeout! (mrbrown, 2014), while Dr. Jiajia represented the National Environment Agency (NEA) in a campaign video, Simi Tray Return, to promote cleanliness and personal responsibility at hawker centers (Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show, 2013). In these examples, the seemingly ambivalent state of social relationship between these social media personalities and state agencies seems to involve a rather strategic tinkering of “entertainment fare” (Bennett & Iyengar, 2010, p. 36) on their part to achieve political agendas. In short, despite the appearance of frivolity, it is questionable if social media acts that have been labeled as “entertainment fare” (Bennett & Iyengar, 2010, p. 36) are entirely apolitical in nature (Loader & Mercea, 2011). As the feminist statement “the personal is political” implies, some of the mediatized acts may be imbued with an element of moral resistance, which is often a way of speaking out against certain social or political concerns that ensue (Campbell, 2011; Gardiner, 2004). In sum, because comedic acts do not appear as potentially political in the way they are enacted, they are often dismissed as mundane, frivolous, or inconsequential to the formulation of political thought (Chouliaraki, 2010; Myers, 2010). In the examples illustrated thus far, it is evident that traditional boundaries that once divided the powerful and the powerless seem to have shifted. Evidently, the blurring of the boundaries surfaces a concern in the way critical scholarship problematizes power relations using social theories and frameworks that were in response to different sets of socio-political realities (i.e., offline twentieth century). Accordingly, there is therefore a need to reimagine new conceptual lenses, or retool existing ones used in traditional offline contexts, in order to examine these complex issues in a more nuanced manner.

1.2  Studying Dimensions of Power in Online Discourse Currently, there is a dearth of literature that researches power relations in vernacular digital discourses as simultaneously top-down and bottom-up. In this aspect, critical scholarship has been faulted for focusing wholly on the examination of power inequality in dominant discourses (van Dijk, 1998). In this respect, a discourse analytical approach that affords the lens to examine discursive sociological manifestations of power relations in the digital economy is needed.

1.3  Roadmap of the Book

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In light of the new and highly complex social reality as foregrounded above, this book investigates the performance of power relations associated with comedic YouTube mediatized contents in Singapore. In particular, the focus is timely given the role of social media in shaping socio-political opinions in Singapore’s political terrain since the general election (GE) in 2006. In popular discourse, GE2006 was often termed the Internet election, GE2011 was the social media election, and GE2015 was described as “not the Internet” (Lim, 2011; Yeo, 2011). Clearly, the aspect of “digital” has a pivotal place in Singapore’s (sub)political discourse. Perhaps what is less clear, at this point, is the extent and mode of influence that the “digital” exerts or has in this respect.

1.3  Roadmap of the Book In order to examine contemporary power relations in the digital economy, I begin with an examination of classical theories on power in Chap. 2. In this respect, the scholarship I examine can be categorized into two groups. In the first category, I examine Marx and Engel’s (1848/1967) classification of economic power as class struggle between the state (and bourgeoisie) and the proletariat. I then examine Gramsci’s (1995) invaluable contribution in the form of cultural hegemony, which affords a less explicitly instrumental notion of power as compared to Marx and Engel’s (1848/1967). Finally, Foucault’s (1964/2006) work on power is discussed. While Foucault’s (1964/2006) theorization of power differs from Marx and Engel’s (1848/1967) and Gramsci’s (1995) in that power is fluid and transferable, it is, nonetheless, a theorization that is bounded in terms of relationships between distinct groups of actors: the state, the bourgeoisie, and the proletariat. In the next set of theoretical scholarship, I discuss Bourdieu’s (1977), de Certeau’s (1984), Scott’s (1990), and Bakhtin’s (1965) contributions to power theories. Power is framed differently for scholars in this category. In the first instance, there is a movement away from the examination of power that is tied to macrostructures. In Bourdieu’s (1977) theorization, power is positioned as symbolic. In his theorization, capital, habitus, and field are concepts that Bourdieu uses to explicate power sociologically. Both de Certeau (1984) and Scott (1990) examine power relations from the lens of the marginalized in everyday discourses. Not unlike de Certeau and Scott, Bakhtin’s (1965) postulation of carnivalesque focuses on power as a resistive force among the marginalized in medieval carnivals. However, unlike the two scholars, Bakhtin’s carnivalesque offers a form of resistance that is euphoric and ambivalent. By juxtaposing “opposing” scholarly strands on the theme of power in this chapter, we can now begin to appreciate a more integrative framing of power within various social contexts in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (i.e., top-down, down-up, and lateral). While this reframing adds to extant knowledge about major themes, movement, and performativity of power, the social realities in the bygone eras cannot adequately inform readers of contemporary issues that have reconstituted the display of

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power in the twenty-first century. A game changer in this sense is the emergence of the Internet that has unequivocally reshaped the world today. Given the different social conditions of the digital epoch that have contributed to shifting constructions of power relations in the twenty-first century, I next examine the relevant scholarship in Chap. 3. I begin with Jenkins’ (1992) notion of participatory culture that was originally used to describe American fandom in the later part of the twentieth century as a way to draw parallel to the prospect of the Internet being participatory in nature too. Jenkins (2006) examines the convergence of spaces in multiple domains (e.g., new and old media, current and old technologies) to underscore the aspect of cultural diversity that comes with the digital economy. However, convergence in the digital sphere does not imply egalitarianism. Often, partnerships between commercial and grassroots content creators is imbricated in personal and profit agendas. This further accentuates how the emergence of the digital era has indeed created new social dynamics that have not only reframed social relations but have also reshaped sociocultural practices in the twenty-first century. One such dominant practice that I question in this book is the relevance of deliberative rhetoric as the quintessential mode of public communication in the digital era. In this respect, I first review Habermas’ (1989, 2006) theorization of communicative rationality or deliberative rhetoric as paramount and exclusive in the generation of critical conversations in a dedicated space that is to be marked as public sphere. Next, I critique the conception of Habermasian public sphere as inherently class and gender biased (Eley, 1987; Landes, 1988; Fraser, 1990), and I question also the role of deliberative rhetoric as the quintessential model for critical conversations (Roberts & Crossley, 2004). Given the limitations of critical scholarship in examining the newer social conditions that are associated with digital culture, I turn to the scholarship of new media to broaden the perspective and understanding of digital participation. As opposed to the construction of Habermas’ (1989) public sphere, boyd (2006) conceptualizes digital space as one that is embodied and networked. In this space, digital users are interested in the performance of multiple selves (Berman & Bruckman, 2001; Davies, 2004) through various social media network sites (SNS). In order to understand the notion of performance, I briefly review Goffman’s (1959) work on the theory of performance. While Goffman’s work offers insights into the theatricalization of social realities, it does not focus on the prospect of performance as political. In this aspect, I turn to Austin’s (1963) theorization on speech-act theory as well as Derrida’s (1988) and Butler’s (1993, 1999) additions to Austin’s original work. Accumulatively, these scholars illuminate the concept of performativity that hinges on the potentiality of utterances being activated (Austin, 1963). How does this inform us about the theme of power in the twenty-first century? In today’s digital culture, I propose the nature of power as both performance and performative. In Chap. 4, I trace the ideological and political development of Singapore’s recent history and its impact on shaping the country’s social media landscape. The only ruling party in the island-state, the People’s Action Party (PAP), values social and political conformity and has governed the country from an ideological position of pragmatism since its independence some 54  years ago. In this section, I pay

References

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p­ articular attention to the way the incumbent government curbs freedom of speech by regulating the media space through a series of legislative measures. In the highly regulated mediascape, there appears to be a burgeoning of (sub)political acts that are often light-hearted and comedic in nature (Sreekumar & Vadrevu, 2013). In Chap. 5, I introduce Bahktin’s (1965) concept of carnivalesque as the central theoretical framework for the presentation and analysis of two mediatized works in Chaps. 6 and 7. Since the interest of this book is to interrogate the performativity of politics in comedic video productions, carnivalesque is proposed given its attendant orientation toward comedic performances as resistive. In this regard, I examine the appropriation of carnivalesque in four cinematic productions so as to separate salient attributes of carnivalesque into two strands: form and function. Form refers to performing features or rhetorical tropes that enable the performances of comedy within carnivalesque discourse, while function refers to various aspects of the performance that index the resistive qualities of carnivalesque. Thereafter, I introduce the comparative studies of this book, which are two Singapore-based comedic videos, before mapping out an analytical plan that distinguishes comedies that are potentially subpolitical from comedies that are hegemonic in nature. In Chaps. 6 and 7, I present two video productions by two well-known Singaporean social media personalities mrbrown and Dr. Jiajia & BigBro, respectively, on a social issue that rattled Singaporeans in 2014. Through the analyses done using the approach set out in Chap. 5, I further comment on the distinction between more authentic carnivalesque performances from those that hijack carnivalesque discourse for banal entertainment purposes. In the final chapter, I return the discussion to the framing of power in the twenty-­ first century as constantly reconstituting, and I question the prospect of carnivalesque politics in today’s political climate and in conservative Singapore.

References Amnesty International. (2015). Singapore human rights. Amnesty International. Retrieved from http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/singapore Austin, J.  L. (1963). Performative-constative (G.  J. Warnock, Trans.). In C.  E. Caton (Ed.), Philosophy and ordinary language (pp. 22–54). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Bakhtin, M. (1965). Rabelais and his world (H. Iswolsky, Trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Bennett, W.  L., & Iyengar, S. (2010). The shifting foundations of political communication: Responding to a defense of the media effects paradigm. Journal of Communication, 60(1), 35–39. Berman, J., & Bruckman, A. (2001). The turing game: Exploring identity on an online environment. Convergence, 7(3), 83–102. Bohman, J. (2004). Expanding dialogue: The internet, the public sphere, and prospects for transnational democracy. The Sociological Review, 52(1), 131–155. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. boyd, D. (2006). A blogger’s blog: Exploring the definition of a medium. Reconstruction, 6(4). Retrieved from https://www.danah.org/papers/ABloggersBlog.pdf

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Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Campbell, E. (2011). The cultural politics of justice: Bakhtin, stand-up comedy, and post-9/11 securitization. Theoretical Criminology, 15(2), 159–177. Chouliaraki, L. (2010). Self-mediation: New media and citizenship. Critical Discourse Studies, 7(4), 227–232. Davies, J. (2004). Negotiating femininities online. Gender and Education, 16(1), 35–49. de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Derrida, J. (1988). Limited Inc (S. Weber, Trans.). Evanston, IL: University of Chicago Press. Dr Jiajia & BigBro’s Show (Producer/Director). (2013, May 16). Simi tray return [Online video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GydouqZSm1o Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show (Producer/Director). (n.d.). YouTube. Retrieved from https://www. youtube.com/user/liangjiasun/about Eley, G. (1987). Nations, publics, and political cultures: Placing Habermas in the nineteenth century. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 289–339). Cambridge: MIT Press. Foucault, M. (1964/2006). History of madness (J. Khalfa, Ed., J. Murphy & J. Khalfa, Trans.). London: Routledge. Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text, 25/26, 56–80. Gardiner, M. (2004). Wild publics and grotesque symposiums: Habermas, Bakhtin on dialogue, everyday life, and the public sphere. The Sociological Review, 52(1), 28–48. George, C. (2011, September 13). Covering a changing political landscape: The challenge for national media. Journalism.SG. Retrieved from http://journalism.sg/2011/09/13/ reporting-elections Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Penguin. Gramsci, A. (1995). Further selections from the prison notebooks (D. Boothman, Ed. and Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (2006). Political communication in media society: Does democracy still enjoy an epistemic dimension? The impact of normative theory on empirical research. Communication Theory, 16, 411–426. Hartley, J. (2010). Silly citizenship. Critical Discourse Studies, 7(4), 233–248. Horkheimer, M. (1972). Critical theory. New York: Seabury Press. Human Rights Watch (2019). Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/ country-chapters/singapore#73fccc Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual poachers: Television and participatory culture. New York: Routledge. Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press. Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Landes, J. B. (1988). Women and the public sphere in the age of the French Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Lee, H.  L. (n.d.). Facebook. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/leehsienloong/ photos_stream Lim, C. (2011, May 9). How GE 2011 proved me – oh, so wonderfully! – wrong. Catherinelim. sg: Political commentaries on Singapore. Retrieved from http://catherinelim.sg/2011/05/09/ how-ge-2011-proved-me-oh-so-wonderfully-wrong Loader, B.  D., & Mercea, D. (2011). Networking democracy? Information, Communication, & Society, 14(6), 757–769.

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Loh, A. (2013, April 23). S’pore cartoonist arrested for alleged sedition. Yahoo News Singapore. Retrieved from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/pore-cartoonist-arrestedalleged-sedition-143415161.html Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848/1967). The communist manifesto. New York: Penguin. Media Development Authority. (2014). Internet Service & Content Provider Class Licence. Media Development Authority. Retrieved from http://www.mda.gov.sg/RegulationsAndLicensing/ Licences/Pages/InternetServiceAndContentProviderClassLicence.aspx mrbrown. (n.d.). mrbrown. Retrieved from http://www.mrbrown.com/about.html mrbrown (Producer/Director). (2014, May 12). Do the mozzie wipeout! [Online video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03xmbuy2PTg Myers, G. (2010). Stance-taking and public discussion in blogs. Critical Discourse Studies, 7(4), 263–275. Ong, Y. (2013, August 14). MP Baey Yam Keng: I am surprised and flattered by the interest in my selfies. The Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/ singapore/story/mp-baey-yam-keng-i-am-surprised-and-flattered-the-interest-my-selfies Roberts, J., & Crossley, N. (2004). Introduction. The Sociological Review, 52(1), 1–27. Scott, J. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sreekumar, T. T., & Vadrevu, S. (2013). Subpolitics and democracy: The role of new media in the 2011 General Election in Singapore. Science, Technology, & Society, 18(2), 231–249. Turner, G. (2010). Ordinary people and the media: The demotic turn. London: SAGE. van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. London: SAGE. Vijayan, K. C. (2015, January 22). Blogger Alex Au found guilty of court contempt for one of two articles. The Sunday Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/ courts-crime/story/blogger-alex-au-found-guilty-court-contempt-one-two-articles-20150 Woodly, D. (2008). New competencies in democratic communication? Blogs, agenda, and political participation. Public Choice, 134, 109–123. Yeo,A. (2011, May 11). 5 ways social media has impacted the Singapore General Election. TechinAsia. Retrieved from https://www.techinasia.com/social-mediasingapore-general-election

Chapter 2

Power

Abstract  Given the complexity in unpacking the diverse expressions of power that is enmeshed in/through digital cultural production in the twenty-first century, a discipline-­bounded approach alone to understanding the nature of power is inadequate. What is needed is a review of key classical works on power so as to propose a unified understanding of power that evidences the robust nature of power more precisely. With this in place, the systematic empirical examination of digital power performance, which is the aim of this book, is then plausible. Accordingly, this chapter reviews and synthesizes key classical works that contribute to the theorizations of power from two major scholarly strands, critical scholarship and cultural studies. While the first strand contains authoritative works that have shaped, if not provided, the social theoretical underpinnings of contemporary critical discourse scholarship (i.e., (neo)Marxist perspectives of power as top-down), the second strand focuses on more culturally oriented conceptualizations of power as relational and nuanced. Collectively, the coalescence of these significant bodies of knowledges affords an understanding of power that is constantly reconstituting against the enduring backdrop of class conflict in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe. Thus, this sets the necessary foundation for the examination of digital power performance in the twenty-first century in subsequent chapters in this book.

2.1  Introduction In light of the complex workings of power in the twenty-first-century digital vernacular discourse as foregrounded in Chap. 1, there is a need to retool existing lenses to examine newer social phenomena in a more nuanced yet incisive manner. As such, this chapter takes the first step in this direction with the review of select authoritative works from two scholarly strands that contribute to the theorizations of power. The first strand contains significant works that have shaped, if not provided, the social theoretical underpinnings of contemporary critical discourse scholarship. In this regard, these works offer theories of power that are underpinned by (neo) Marxist perspectives of power as top-down and rooted in antagonistic relationships between the rulers and the ruled. A review of these classical works is necessary as a backdrop to formulating a fundamental problematic for this project: that critical discourse scholarship’s focus on power as domination (Fairclough, 1995) cannot © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H.-Y. K. Kan, Digital Carnivalesque, Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2051-8_2

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account for the complex ways in which power is enmeshed in/through digital cultural production. The theoretical works reviewed in this strand include Marx and Engel’s (1848/1967) theory of power as class conflict, Gramsci’s (1995) notion of cultural hegemony, and various theorizations of power by Foucault (1980), including that of disciplinary power, bio-power, and governmentality. The second strand contains more culturally oriented conceptualizations of power as relational and nuanced. While works in this strand have found much less resonance within critical discourse scholarship, they have been quite central in understanding power as circulating through cultural systems of meaning-making. Their review is therefore necessary as they provide a foundation for examining the complex workings of power empirically in the digital epoch in the context of this book. Works in the second strand include Bourdieu’s (1977) cultural reproduction of class through the instrumentality of capitals, de Certeau’s (1984) and Scott’s (1990) accounts of power as resistance, and Bakhtinian’s (1965) carnivalesque as an expression of power among the masses. Based on the coalescence of both bodies of knowledges, it appears that while power was constantly reconstituting against the backdrop of social conditions in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe, humanity could not escape the perennial theme of class conflict as evidenced in all accounts of power struggles in literature. What are the implications of this in the context of twenty-first-century performative digital economy where power holders are not just tech conglomerates or politicians (bourgeoises equivalent in the twenty-first century) but digital content creators, distributors, and social media personalities as well? Before I examine these implications in the empirical context of two Singapore-made YouTube videos in Chapters 6 and 7, it is necessary to first understand the authoritative underpinnings of power theorizations.

2.2  Marxist Theory of Power Classical power theory is grounded in the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and views power as encased in the social relations of production. Since material resources are scarce, power to control resources is therefore also limited to those who control both resources and production. Accordingly, the aim of Marx’s theory of power was to liberate the ruled (proletariat) from the unequal power relationship exerted upon them by the rulers (bourgeoisie) (Marx & Engels, 1848/1967). Consequently, this led to the doctrinal construction of Communism, which frames the establishment of a classless society as a necessary development of social consciousness against unequal power relations (Marx, 1867/1990; Marx & Engels, 1848/1967). In the Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx & Engels, 1848/1967), the authors purported that all written history “is the history of class struggles” (p. 14). This claim rests on the premise that throughout history, “class antagonisms” exist

2.3  Gramscian Hegemony

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and are constantly sustained by efforts of the socially powerful through the creation of “new classes, new conditions of oppression, (and) new forms of struggle” (p. 14). In the Manifesto, the “two great hostile camps” (p. 15) were the bourgeoisie and proletariat. Bourgeoisie refers to “the class of capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor” (p. 14), while proletariat refers to “the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live” (p.  14). The class struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat is clearly articulated in terms of the labor-power tension that Marx postulated (Marx, 1867/1990). Marx (1867/1990) posits that in the creation of commodities, the bourgeoisie appropriates labor for its tangible or concrete character while alienating its intangible and abstract character for the sole consideration of profits. This critical construction of labor in terms of power relations (labor-power) contrasts significantly with the utilitarian perspective of classical economic thinkers such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo who advocated a laissez-faire framework in assigning the value of labor (labor-time) (Smith, 1997). Why then would the proletariat give consent to the bourgeoisie in the formulation of an unequal power relationship that disadvantages them? In this aspect, Marx and Engels (1848/1967) postulate that the consciousness of individuals under the political economy is manipulated so that the perception of one’s oppressive and powerless condition is perceived as natural and rational. They further elaborated that “consciousness can never be anything else than conscious being, and the being of man is their actual life process.” In other words, since the common experience of humans throughout history has been a consistent narrative of class struggles as realized in different forms, it is therefore seemingly natural for humans to accept the exploitative conditions as the way things have always been. In contemporary critical scholarship, this notion of consciousness as existing in the “misty realm” (Marx, 1867/1990) of one’s mental construction is often referred to as “false consciousness” (Mumby, 1988, p. 74). In this context, Gramsci’s (1995) notion of hegemony is illuminating in explicating the ways of domination as acting upon the (false) consciousness of the masses.

2.3  Gramscian Hegemony While the theorization of power as rooted in class struggle could be attributed to Marx and Engels (1848/1967), the notion of cultural hegemony, or the ways of dominance in capitalist societies through the use of cultural institutions, is often credited to the works of Gramsci (1995), a key Italian Marxist theoretician and politician. In a series of writings, also known as Prison Notebooks, produced while Gramsci was imprisoned by the Italian fascist regime, he expanded on the theorization of power maintenance in civil society based on his observation of power structures in capitalist states after World War I (Fairclough, 1995).

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Gramsci’s (1995) theorization of cultural hegemony is located within an ethico-­ political system that has an economic base for hegemonic structures to be realized in the new socialist society. An ethico-political system is a political system of rule that is founded on the basis of a civil society. It is defined as follows: While ethical refers to the activity of civil society, to hegemony, political refers to state-­ governmental initiative and coercion. (p. 372)

In other words, in ruling a society, dictatorship or repression in the political realm (e.g., coercion through military force) and hegemony in the civil society (i.e., cultural and moral leadership in various aspects of civil society) are constructed as complementary in Gramsci’s view. Dictatorship is constructed as necessary in the initial phases of any socio-political transformation. Once a young society enters into a phase of relative acceptance of the new rule by the people, cultural hegemony becomes the invisible tool in sustaining conformity from the masses. The economic base as the platform in exacting hegemonic rule is defined as follows: Economic rationalization brings with it a standardization not only of products but of ways of thinking, of behavior and of intellectual response to society: in short it helps create a new hegemony. (p. li)

Using the capitalist examples of Americanism and Fordism, Gramsci expounded on false consciousness that manipulates the universal appeal of a shared cultural ethos (e.g., self-discipline, productivity, patience) to create “a new hegemony” (p. li). As evident from Ford’s model of economic pragmatism, the promises of higher wage (in exchange for hard work) and car ownership (an outcome of lower cost of production because of workers’ increased productivity) were instrumental in ensuring workers’ sustained productivity on the assembly floor. In short, the key factor in the success of Fordism as exemplified in this case was the certainty that the promises made by the management could be fulfilled. Based on this belief, the underclass was willing to conform to dominant ideals seemingly for their own self-interests. The focus on cultural ethos is an essential point in Gramsci’s formulation of hegemony as the notion of hope for greater social mobility must be perceived as “attainable” for the (relatively) powerless. Consequently, without this sense of hope, hegemony, or false consciousness, as a political tool in the rule of civil society, is unsustainable. Gramsci’s notion of cultural hegemony is perhaps best understood in his own words: The question is posed of whether it may be possible to create a ‘conformism’, a collective man without creating ‘taboos’: in short, critically, as the consciousness of necessity, freely accepted because it is recognized in practice as such, through an accurate estimation of the means and ends to be brought into line with each other, etc. (p. 274)

In other words, for cultural hegemony to succeed, two factors have to be met. Firstly, the individual must remain unawaken to the state of his or her self-subjugation. As the conditions of repression are objectified as truth, or as “the way things are,” compliance with these standards becomes a natural response. Secondly, in order for the individual to remain in this state of “slumber,” society as a collective

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whole must be artificially awakened. This is achieved when the state actively upholds the conditions of oppression as sacred. In critical scholarship, the discussion on cultural hegemony as a tool of domination cannot be separated from the notion of ideology. In the critical formulation of ideology, it is viewed as a systematic framework to maintain unequal power relations that privileges one social group over another. According to Wodak (2001), the purpose of ideology is in establishing and maintaining unequal power relations by means of social structures that are artificially constructed by those who have power. Similarly, Fairclough (2006) considers ideologies as “one modality of power” (p. 23) that legitimates unequal power relations in the practice of everyday life. Accordingly, the notion of false consciousness foregrounds the aspect of ideology as distorted, illusory, and therefore false (Mumby, 1988). This view contrasts with the socio-cognitive view, often adopted by cultural studies scholars, that describes ideology as reflecting “the only reality that a social group knows by virtue of their positioning in a social structure” (p. 73). According to the critical tradition, this perspective is problematic as it undermines the real concerns of the powerless across societies that are marginalized by unequal power relations in everyday practices (Fairclough, 1995; Wodak, 2001). In Gramsci’s (1995) cultural hegemony, the “domination of consciousness” (Mumby, 1988, p. 73) is sustained ideologically in everyday discourses through the banal acceptance of social practices as “the way things are.” This perspective of practices as “universal and commonsensical” (Fairclough, 2001, p. 27) becomes a critical tool of the powerful in ensuring conformity from the masses (or powerless) through the production of their tacit “consent or at least acquiescence” (Fairclough, 2006, p. 23). Against this backdrop, the uncovering and critiquing of realizations of hegemonic ideologies in dominant discourses thus becomes the focus of critical discourse scholarship dedicated to revealing the everyday working of dominant power in society.

2.4  Foucauldian Power as Omnipresent Michel Foucault, one of the most prominent twentieth-century thinkers, remains an important figure in shaping contemporary thinking about power as a constitutive aspect of society. Foucault is often associated with the two successive waves of structuralist and post-structuralist movements in Europe during the 1960s and 1970s. While this was an association that sat uncomfortably with Foucault; it might have signaled, to some extent, the shift in Foucault’s own postulation of power from one that is enmeshed in “historical knowledges” (Foucault, 2003, p. 10) to one that is ubiquitous, fluid, and tactical, as evident in his later writings. Foucault takes his point of departure in the theorization of power from contemporary conceptions of Marxist theory of power, which is grounded in economic rationality and preoccupied with the expansion of a material power base as a measure of power. Accordingly, power is constructed not only as concrete but also as a

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possession and a right that belongs to the bourgeoisie to be enacted upon or withheld from the working class for the ultimate purpose of wealth accumulation. In this Marxist conception, power is always repressive, pessimistic, unidimensional, and distinctively rooted in the perennial class divide that exists in all human societies. One of Foucault’s main contentions with Marxist conception of power is its form. Foucault’s (1980) definition of power is one that flows and circulates and not one that is necessarily represented materially nor is it only static. In his words: power is employed and exercised through a net-like organization. And not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power. They are not only its inert or consenting targets; they are always the elements of its articulation. In other words, individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application. (p. 98)

This view of power focuses on the implicit manifestations of power that interweave throughout all human interactions in society. While each manifestation seeks to commodify aspects of sociocultural life, the “capillary” (p. 39) form of power has immense potentials in casting a far-reaching and indelible imprint of power on both individuals and the social body alike. Another of Foucault’s (2000) contentions with Marxist construction of power is the tacit presence of freedom or agency in Foucauldian formulation of power that propels individuals to be “vehicles of power, not its points of application” (Foucault, 1980, p. 98) in all power situations. In so far as power is framed as a “mode of action upon the actions of others” (Foucault, 2000, p. 341), individuals have the freedom to respond (i.e., to resist or to be dominated) from being acted upon. Foucault characterizes provocative responses toward expressions of power as “the recalcitrance of the will” (p. 342) not to be restrained. In a Foucauldian perspective, this notion of resistance should not be naively and simplistically aligned with western conception of resistance, which underpins the concept of revolution as we understand it today. Instead, Foucault (1990) attests in The History of Sexuality (Vol. 1) to the dialectical tension that exists between power and (the plurality of) resistance(s)  – “where there is power, there is resistance” (p. 95). In this sense, the tendency to resist, albeit in varying intensity, is a natural condition of a social being. As such, depending on the disposition that individuals take toward being acted upon, an outright revolt may represent a form of extreme agentic expression, while total compliance, on the other hand, may imply an attitude of acquiescence or perhaps consensus to being dominated. From the above, it therefore stands to reason that if “power is everywhere” (Foucault, 1990, p. 93) in social life, Marxist theorization of power as always repressive and unidimensional in the exertion of power (i.e., bourgeoisie as powerful and the proletariat as powerless) is perhaps underdeveloped (Foucault, 2003). Foucault too confesses to his earlier development on the theory of power within the “struggle-­ repression schema” (p. 17) as “insufficiently elaborated” (p. 17). For example, in Foucault’s (1964/2006) first publication, History of Madness, he examined bourgeois rationality employed to justify the confinement of the outcasts (e.g., vagrants, lepers, prostitutes) in institutions across Europe in the mid-seventeenth century

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while keeping silent on discursive practices of marginalization that could have been interrogated as mechanisms of power to discipline and regulate behaviors of outcasts living within and without confinement. Additionally, Foucault (1980) posits that the exercise of power is premised upon the “production of truth” (p. 93) and the concept of right. Both these elements legitimate the actions of the power holder within the “struggle-repression schema” (Foucault, 2003, p.  17) in favor of the dominant. According to Foucault (1980), truth and rights are socially fabricated realities that serve the purpose of subjugating individuals for the purpose of control. As such, they should not be principles upon which a Foucauldian construction of power is established. Instead, Foucault (2003) equates power metaphorically to the notion of war since power (like that of war) is undergirded by the notions of antagonism and tension. Thus, Foucault posits that contemporary mechanisms of power are less explicit realizations of the warring reality that recurs in everyday life. In shifting the focus of power investigation away from explicit state apparatuses in the likes of “censorship, exclusion, blockage and repression” (Foucault, 1980, p.  59), Foucault is not repudiating the superstructural dominance of the state to exact conformity through repressive measures. Yet, to merely interrogate power as repressive tactics is delimiting the potentials of power as endemic in civil society. As such, the bigger project that preoccupied Foucault was the interrogation of the “new economy of power” (p.  119) that is “at once continuous, uninterrupted, adapted and individualized” (p. 119) in its movements to discipline and establish control in everyday life. In this aspect, Foucault (2003) was especially intrigued by the mechanisms of power in and its effects on the social world and the dialectical relationship between power and knowledge. Foucault (1980) defines the relationship between power and knowledge as one that is mutually profitable. Invariably, in the exercise of power, new knowledge is constantly created. Cumulatively, these bodies of knowledge serve the purpose of power to embolden its effects to subjugate its subjects more permanently. Leveraging on the potentials of knowledge as both a tool and enabler of power relations, Foucault argues that the objectification of human beings into subjects since the seventeenth century is essentially established through the actions of “disciplinary power” (p. 36) and “bio-power” (p. 186). Discipline is a mechanism of power that seeks to coerce the individual body to conform to conventional standards of bourgeois morality, while bio-power seeks to do the same to the collective population through regulation (Foucault, 1980). In The History of Sexuality, Foucault (1990) exemplifies these two mechanisms of power. Using the confessional and the corresponding admission of guilt as an example of disciplinary power, the practices of surveillance are called upon to normalize and reinforce sexual conduct according to the teachings of the Church. Similarly, the management and regulation of demographic characteristics (e.g., mortality rates) as an expression of bio-power fosters the collective consensus of the population toward the objectives of the state. In addition to the construction of power as both disciplinary and bio-politics, a third dimension of power, governmentality, emerged in Foucault’s (2000) later writ-

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ings. In Foucault’s lecture series on Security, Territory, Population, Foucault (2007) further describes the concept of governmentality in three parts: first, “the ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses, reflections, calculations, and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population”; second, it is “the tendency that, over a long period and throughout the West, has steadily led to the pre-eminence over all the other forms (sovereignty, discipline and so on) of this type of power, which may be termed ‘government’”; and third, it embodies the process that the administration of the state is transformed or “becomes governmentalized” (p. 108). In short, governmentality is as much an “art of government” (Foucault, 2000, p. 207) as well as rationality in governing. In praxis, to ensure continuity in implicit state control, the ideal channels of government in civil society (e.g., self-government, government of the family unit) should replicate the role of the state apparatus in the transmission of a shared ethos and sanctioned codes of conduct. In order to foster this ideological alignment across different government vessels, the state appeals to its populace on the principle of rationality that is embodied in the specific reality as realized in different discursive practices. In this way, the spread of state control radiates in an upward (e.g., from the family unit to the workplace) and downward manner (e.g., from the state to the family) throughout the hierarchies of government channels in civil society. Foucault describes the movement of state control downward to the unit of the family as an “economy” (p. 207). Accordingly, the infusion of the economy in the practice of politics gives shape to the notion of “political economy” (p. 218) as a form of government, which is often associated with the running of neoliberal capitalist states today. In sum, it appears clear that while Foucault (1980) did not repudiate repression as a mechanism of power, his intellectual project lies in explicating the shifting forms of dominant power as it circulates within civil society. However, as much as Foucault’s intention was to distance himself from Marxist association, his theorization of power could not escape Marx’s framing of power struggle between the three historical entities: the state, bourgeoisie, and proletariat.

2.5  Bourdieu’s Analysis of Class Bourdieu’s (1977) main contribution to social science scholarship is his theory of practice that transcends the binary perspective of objectivism and subjectivism, which often divides sociology. In his theorization, Bourdieu adopts a “generative principle” (p. 78) that examines the agency of individuals (i.e., agents) within the confines of social structures. Within this framework, a dialectic exists between structure and agency that constantly (re)constitutes the embodiment and representation of the other. This recurring theme of tension between structure and agency in practical life is thus the focus of Bourdieu’s intellectual project. Two key concepts, field and habitus, are central in Bourdieu’s theory of practice. These concepts are supported by related concepts such as doxa, forms of capital

2.5  Bourdieu’s Analysis of Class

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(e.g., economic, cultural, and symbolic capital), misrecognition, and symbolic ­violence. To understand the concept of field, one needs to imagine society as a system that is made up of relationships, social structures, and multidimensional spaces of interaction (Bourdieu, 1990). These social spaces are fields. Fields can be represented materially in the form of institutions or socially in the form of social groups; and they interact with other fields to weave into larger fields that are hierarchically arranged. Fields have their own internal logics that are premised upon a system of objective relations. These objective relations “structure practice and representations of practice” (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 3), and their realities are “independent of individual consciousness and wills” (p. 4). An example is how grammar rules function as modus operandi in language practices. Bourdieu also formulates such internal logics as stakes that agents within the field jostle for greater power representation. This is because power is limited, and agents will seek to improve on or defend their current power positions. As such, power struggles are in a constant flux to “transform or conserve the fields of forces” (Bourdieu, 1983, p. 312). In the earlier example on the functionality of grammar in structuring language practices, the mastery of grammar rules is as much a stake for students sitting for an English national examination as it is for an English teacher. While the fields in question are different (i.e., students in the examination field and teacher in the field of trained English practitioners), both social entities have to meet objective standards set up within the respective fields in order to secure more powerful positions (e.g., admission to a good school or professional recognition). Further, within each field, doxa, or unquestioned rules of the (field) game, exists to foster the perspective of how things should be performed among agents, respectively (Bourdieu, 1977). In the previous example, doxa could be accepted codes of conduct for both the students and the teacher in a classroom. Just as structures in fields are socially and culturally reproduced over time, agents are themselves products of cultural and social reproduction. Bourdieu (1990) explains this social phenomenon in terms of habitus, which are: systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them. (p. 53)

Agents have their own habitus. As argued by Bourdieu, a habitus is a set of dispositions acquired from one’s learned associations with objective relations in the social world. It is also built upon one’s personal history, which informs his or her subjective position(s) toward objective structures as set up in the field. In addition, habitus is also operative “below the level of consciousness and language, beyond the reach of introspective scrutiny or control by the will” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 468). Bourdieu describes such dispositions as “automatic gestures or…techniques of the body” (p. 468). However, habitus is not a static concept, and it is constantly reconstituted whenever agents compete for more significant power positions (Bourdieu,

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1977) within any particular field. In such a situation, agents turn to reserves or resources that they have accumulated in order to improve their prospect in the power game. In Bourdieu’s terminology (1986), resources are referred to as capital. According to Bourdieu, “capital is accumulated labor” (p. 46). A common form of capital, which is often associated with Marxian thought, is constructed in the economic sense and can be either in a materialized or in an embodied state. In either case, economic capital when amassed over time has the capacity to generate further economic gains for those who possess it. There is also the notion of cultural capital, which functions differently from economic capital in fostering opportunities for social mobility: Cultural capital can exist in three forms: in the embodied state, i.e., in the form of long-­ lasting dispositions of the mind and body; in the objectified state, in the form of cultural goods (pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments, machines, etc.), which are the trace or realization of theories or critiques of these theories, problematics, etc.; and in the institutionalized state, a form of objectification which must be set apart because, as will be seen in the case of educational qualifications, it confers entirely original properties on the cultural capital which it is presumed to guarantee. (p. 47)

Using the example of the academic market, Bourdieu argues how the educational system contributes to “the reproduction of the social structure by sanctioning the hereditary transmission of cultural capital” (p. 48) invested by adults in the family who are cognizant of the capital of scholastic achievement as an investment tool. On the other hand, symbolic capital is culturally specific attributes such as that of prestige, honor, status, or authority (Bourdieu, 1977). While symbolic capital may be materialized (e.g., dress sense, style), its contribution to the reproduction of power relations lies in its misrecognition by holders of symbolic capital. In not acknowledging or naming a symbolic capital as one, it becomes an open secret that is held within the strata of the dominant class: Symbolic capital, a transformed and thereby disguised form of physical “economic” capital, produces its proper effect inasmuch, and only inasmuch, as it conceals the fact that it originates in “material” forms of capital which are also, in the last analysis, the source of its effects. (p. 183)

In short, the accumulation of capital enriches habitus, which in turn empower agents to compete more successfully for limited power positions within a specific sociocultural field. While not all forms of capital are equally regarded as efficacious across different cultural contexts, they can be converted from one form to another so as to better one’s potentials to profit in terms of power relations (Bourdieu, 1986). Among the different forms of capital, symbolic capital is the most powerful resource that contributes to the cultural reproduction of power dynamics. This can be attributed to its ability to disguise itself as subcultural phenomenon of the rich and hence not be associated as a form of capital per se. A central feature of the symbolic system of domination lies in the power of symbolic capital holders to classify individuals, according to predetermined standards set by the elites, into collective social groups. Since these parameters in stratifying individuals into social groups remain elusive to the underclass, the liberty to formalize the social world is likely to be

2.6  The Tactics of the Weak in Everyday Practices

21

associated with the procurement of knowledges that privileges the elites with the capacity to structure society. Therefore, it is the possession of knowledges that confers the “right” to power holders to name things, to be established as experts in specific fields, and to legitimacy in general (Bourdieu, 1977). The outcome in the use or concealment of these knowledges to enforce power is termed symbolic violence. In extending the earlier example on education qualifications to illustrate the mechanism of symbolic violence, the inability of the underclass to perceive scholastic investment (or for that matter the capital of music, sports, and even play) as cultural capital is then symbolic violence in action. In sum, Bourdieu’s (1977, 1986, 1990) theory of practice is very much a class theory. The difference between Bourdieu’s formulation of class and that of Marxist thought is the incorporation of capital beyond economic capital. In this sense, Bourdieu’s formulation of class theory is more of a class trajectory as opposed to class distinction in Marxist terms. The theories of power that have been examined so far seem to suggest the notion of power as a highly guarded and limited resource that is circuitous in its movement. The movement of power appears to be unidirectional in that it radiates outward from the seat of power (e.g., the upper class and state apparatuses) toward those who are to be governed (the underclass). This argument does not stand in contradiction to Foucault’s famed dictum “power is everywhere” (Foucault, 1990, p.  93), which refers to the omnipresence of power to oppress those who are ruled, and not an acknowledgment that power resides with both the upper class and the underclass. In other words, power only circulates within the ranks of the elites. Fundamentally, a key assumption that frames these theories of power is that the materially poor are simultaneously powerless. While this critical framing of power underscores the aspect of class conflict as perennial and deeply rooted, and it serves the important role of rallying the working class to resist efforts to subjugate them, this top-down perspective of power is incomplete as it ignores the analysis of power relations that do not radiate in a top-down manner. Accordingly, in the next section, I draw on the works of select prominent scholars such as de Certeau (1984), Scott (1990), and Bakhtin (1965) with the intention to examine the notion of power as a force of resistance in a downward-up formulation.

2.6  The Tactics of the Weak in Everyday Practices In de Certeau’s (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life, the discussion on power focuses on the art of resistance as observed in the infinitesimal details of everyday life in French society. To a certain extent, this formulation of power echoes Foucauldian (2003) theorization of power as transferable, circuitous, and omnipresent. However, while Foucault’s interrogative efforts center on the mechanisms of dominant power, de Certeau (1984) centers his theory on “the ways of operating” (p. xiv) of “the silent majority” (p. xvii) against contemporary forms of capitalism.

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According to de Certeau, “the silent majority” (p. xvii) is a universal construction of ordinary citizens marginalized by the “productivist economy” (p. xvii), or capitalism. Though “massive and pervasive” (p. xvii) in number, the majority is nonetheless powerless (or silent) in the face of unequal power relationships since the group is not ideologically homogeneous to confront the elites publicly. In this way, the majority is itinerant, and what unites this diverse group is the sense of utilitarianism that frames their functional association with macrostructures of the established order. Although the ordinary citizens may be disempowered materially due to their “inferior access to information, financial means, and compensations of all kinds” (p. xvii), they are not docile. Their art of resistance is akin to acts of tactical manipulation that elude the gaze of the dominant elites. In this context, de Certeau examined the “clever tricks of the ‘weak’” (p. 40) within the formality of everyday practices as defined by the “strong” (p. 40). These include the mundane activities of “dwelling, moving about, speaking, reading, shopping, and cooking” (p. 40). The ways of the weak are essentially tactical in nature. This is in contrast with the ways of the strong, which are strategic in nature. de Certeau defined tactic as follows: A tactic insinuates itself into the other’s place, fragmentarily, without taking it over in its entirety, without being able to keep it at a distance. It has at its disposal no base where it can capitalize on its advantages, prepare its expansions, and secure independence with respect to circumstances. (p. xix)

Since a tactic has no “spatial or institutional localization” (p. xix) to operate from, it is conditional upon time as it awaits opportunities to materialize its stance of resistance by appropriating “heterogeneous elements” (p. xix) within dominant resources at its temporary disposal. de Certeau gave the example of a homemaker at the supermarket who is confronted with the decision to purchase. The consideration in this case may include the items that are “in the refrigerator, the taste, appetites, and moods of her guests, the best buys and their possible combinations with what she already has on hand at home” (p. xix). In this sense, the homemaker is not simply dictated by the promotional offers at the supermarket to make her purchasing decision. In short, tactical success necessitates a certain intellectual dexterity on the part of the weak in order to foster creative expressions of resistance within dominant discourses. de Certeau further expounded on the tactical maneuvers of the weak using the French concept la perruque, or “the wig” (p. 25). La perruque is defined as “the worker’s own work disguised as work for his employer” (p. 25). Unlike the notions of pilfering and absenteeism, the worker does not profit materially nor is he physically absent from his work. What he gains is the appropriation of company time (e.g., secretary writing a love letter during office hours) or the poaching of company resources (e.g., cabinet maker using office machine to make personal furniture) for personal pleasure or use. Likewise, in applying the concept of la perruque in the mundane practices of walking and reading, de Certeau further elucidated on the art of resistance within

2.7  Power in the Hidden Transcripts

23

dominant discourses. In walking, dominance is foregrounded in the urbanization of the cityscape (or city planning), while in reading, dominance is realized in the way information is apportioned and distributed by the elites. In these examples, power is exercised in the way knowledges are repackaged by the power holders so that conformity in behavior (take the “correct” routes) and attitudes (process textual information in an “appropriate” way) are shaped to ensure a high degree of hegemonic systematicity, which is necessary in the running of an efficient civil state. However, the conscious citizen has the choice to make sense of the effects of the macrostructures to procure standardized outcomes. Choices in the above contexts may come in the way pedestrians select certain detours from expected routes, or when readers decide to read against popular views and construct their own perspectives. Evidently, the displays of power are dynamic, and they are continually manufactured so as to keep up with the power game that exists in all social practices. While the expressions of power for the presumed weak appear to be tactical and reactive in nature, the expressions of power for the strong appear more strategic and intentional: Strategies, in contrast, conceal beneath objective calculations their connection with the power that sustains them from within the stronghold of its own “proper” place or institution. (p. xx)

In the examples of walking and reading foregrounded earlier, “the stronghold of its ‘proper’ place” (p. xx) are presented by the urbanized cityscape and the textual information as dictated by the elites. These are material forms of evidence that showcase the enterprises of the dominant as successful. For the endeavor of the dominant to sustain over time, strategy needs a physical locality to amass its winnings, to plan future expansions, and to display its increasing power (1984). This contrasts sharply with the construction of power with the weak where success associated with tactic is fostered by a sense of hidden triumph that transcends space and time for the weak. In sum, the negotiation of power between dominance and resistance, afforded by strategic manipulation on the one hand and tactical maneuvering on the other, is indicative of a dynamic and dialectical power relationship that exists in social practices. In the next section, I turn to Scott’s (1990) scholarship on the same topic in order to explore the dual themes of dominance and resistance in a slightly different articulation.

2.7  Power in the Hidden Transcripts In Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, Scott (1990) explores how power in underclass politics is realized by observing social interactions between slaves and masters in a Malay village. For Scott, dominant practices are public, official, and onstage transcripts of the powerful; and resistant practices are hidden or offstage transcripts of the powerless.

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Public transcripts are defined as “the open interaction between subordinates and those who dominate” (p.  2), and they are staged by power holders to serve their private interests. Implicitly, they serve as a significant symbolic platform for the powerless to endorse or assign rights to the elites as power holders. On the surface, this act of acquiescing signals a posture of self-subjugation among subordinates; however, behind the smokescreen, the weak actively study the unequal power situation at hand so as to plan the next course of action that would best promote their unspoken interests. The tools of domination wielded in the public transcripts by the power holders are concealment and euphemization. Concealment involves the withdrawal of knowledges from the uninformed masses so that the façade of sovereignty, which keeps the elites in power, can be kept intact. Using the dietary customs of both the pastoralist Tutsis and the Hindu high-caste Brahmins as examples, Scott illustrates how both elite social groups, who are known for their strict vegetarian dietary traditions, are known to consume meat in the company of trusted serfs and outcasts, respectively. This violation of the official code of dietary belief (not to mention the association with the underclass) would have been blasphemous since the practice of the dietary tradition is a mark of aristocracy for the Tutsis and the Brahmins. However, since this violation is not openly disclosed as public knowledge, the stature of the elites and the appearance of the public transcript can be preserved. In order to foster this status quo of the dominant, the elites may have to recruit and meticulously groom select members of the underclass to keep up with the pretense in the public transcript. In return, it is imagined that the chosen few could very likely be privileged in terms of the differentiated economic and symbolic goods that they can acquire as compared to the rest of the subordinate group who are not selected. In short, the tool of concealment is effective so long as activities that are engaged in the shadows remain separate from the consciousness of the public transcript. Euphemization, on the other hand, denotes attempts to sanitize or neutralize aspects of domination by reframing social realities in favor of the rulers. While euphemization is often associated with language manipulation, it is also applicable to “gestures, architecture, ritual actions, public ceremonies” (p.  54) and parades displayed in the public transcripts. As an illustration of euphemization as a tool of domination, Scott gave the example of the “silent monitor” (p. 46) that was deployed by a particular Robert Owen on his factory floor. A monitor was issued to every worker (with the exception of the owner-manager), and it was to be displayed prominently by each worker while he or she was on the factory floor. The monitor would be color-coded, and the colors correspond to the work performance of the worker (rated by the supervisor) the previous day. While the purpose in implementing this system was an attempt to display Owen’s domination over his workers in a visible way, he euphemized it in egalitarian terms as “the most efficient check on inferior conduct” (p. 46). In this way, Owen diverted attention away from his hidden agenda by invoking the discourse of productivity to promote the ethos of hard work among the workers.

2.7  Power in the Hidden Transcripts

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In sum, the orchestrated performances of these two strategies (i.e., concealment and euphemization) in social practices are to foster hegemonic appearances of peaceful coexistence between the rulers and the ruled in society. In addition, it is necessary to note that while public transcripts are defined as “the open interaction between subordinates and those who dominate” (p.  2), open in this sense is not synonymous with the notion of disclosure. It merely denotes a staged effort to construct a certain subjective representation of social reality that is sufficient to maintain “the way things are.” On the other hand, hidden transcripts are offstage spaces where one’s private thoughts are lodged with “particular set(s) of actors” (p. 14). The selection of actors is undergirded by underlying power dynamics that exists within the hierarchy of the membership. As exemplified in the social relationship between the Brahmins and the outcasts, an uneasy alliance between elites and subordinates is necessary in fostering the mutual goal of hegemonic truce and continuity. Those selected as insiders in the hidden transcripts are therefore individuals who depend on one another to maintain the public and private appearances of all actors involved in keeping up with the pretense. Scott gave the examples of practices “such as poaching, pilfering, clandestine tax evasion, and intentionally shabby work for landlords” (p. 14) as hidden transcripts of the poor and “clandestine luxury and privilege, surreptitious use of hired tugs, bribery, and tampering with land titles” (p. 14) as hidden transcripts of the power holders. In the case of the power holders, these hidden transcripts contain undisclosed knowledges that may bring to question their sovereign rights to rule, while for the powerless, they represent temporal acts of resistance against being dominated. In the hidden transcript of the powerless, an outright confrontation with the power holders is probably not intended due to the potentials of socioeconomic reprisals. Given the lack of capital of the poor, it is therefore an unlikely calculated move that the poor would consider in everyday practices. While concealment and euphemization are tools of the power holders, they are also tools of resistance that are embedded in discursive practices of the powerless. Examples of these tools include speech acts such as “rumor, gossips, (grumbling), folktales, jokes, songs, rituals, (and) codes” (p. 19). The manipulation of these hidden tools is simultaneously set up against the background of dominant social norms that are performed in the public transcripts. These are marked by way of social distance (e.g., more formal terms of address used by the oppressed to avoid taking liberties that might offend the powerful), tone in speech (e.g., use of tag questions to signal uncertainty due to one’s position), language use (e.g., use of stock phrases to abide by stereotyped cast of the poor), and one’s dressing (e.g., uniform to mark one’s social roles). Collectively, these subtle behaviors index a docile posture that the poor seek to display to the power holders in the public transcripts. In so doing, it is hoped that the power holders may be hook winked by the pretense and consequently afford them some measures of respite, which is in turn used as resistive opportunities located in the hidden transcripts of the poor. In sum, the relationship between public and hidden transcripts is dialectical so that the severity of domination exacted in public transcripts reinforces the intensity

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of resistance as realized in the hidden transcripts. On the other hand, the more suspicious the power holders are of the oppressed in the way they consent to acts of domination, the greater the intensity of domination displayed in public transcripts. As such, the divide between public and hidden transcripts is in a constant flux. This perspective of power as resistance was expounded, from a different angle, by yet another prominent scholar, Bakhtin (1965). Bakhtin’s framing of resistive power is located in the notion of carnivalesque. While one dimension of carnivalesque is to foster the sense of liberation as that of Scott’s (1990) in the hidden transcripts, the performativity of carnivalesque resistance differs significantly from Scott’s.

2.8  Carnivalesque as Performative Resistance Among Bakhtin’s significant contributions is his seminal work, Rabelais and His World (1965), which foregrounds the notion of carnivalesque most prominently as a resistive cultural form against hegemonic ideologies (Santino, 2011; Ungureanu, 2015; Whitesel & Shuman, 2013). While the theorization of carnivalesque has been frequently invoked among social scientists (especially communication scholars) as a “vehicle to social critique” (Martin & Renegar, 2007, p. 300), the efficacy of carnivalesque tactics (Bakhtin, 1965) as mechanisms of power relations has not been rigorously interrogated in scholarship at all. Bakhtin’s theorization of carnivalesque was a philosophical critique of the unofficial festive celebrations that were situated alongside those of obligatory Church feast days’ celebrations in medieval Europe. Freed from all religious and ecclesiastic dogmatism, Bakhtin explicated how the liberation of human consciousness was realized through ambivalent laughter (Olbrys, 2006). Using the imagery of the human body as both grotesque and sensuous to represent the universality of social conditions, these transcendental moments of consciousness-raising were realized through the artistic form of the spectacle (Bakhtin, 1965), which is often marked by nuances and double meaning in its performativity (Roberts & Crossley, 2004). The performances of the carnivalesque included ritual spectacles (e.g., carnival pageants and comic shows of the marketplace), comic verbal compositions like parodies, and various genres of billingsgate such as curses, oaths, and popular blazons (Bakhtin, 1965), and they embodied the emancipative qualities of universalism and freedom in the uncovering of “unofficial truth” (p. 209). Bakhtin’s notion of carnivalesque differs from both Scott’s (1990) and de Certeau’s (1984) accounts of resistance. In the latter, appearances of resistance are fleeting expressions of tactical defiance that are undertaken within dominant social practices, while carnivalesque as espoused by Bakhtin (1965) does not operate under the guise of anonymity or deception. Expressions of the carnivalesque are intended to be ludicrous, bold, colorful, creative, ambivalent, fresh, public, and inclusive. In short, carnivalesque acts are theatrics; however, not all theatrics are resistive in nature. As a result, it is difficult for power holders to pinpoint specific resistive acts from those that are somewhat frivolous or playful. In this sense, carni-

2.8  Carnivalesque as Performative Resistance

27

valesque as a resistive enterprise cannot be silenced by the forces of dominance within the carnival site. In more contemporary literature and in the context of criminological scholarship, Campbell (2011) explored the carnivalization of social relations in the context of post 9/11 securitization, calling for a re-imagination of public sphere as encompassing “culturally specific and highly localized experiences, narratives and practices so often overlooked and/or excluded from a universalist, theoreticist perspective” (p. 172). More specifically, the author argued that expressive examples of resistance (e.g., sponsored walks, plays, music festivals, and T-shirts emblazoned with tongue-­ in-­cheek anti-war slogans) should be counted alongside formal and rational expressions of justice (e.g., protest marches, petitions, strikes, debates, campaigns, and boycotts) as cultural embodiments of doing justice. However, from the perspective of Critical Theory (in line with the traditions of the Frankfurt School), the notion of carnivalesque arguably whitewashes the dimension of power inequality. The primary contention is in its potential (or lack thereof) to effect systemic change in rebalancing power relations between the powerful and the powerless. Bernstein (1986) considered it a licensed gesture of the elites to afford tokenistic consent of power to the repressed within boundaries of its performativity. In this sense, the notion of carnivalesque serves the explicit interest of the dominant to satiate the populace in venting their frustration in a limited manner. In a similar vein, Sobchak (1996) examined the effects of carnivalesque as realized in British comedies in the late 1940s and early 1950s against political concerns of the British society during that era. While government representatives and elites alike in the films were often subjects of abject ridicule, no radical societal change was proposed or effected. As posited by Bernstein (1986) and stated earlier, it would have been naïve to imagine that the old boy network that wielded control over the entertainment establishment and much of the wider community would have allowed cinematic narratives to radically upset dominant social structures in post-war Britain (Sobchak, 1996). This sentiment is also echoed in the context of scholarship on Singapore where carnivalesque has been constructed pejoratively as a tool of domination for purposes of invoking nationalistic sentimentality (Goh, 2011, 2013). Goh (2011) aligns himself with scholars who postulated that “the history of carnivals licensed or utilized by ruling powers does not match Bakhtin’s idealization” (p.  112). State-­ organized carnivals in three time periods in Singapore were examined in order to explicate the “specific forms of social solidarity recognizable as ‘multiculturalism’” (p. 112). These carnival events were King George VI’s coronation in 1937, Chingay Parade (the equivalent of Mardi Gras), and Racial Harmony Day (2011). While a key conclusion in this study foregrounded the potentiality of carnivalesque in the service of dominant state discourse, Goh nonetheless conceded to the displays of resistance enacted by the powerless: Though I have looked at the implication of the carnivalesque in state hegemony here, it would be important to look at subversion at the edges of the teeming carnivals, from little acts of resistance that add up to the mountain of thrash in otherwise litter-free Singapore to

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2 Power the proliferation of informal economies of illegal hawking and frowned-upon youth subcultures reclaiming the streets in their own terms. (p. 130)

In sum, Bakhtin’s (1965) construction of resistance embedded within the notion of carnivalesque offers a somewhat veiled yet daring challenge to state dominance expressed in the form of ambivalence. As for de Certeau’s (1984) and Scott’s (1990) postulations of resistance, they are mostly tactical, opportunistic, and silent in nature. While scholars (Bernstein, 1986; Goh, 2011) may frame resistance in these realizations as limited or perhaps defeatist, a holistic examination of power relationships must include all expressions of power levied by both the powerful and the presumed powerless. Further, since Bakhtin’s postulation of the carnivalesque is first and foremost a transcendental construction that seeks emancipation from the pretensions of established order, its merits in effecting longer-term ideological change should be observed from that standpoint first.

2.9  Summary This chapter has sought to provide an overview of key theoretical treatments of the notion of power. While it is clear that disciplinary concerns and the historical period within which these scholars situated their analyses significantly shape the substance of their thinking, there are also many common threads connecting how they theorized power. As a classical theory of power, Marxism (Marx & Engels, 1848/1967) foregrounds power as explicit and coercive. Power is constructed in terms of economic rationality and is a possession that is held solely in the hands of the state and the bourgeoisie. Gramsci (1995) contributes to the Marxist’s (Marx & Engels, 1848/1967) ideology of class division by elaborating on the aspect of cultural hegemony as less explicit tools of the state and bourgeoisie in exacting conformity from the proletariat in civil society. While Foucault (1964/2006) does not repudiate the social reality of power as repressive, his prominent work seems to be a detailed extension of Gramscian’s (1995) cultural hegemony. In his published works, Foucault (1964–2003) provides an in-depth account of power as framed in the forms of disciplinary power, bio-power, and governmentality. While Foucault differs from Marx and Engels (1848/1967) and Gramsci (1995) in his definition of power as a transferrable force as opposed to a static asset, his perspective is nonetheless encased within Marx and Engels’ (1848/1967) notion of class theory and the historic labels of state, bourgeois, and proletariat. In Bourdieu (1977), de Certeau (1984), Scott (1990), and Bakhtin (1965), there is a movement away from the examination of power that is tied to the notion of macrostructures to the investigation of power as symbolic and rooted in practice. Bourdieu (1977) channels the discussion on power through the formulation of capital, habitus, field, and other related sociological concepts. He moves away from Marx and Engels’ (1848/1967) and Gramsci’s (1995) direct formulation of power in

2.9 Summary

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economic terms to the embodiment of power in terms of dominant “taste.” While de Certeau (1984), Scott (1990), and Bakhtin (1965) are very interested in the examination of power in the cultural life of the people, there is a marked movement away from the framing of power as solely radiating from the state and the bourgeoisie. Their investigation of power foregrounds the resistance of ordinary folks. Both de Certeau (1984) and Scott (1990) examine the expressions of resistive power that is hidden from the gaze of the rulers. Power is demonstrated in everyday discourses, and its appearance tends to be fleeting and tactical. In an indirect way, Bakhtin’s (1965) construction of carnivalesque as a resistive enterprise may also be construed as hidden given the use of linguistic and rhetorical tropes (e.g., satire, sarcasm, metaphors, and jokes) and the pretext of performativity that collectively mask the intentions of the producers and actors to foster a resistive message. However, unlike de Certeau’s (1984) and Scott’s (1990) resistive power that is subdued, power as exhibited in the carnivalesque is euphoric and bold. Three observations can be made from the juxtaposition of classical literature in the two “opposing” scholarly strands examined above. Firstly, the theories inform and build on previously established theories in order to foster a deeper and more holistic framing of power in different social realities (i.e., top-down, down-up, and lateral). Secondly, the plethora of theories on power adds to extant knowledge about the reconstitution, movements, and performativity of power that were constructed in the contexts of shifting social, cultural, and political conditions during nineteenthand twentieth-century Europe. Thirdly, while transformative shifts in the cultural life of people may reconstitute the nature of power, the theme of class conflict appears central in all accounts of power struggles in the literature. These considerations are important in the context of the book. Given the newer social phenomena associated with the convergent nature of the Internet, key concerns are raised. In what manner is power reconstituted and performed in the digital age? In addition, to what extent will class conflict be a consideration in the performativity of power in digital culture? Following from this question, in what form will class conflict be realized? Given the emergence of newer power holders (social media influencers and digital content creators among elites and tech conglomerates) and the centrality of performance of self in the twenty-first-century social mediascape, Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque stands out as a plausible theoretical framework to recast the understanding of power as performance in today’s digital mediascape. This is attributed to the main thrust of carnivalesque as resistive, which affords researchers simultaneously both the means (carnivalesque features) to examine the ways of power as performance and the ends (carnivalesque intent) to interrogate the relevance and impact of class conflict in the twenty-first century. In the next chapter, a review of literature relating to the participatory culture of the Internet, the changing nature of political communication in the twenty-first century, as well as the framing of digital space and participation is undertaken in order to situate the implications associated with the newer social conditions that have shaped the way power is evidenced in the technological milieu.

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References Bakhtin, M. (1965). Rabelais and his world (H.  Iswolsky, Trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Bernstein, M. A. (1986). When the carnival turns bitter: Preliminary reflections upon the abject hero. In G. S. Monson (Ed.), Bakhtin: Essays and dialogues on his work (pp. 99–121). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1983). The field of cultural production, or the economic world reversed. Poetics, 12, 311–356. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinctions: A social critique of the judgement of taste (R.  Nice, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenword. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Campbell, E. (2011). The cultural politics of justice: Bakhtin, stand-up comedy, and post-9/11 securitization. Theoretical Criminology, 15(2), 159–177. de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Singapore, Singapore: Longman. Fairclough, N. (2001). Language and power. Kuala Lumpur: Pearson Education. Fairclough, N. (2006). Semiosis, ideology, and mediation: A dialectical view. In I.  Lassen, J.  Strunck, & T.  Vestergaard (Eds.), Mediating ideology in text and image (pp.  19–37). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Foucault, M. (1964/2006). History of madness (J. Khalfa, Ed., J. Murphy & J. Khalfa, Trans.). London: Routledge. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/ knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977 (C. Gordon, Ed., C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham & K. Soper, Trans.). New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality. New York: Vintage. Foucault, M. (2000). Power: Essential works of Foucault 1954–1984 (J. Faubion, Ed., R. Hurley & others, Trans.). New York: The New Press. Foucault, M. (2003). Society must be defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976 (M. Bertani & A. Fontana, Eds., D. Macey, Trans.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, M. (2007). Security, territory, population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978 (M. Senellart, Ed., G. Burchell, Trans.). New York/Houndmills/Basingstoke/Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Goh, D. (2011). State carnivals and the subvention of multiculturalism in Singapore. British Journal of Sociology, 62(1), 111–133. Goh, D. (2013). Multicultural carnivals and the politics of the spectacle in global Singapore. Inter-­ Asia Cultural Studies, 14(2), 228–251. Gramsci, A. (1995). Further selections from the prison notebooks (D. Boothman, Ed. and Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Martin, P., & Renegar, V. (2007). The man for his time: The Big Lebowski as carnivalesque social critique. Communication Studies, 58(3), 299–313. Marx, K. (1867/1990). Capital, vol. 1: A critique of political economy. London: Penguin. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848/1967). The communist manifesto. New York: Penguin. Mumby, D.  K. (1988). Communication and power in organizations: Discourse, ideology, and domination. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Olbrys, S. G. (2006). Disciplining the carnivalesque: Chris Farley’s exotic dance. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 3(3), 240–259. Roberts, J., & Crossley, N. (2004). Introduction. The Sociological Review, 52(1), 1–27.

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Santino, J. (2011). The carnivalesque and the ritualesque. Journal of American Folkore, 124(491), 61–73. Scott, J. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Smith, C. (1997). Friedrich Engels and Marx’s critique of political economy. Capital & Class, 62, 123–142. Sobchak, T. (1996). Bakhtin’s carnivalesque in 1950s British comedy. Journal of Popular Film & Television, 23(4), 179–185. Ungureanu, C. (2015). Aestheticization of politics and ambivalence of self-sacrifice in Charlie Brooker’s the national anthem. Journal of European Studies, 45(1), 21–30. Whitesel, J., & Shuman, A. (2013). Normalizing desire: Stigma and the carnivalesque in gay bigmen’s cultural practices. Men and Masculinities, 16(4), 478–496. Wodak, R. (2001). What CDA is about: A summary of its history, important concepts, and its developments. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 1–13). London: SAGE.

Chapter 3

Digital Times

Abstract  This chapter contains a review of extant literature primarily from communications, political, and performance studies to establish the nature of digital economy as simultaneously layered, multifaceted, convergent, and in constant flux. This generative complexion can be attributed to the emergence of newer social conditions associated with the digital epoch as well as dramaturgical concerns in everyday practices. In particular, this chapter focuses on the aspect of participatory nature of the digital age, the decreasing interest with deliberative rhetoric as a model of communication, and the centrality of performance of online selves as key characteristics of today’s social mediascape. Accordingly, the chapter reiterates the inadequacy of the traditional model in delineating power as dichotomized between rulers and the ruled in explicating the nuanced, fluid, and complex power dynamics as exhibited in the digital realm. In fact, judging from the plethora of Internet memes and viral mediatized contents that circulate online, this chapter concludes by placing prominence on creativity, multimodality, and playfulness as salient performative tropes that are not only drawn upon in the performance of online selves, but are also important signals that shed light in the way power circulates and is expressed in social media.

3.1  Introduction As argued by Jenkins (1992, 2006b), the emergence of the digital era has created new social dynamics that have not only reframed social relations but have also reshaped sociocultural practices that operated under different social circumstances before the twenty-first century. One such dominant practice that is called into question involves deliberative rhetoric as the quintessential mode of public communication of western civilization. Given the nature of the digital economy as simultaneously participatory and convergent (Jenkins, 1992, 2006b), the performance of multiple selves by ordinary netizens and the many profit-driven collaborations between tech conglomerates and netizens have not only politicized participation but have also framed online communication as politics of multiple public spheres. In this new regime, the performance and performativity of self (Austin, 29,163) thus become a central consideration in the examination of digital power relations empirically in subsequent chapters. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H.-Y. K. Kan, Digital Carnivalesque, Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2051-8_3

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To this end, in this chapter, I review extant literature primarily from communications, political, and performance studies in order to establish the nature of digital economy as both participatory (Jenkins, 1992) and convergent (Jenkins, 2006b). Given this changing nature of politics and communication in digital media, I then question Habermas’ (1989) notions of public sphere and the rhetoric of communicative rationality as problematic and invoke the notions of performance (Goffman, 1959) and performativity (Austin, 1963) as new lenses to theorize power in an digital space that is more aptly described as an embodied and networked public.

3.2  Digital Culture 3.2.1  Digital Culture as Participatory and Convergent Jenkins (1992, 2006a, 2006b) has contributed significantly to communication scholarship in his bid to understand digital phenomena from the perspective of popular culture. Digital space is described simultaneously as a participatory culture that fosters creative and active participation of all users (Jenkins, 2006a) as well as convergent (Jenkins, 2006b). In convergence culture, Jenkins (2006b) described convergence culture as follows: [Convergence culture] represents a shift in the ways we think about our relations to media, that we are making that shift first through our relations with popular culture, but that the skills we acquire through play may have implications for how we learn, work, participate in the political process, and connect with other people around the world. (p. 23)

In Jenkins’ perspective, a convergence culture is “highly generative” (p. 25), and it is concerned with harnessing ideas from multiple sources (e.g., media convergence, technological convergence, economic convergence, social convergence, and global convergence) simultaneously to foster new opportunities of participation and collaboration. Examples of media convergence include the merger of new and old media (e.g., using old media, TV, to play digital games), current and older technologies (e.g., using mobile phone to listen to music in addition to making calls), and between commercial (i.e., top-down) media and grassroots (i.e., bottom-up) media (e.g., redefining “audience” as “users” to create new media contents that are central to the business model of digital platforms such as YouTube) in fostering cultural diversity.

3.2.2  Politicizing Participation in the Digital Economy In tracing the contours of the digital convergence culture, Jenkins concedes to market rationality as a likely motivation for certain digital participatory practices. Instead of advocating a position of nonparticipation as a sign of protest against

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neoliberal ideologies, Jenkins underscores the aspect of agency by user communities as crucial to realize the democratic potentials of the digital convergence culture. In this regard, Jenkins further advocates a “politics of critical utopianism” (p. 247) that rests on the convergence and collaboration of mainstream media industries and grassroots media enterprises as a way to move forward in fostering an egalitarian model of online participation. The contentious issue with political participation is further exemplified by Burgess and Green (2009) in the case study of YouTube, a popular video sharing social media platform. Given that YouTube is in the reach business and that it profits from advertisers through the generation of traffic to its site, YouTube depends on both mainstream media producers like Warner, Universal Music Groups, and Viacom and ordinary individuals to contribute to its revenue stream. This partnership between mainstream media producers and ordinary individuals is, more often than not, fraught with tension. The case in point is how mainstream media players are often uncomfortable with the lack of control in matters determining the anticipated reach of their products within online communities. Similarly, ordinary users of YouTube are just as uneasy with the presence of corporate players in the common participatory site that is community-centric in its generation of media contents. As argued by Burgess and Green, the example of YouTube foregrounds one of the most tenacious concerns of new media: “the unevenness of participation and voice; the apparent tensions between commercial interests and the public good; and the contestation of ethics and social norms that occurs as belief systems, interests, and cultural differences collide” (p. viii). In the offline space, these participants represent traditional forces of domination and resistance. Yet in online practices, this binary opposition somehow does not aptly account for the dialectic that exists between the two entities. In particular, their interdependence in the sustenance of their respective cultural and economic interests seems to imply a greater degree of mutual dependence that is unique to digital logics. Although the form of social dynamics between corporations and ordinary citizens may need reframing in light of the convergent digital culture, greater participation may not imply an egalitarian relationship (Fuchs, 2014). Instead, the inherently participative logics in the digital sphere may have given shape to a new form of hegemonic instrumentality that is embedded in the shared ethos of the digital age: instant connectivity and boundless knowledge. For the purpose of illustrating the above point, I examine the recent acquisition activities of tech giants Google and Facebook, which have both acquired a slew of both Internet and non-Internet companies (D’Onfro, 2015;Stunt, 2014 ; The Economist, 2016). In the case of Google, the purchase of YouTube for $1.6 billion in 2006 was one such instance (Stunt, 2014). In the case of Facebook, $25 billion has been spent since 2012 to acquire “Instagram, a photo-sharing site, WhatsApp, a messaging service, and Oculus, a virtual-reality firm” (The Economist, 2016). One of the key reasons behind the acquisition activities is to understand how people spend time (Stunt, 2014; The Economist, 2016). This knowledge serves the purpose of economic rationality since potential advertisers would be interested to

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advertise on digital platforms that have accurate and timely data on user information. Another key reason behind the acquisition efforts is to monopolize the industry by buying competing digital services that have the potential to lure users away from their respective platforms (D’Onfro, 2015; Stunt, 2014; The Economist, 2016). The hegemonic instrumentality of economic rationality as exemplified above is often packaged and presented as benefits to ordinary citizens. For example, Google’s mission statement focuses on the organization of the world’s information so that it is “universally accessible and useful” (Google, n.d.), while Facebook’s mission statement is “to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” (Facebook, 2016). Paradoxically, the participative logics of online social life is simultaneously a realization of the democratic potential of the digital sphere for greater dialogue among user communities globally, as well as a hegemonic instrument for corporations and individuals alike to partake, to a greater or lesser extent, in the market economy. As evidenced above, the nuanced, fluid, and complex power dynamics in the digital realm has left us to question the relevance of framing power relations between ordinary citizens and elites through classical lenses since the participative logics and circumstances as presented in the digital realm do not closely mirror the social logics in the offline world.

3.3  C  ommunication and the Politics of (Digital) Public Spheres 3.3.1  Habermas’ Public Sphere While the notion of deliberation has been closely associated with the construction of western thought since classical antiquity, Habermas’ (1989, 2006) contribution in the theorization of communicative rationality, especially in the fields of critical and political scholarship, has been indispensable. In particular, the notions of political deliberation (Habermas, 2006) and that of public sphere (Habermas, 1989) are core tenets that appeal to scholars who are interested to examine aspects of the political in modernity (e.g., Chouliaraki, 2010; Fairclough, 1995; Wodak, 2001). In this aspect, Habermas’ (1989, 2006) work, especially The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, has had a substantial influence in shaping political scholarship in past decades. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Habermas, 1989) is regarded as the central postwar theory that systematically expounds the ideals of western public spheres based on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany, France, and Britain. A central tenet in the book is the notion of a public sphere, which is a created space where private citizens congregate “as a public” (p. 176) to engage in free and unrestricted dialogue regarding issues of everyday life.

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As argued by Habermas, embedded in the public sphere is the communicative element of deliberation that characterizes the essence of public opinion and that of policy discussion. Implicit in the process of critical reasoning is one’s disposition toward openness and equality, qualities that are necessary for the purpose of robust debates and judicious decision-making within the public sphere. This notion of deliberation is termed communicative rationality, and it opposes the instrumentality of functional rationality (Habermas, 1991). Functional rationality describes the way state institutions interact with citizens. While functional rationality is informed by capitalistic ideals grounded in money and power, communicative rationality is oriented to “moral, aesthetic, practical and political considerations” (Habermas, 1987, pp.  304–305), and it ultimately seeks the actualization of human emancipation against oppressive hegemonic structures as its purpose. To realize this objective, communicative rationality is therefore envisioned to be the exclusive communication model, and the public sphere is simultaneously an exclusive space where such critical conversations are to take place (Habermas, 1989).

3.3.2  C  ritique of Habermasian Notions of Public Sphere and Deliberation Although Habermas’ influence in critical scholarship is well-documented, the construction of deliberation and that of public sphere is not without critique. In the first instance, despite its embodiment of emancipative ideals, the conception of public sphere is inherently class and gender biased (Eley, 1987; Fraser, 1990; Landes, 1988). Landes (1988) argues that the conceptualization of the masculinist bourgeois public sphere in postrevolutionary French society was to curtail the power that elitist (and urban) feminine influences had in shaping ideas in both politics and in salon culture. Eley (1987), on the other hand, expounded on the proliferation of male-­ dominated bourgeois clubs and professional networks as efforts to distinguish emergent elitist ideologies from that of the former aristocratic order. In both contexts, the exclusion of women and men in the lower social classes in the deliberative process of political matters was indicative of hegemonic agendas woven within the idealized conception of the liberal public sphere (Eley, 1987; Fraser, 1990; Landes, 1988). In the second instance, the public sphere disregards the existence of “competing counterpublics” (Fraser, 1990, p.  61), which stand in competition against the espousal of masculinist bourgeois ethos in the Habermasian framing. In this regard, Fraser gave the examples of “nationalist publics, popular peasant publics, elite women’s publics, and working class publics” (p. 61) in the context of eighteenthand nineteenth-century Western Europe to challenge Habermas’ exclusionary framing of public sphere as the only space for critical dialogues. More generally, the notion of counterpublics represents the multiplicity of alternate or subaltern spaces that exist, throughout history, for the marginalized to engage in dialogues.

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In the third instance, the notion of communicative rationality foregrounds the elements of argumentation and debate (Roberts & Crossley, 2004). In formal argumentation, the inherent presence of “‘multiaccentual’ and ‘double-voiced’ dialogue of everyday speech” (p. 18) is concealed for the purpose of clarity in communication. In other words, depending on the genres of discourse, the presence of alternative discourse that is often characterized by hidden voices and double meaning (de Certeau, 1984; Scott, 1990) may be lost when speech rationality is framed exclusively as communicative rationality. Invariably, Habermas’ (1989) rational paradigm remains an ideal theoretical construct that does not address the social reality that is rooted in most societies. In praxis, many facets of everyday life overlap, and they do not fall into discrete categories as postulated by Habermas in his theorization of public sphere and communicative rationality. In short, the ideological pitfalls in Habermas’ (1989, 2006) theories rest on the segregation between public and private spheres as well as between communicative rationality and functional rationality as communication models in everyday lives.

3.3.3  T  he Changing Nature of Politics and Communication in Digital Media While critical scholars are cognizant of the limitations in Habermas’ (1989, 2006) theorizations of public sphere and communicative rationality, some have remained ardent in maintaining Habermasian perspectives when studying socio-political phenomena in digital spaces (Freelon, 2010; Loader & Mercea, 2011). One strand of research that studies public, politically-oriented communication within the Habermasian tradition assesses communicative output against a set of predetermined criteria derived from Habermasian principles (Freelon, 2010). For instance, Schneider (1997) expounded on the derivation of four measurable variables (i.e., argument quality, equality, reciprocity, and diversity) drawn from Habermasian criteria to analyze various aspects of deliberative articulations in the discussion of socio-political issues in online forums. This approach was critiqued by Freelon (2010) as limiting as it confines political expressions to a repertoire acceptable only by Habermasian standards. In response to Schneider’s (1997) study, Freelon’s (2010) proposal was to categorize online political discussions according to democratic frameworks that align most closely with the nature of online forums where political conversations ensue. These three democratic frameworks are liberal individualist, communitarian, and deliberative. Within each model of democratic communication, indicative metrics are spelled out so that conversations can be classified. For example, within the liberal individualist framework, indicative metrics include the aspects of monologue, personal revelation, personal showcase, and that of flaming. On the other spectrum, the deliberative model includes dimensions of rational-critical argument, public

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issue focus, equality, discussion topic focus, inter-ideological questioning, and that of inter-ideological reciprocity. Through this endeavor, Freelon’s goal was to systematically describe and analyze political expressions as evidenced from digital media. While the research appears to have broadened the conceptualization of Habermas’ (1989, 2006) public sphere by its acknowledgment that democratic ideals overlap somewhat among the three frameworks, it is, nonetheless, limited as the data of explicitly politically themed discussions obtained from online forums privileges an argumentative and discursive structure, which focuses largely on reasoned assertions and excludes affective-based postulations. As a result, the range of nontraditional political expressions such as political satires could not be analyzed. Additionally, even though Freelon (2010) acknowledges the imbrication of self-expressions as constitutive of the liberal individualist framework, his theorization fails to account for this pervasive social phenomenon adequately from extant literature that is beyond the field of political communication theory. In fact, this “cautionary” stance among political scientists in examining the potentials of the Internet in fostering a participative democracy appears to be pervasive within the scholarship (Loader & Mercea, 2011). For example, in a special issue of the international journal Information, Communication & Society that focuses on the discussion of particularities of the digital culture in fostering political activism in both the physical and digital realms, while scholars contested against the framing of the virtual space as Habermasian public sphere, they remain entrenched in the traditional view of political activism in formal terms (e.g., protest) (Bennett & Segerberg, 2011). Theoretically, authors in the issue contend that the movement toward a “networked citizen-centered perspective” (Loader & Mercea, 2011, p. 758) in fostering an egalitarian society has begun to gain momentum (Papacharissi, 2010; Soon & Cho, 2011). Inherent in this view is the blurring of boundaries between the traditional concepts of public and private spheres. This implies a duality between one’s intention to manipulate web resources for the purpose of self-representation and the simultaneous demonstration of one’s political identity (Loader & Mercea, 2011). In accordance with this shift, communicative rationality as the only mode of political expression is thus problematized. In fact, Loader and Mercea even argued for the inclusion of nontraditional political platforms such as “innovative YouTube videos, mobile texting language, protest music and the celebration of trivia” (p. 761) to be examined as extended forms of political expressions. Empirically though, scholars of political communication remain entrenched in framing political activities in line with traditional construction of political activism. From the investigation of two online protest networks (i.e., “Put People First” and “G20 Meltdown”) that shaped the events leading up to the 2009 G20 meeting in London (Bennett & Segerberg, 2011) to the examination of the role media plays in constructing the social issue of poverty in Canada and the UK (Redden, 2011), it appears that scholars are not breaking new research frontiers in investigating “newly inducted” forms of political expressions such as trivia and satirical productions in social media.

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In sum, the disjunction between theorization and empiricism seems to mark a particular transitional moment in scholarship on political communication. At one level, there appears to be consensus in moving away from Habermasian rationality as a standard against which to measure political (inter)actions in digital times; yet at another level, the plethora of empirical studies that continue to recognize the attainment of deliberative democratic processes centrally in formal political expressions such as protests (Bennett, Segerberg, & Walker, 2014) suggest otherwise. Perhaps, to a certain extent, this social reality could be due to the dearth of non-Habermasian-­ inspired lenses to analyze political actions; but it may also suggest a certain degree of reluctance to depart from bourgeois ideals in delimiting the boundaries of a public and in maintaining the definitive role of deliberative rhetoric in politically oriented critical discourse.

3.4  D  igital Participation: The Performance of Self in an Embodied and Networked Public 3.4.1  Digital Space as an Embodied and Networked Public While Habermasian public sphere and communicative rationality may appear limited in describing the current phenomenon surrounding digital participation, alternative perspectives as proposed by new media scholars could be useful in framing digital space and the nature of digital participation. boyd (2006) introduced the notion of embodied sphere as a way to describe the convergence of spaces. This blending or blurring of spaces can be observed in two ways: between offline and online spaces and between private and public spheres (boyd, 2006, 2008; Davies, 2009). In investigating the blurring of spaces between offline and online spaces, Davies (2009) studied the interactional and purchasing patterns of players of a digital game and observed how digital collaboration with other players has shaped users’ offline play experience. In fact, this phenomenon is hardly difficult to imagine in today’s networked economy since much of everyday life in the twenty-first century is marked by a constant exchange of information between the two realms (boyd & Ellison, 2008). In addition to the blurring of spaces between offline and online dimensions, the convergence between public and private spheres is another instant that evidences the fluid nature of digital space. In this regard, boyd (2006) examines how the framing of blogging as a cultural practice interrogates the divide between Habermas’ (1989) rigid conception of public and private spheres. boyd (2006) uses the dimensions of spatiality and corporeality to argue how a blog can be simultaneously framed spatially as a medium for online expressions from the perspective of a blog reader and, corporeally, as a textual identity of the blogger himself. boyd further argues that this framing of a blog is not static, and it shifts depending on the level of engagement

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that the reader establishes with the blogger through the blog. The deeper the association that the reader has with the blogger, the more likely it is that the reader is able to appreciate the corporeality of the blog. Given that the conceptualization of a blog is simultaneously a space for conversations as well as an extension of the blogger in the blogosphere, the theorization of digital space as public or private sphere is therefore untenable since it is the framing of the blogger’s performance, not the space that is inhibited, that is constitutively public or otherwise. Instead, boyd suggests the blogosphere be described as an embodied sphere as this reflects a more accurate framing of the convergence of spaces that ensue in cyberspace. In tandem with the blending of spaces in the virtual world, the stereotypical framing of participants in assigned roles (e.g., creators or end users, producers or distributors) is also contested. Instead, users now engage in multiple roles (e.g., creators and distributors) in the exchange of cultural productions within the networked environment (Ito et al., 2009). With the shift in users’ roles in digital space, there is also an equivalent shift in the way online communities are reorganized. Unlike early online communities that were organized according to interests (e.g., public discussion forums), communities are now increasingly organized around one’s personal connections (boyd & Ellison, 2008). In this regard, social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Instagram are platforms that enable the maintenance of social relations in digital space. The proliferation of such social network sites (SNS) in recent years has established the popularity of SNS as a tool to manage connections in one’s social network in a visible way to other users in the system. In fact, visibility is a crucial aspect in maintaining relations on SNS, and it is tied to the construction of one’s public online profile enabled through various technological affordances (e.g., profile picture, status updates, private messaging, sharing of personal details) of different SNS (boyd & Ellison, 2008).

3.4.2  Digital Performance and Performativity of Self With the popularity of SNS, the management of one’s online visibility, or that of impression management, is now a central consideration in digital participatory practices (boyd & Ellison, 2008). In this aspect, Goffman’s (1959) ideas in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life present a theatrical perspective in understanding the social phenomenon of digital self-representation. Goffman examines the “dramaturgical problems” (p. 26) that ordinary people encounter in social situations for the purpose of managing one’s impressions before others. He differentiates communication in terms of “expressions given” and “expressions given off” (p. 16). The former is concerned with explicit forms of communication, while the latter is a “more theatrical and contextual kind” (p. 16) which Goffman is concerned with. In this aspect, dramaturgical metaphors (e.g., “front,” “setting,” and “props”) describe the various tools of self-presentation that one deploys in the social world.

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In the context of digital real, digital performances operate under different technological conditions as compared to the social conditions in the physical world (boyd, Chang & Goodman, 2004). In the physical world, the performance of identity stems from the corporeality of one’s physical self. This differs from the performance of one’s digital identity, which is simultaneously constructed and distributed over multiple social media sites in real time (Turkle, 1999). This concept of “diffracted identity” (Wynn & Katz, 1997, p. 308) is realized by the technological affordances of Web 2.0 to create and project multiple personae in various digital sectors (Turkle, 1999). Some of these examples include the creation of avatars in online games and chatrooms or the adoption of online names that represent one’s multiple online identities for different groups of imagined audiences (boyd et al., 2004; Turkle, 1999). Beyond these examples of online identities that are closely associated with one’s corporeal self (e.g., profile picture or avatar) or one’s pseudonyms, the online performance of self can also be indexed through the contents of one’s mediatized work (boyd, 2006). In the maintenance of one’s distributed presence in digital space, the intention to remain anonymous in some sense undergirds the performances of one’s decentered and multiple online personae (Wynn & Katz, 1997). In fact, the phenomenon of “trying on” (Berman & Bruckman, 2001, p.  100) alternate identities, or role-playing, is well-established in various studies that explore the issue of online identity (Berman & Bruckman, 2001; Davies, 2004). A concept that is closely associated with the notion of performance is that of performativity. Unlike Goffman’s (1959) theory of performance that focuses on the aspect of the representation of one’s identity, the concept of performativity hinges on the potentiality of utterances being activated (Austin, 1963). In other words, utterances, when performed under certain conditions, become social realities. Although the concept of performativity can be traced to Austin’s development of speech act theory in general, its currency in contemporary social science can be attributed to the contributions of Derrida (1988) and Butler (1993, 1999). In recent years, the concepts of performativity and performance of self have also gained traction in performance studies (Loxley, 2007). Austin (1963) theorized that utterances can be differentiated as constatives or performatives. The primary purpose of constative utterances is descriptive, while performative utterances perform realities. An example of a performative utterance is “I do” when invoked as part of a marriage solemnization. In this pronouncement, the utterance materializes the actuality of the union in the contract of marriage. In other words, some utterances, said under specific social conditions, have the power to be activated. Austin’s (1975) termed these conditions “felicity conditions.” However, given the complexity of social circumstances, the boundaries between constatives and performatives are difficult to establish from principles of felicity. Consequently, speech act theory was introduced as an attempt to describe the quality of performativity in an utterance or speech act. In speech act theory, the concepts of locution (semantic content of utterance), illocution (function of utterance), and perlocution (effect of utterance) are measurements of performativity (Austin, 1975). Unfortunately, speech act theory too is unable to sufficiently establish the ­conditions

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that frame an utterance as performative or constative. In addressing this gap, Derrida’s (1988)‘s concept of iterability was outlined as a necessary condition for the operability of performatives. Specifically, iterability signals intentionality associated with the utterance to perform an action. In recent years, the appeal of performativity as shaped by both Austin (1975) and Derrida (1988)‘s formulations has become a popular theoretical tool in the studies of identity politics as well as performance studies. In the former, Butler (1993, 1999) appropriated Austin’s and Derrida’s conceptualization of performativity as citationality in gender discourse, while in performance studies, the concept is used, fairly recently, to interrogate the boundaries between world and stage (Loxley, 2007). In the context of this book, the reference to performativity aligns loosely with performance studies to describe the politics in digital performances. In this regard, the performance of self appears to be a central preoccupation of users. It is concerned with the consistent management of one’s multiple online identities across various SNS.  Judging from the plethora of Internet memes and viral mediatized contents that circulate online, it appears that creativity, multimodality, and playfulness are performative tropes that are regularly drawn upon in the performance of online selves. What is absent from this model of communication is Habermasian communicative rationality as a dominant way to mark one’s presence. In sum, it is clear that Habermas’s concepts of public sphere and communicative rationality are inadequate in their conceptualization of digital domain as a social space as well as its explication of digital social practices.

3.5  Summary As examined in this chapter, the digital realm affords the convergence of spaces that are traditionally disparate in the offline world (Jenkins, 2006b). In the offline realm, the demarcation of space could stem from a protectionist disposition to safeguard proprietary knowledge as a mark of one’s power. However, with the democratization of technologies in the access of knowledge, the shift toward a participative culture is indicative of the emergence of power as collective and constantly reconstructive (Jenkins, 2006a, 2006b). Accordingly, with the blending of spaces, digital space is increasingly viewed as an embodied sphere, which serves as a site for the creation and distribution of mediatized cultural products (boyd, 2006). While participatory practices in the embodied digital sphere are primarily concerned with the performance of one’s cultural identities through various technological affordances associated with different SNS, they are imbricated, to a certain extent, by personal and profit agendas (Burgess & Green, 2009). In light of this, classical power theories in framing power dynamics between these two entities in binary opposition are problematic in the digital world. In fact, given the new social conditions associated with the digital age, such as the aspect of performance of self, the decreasing interest with deliberative rhetoric as a model of

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communication, and the overall technologization of social life, there appears to be an urgent need for more robust and current frameworks that can adequately address digital phenomena from fresher perspectives. Accordingly, a tenable framework that is proposed in this book is Bakhtin’s (1965) notion of carnivalesque. As iterated in the previous chapter, the theory of carnivalesque not only embodies a resistive intent demonstrable theatrically in the form of performance, its distinct discursive features proffer researchers systematicity to interrogate the plausibility of an act, resistive or hegemonic, performed within the carnivalesque discourse. In short, the liminality of the carnivalesque spirit is well-suited as a robust tool in today’s mediatized culture to capture the display of power dynamics that is unique to this epoch. Before I discuss the merits of carnivalesque and remodel the theory of carnivalesque as a discursive analytic tool in Chap. 5, I first set the stage in the next chapter for the empirical examination of two Singapore-based YouTube videos by underscoring the strict socio-political climate in the city-state in which these video performances were created.

References Austin, J.  L. (1963). Performative-constative (G.  J. Warnock, Trans.). In C.  E. Caton (Ed.), Philosophy and ordinary language (pp. 22–54). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Austin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words. In J. O. Urmson & M. Sbisà (Eds.), (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Bakhtin, M. (1965). Rabelais and his world (H. Iswolsky, Trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Bennett, W. L., & Segerberg, A. (2011). Digital media and the personalization of collective action. Information, Communication, & Society, 14(6), 770–799. Bennett, W. L., Segerberg, A., & Walker, S. (2014). Organization in the crowd: Peer production in large-scale networked protests. Information, Communication, & Society, 17(2), 232–260. Berman, J., & Bruckman, A. (2001). The turing game: Exploring identity on an online environment. Convergence, 7(3), 83–102. boyd, D. (2006). A blogger’s blog: Exploring the definition of a medium. Reconstruction, 6(4). Retrieved from https://www.danah.org/papers/ABloggersBlog.pdf boyd, D. (2008). Facebook’s privacy trainwreck: Exposure, invasion, and social convergence. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 14(1), 13–20. boyd, D., Chang, M., & Goodman, E. (2004). Representations of dignity identity. Retrieved from http://www.danah.org/papers/CSCW2004Workshop.pdf boyd, D., & Ellison, N.  B. (2008). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 210–230. Burgess, J., & Green, J. (2009). YouTube: Online video and participatory culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Chouliaraki, L. (2010). Self-mediation: New media and citizenship. Critical Discourse Studies, 7(4), 227–232.

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D’Onfro, J. (2015, January 21). Google’s ten biggest acquisitions. Business Insider Singapore. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.sg/googles-ten-biggest-acquisitions2015-1/?r=US&IR=T#.VzrcvJF942w Davies, J. (2004). Negotiating femininities online. Gender and Education, 16(1), 35–49. Davies, J. (2009). Online connections, collaborations, chronicles, and crossings. In R.  Willett, M. Robinson, & J. Marsh (Eds.), Play, creativity, and digital cultures (pp. 108–124). New York: Routledge. de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Derrida, J. (1988). Limited Inc (S. Weber, Trans.). Evanston, IL: University of Chicago Press. Eley, G. (1987). Nations, publics, and political cultures: Placing Habermas in the nineteenth century. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 289–339). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Facebook. (2016). Investor relations. Facebook. In Retrieved from. http://investor.fb.com/faq.cfm Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Singapore, Singapore: Longman. Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text, 25/26, 56–80. Freelon, D. (2010). Analyzing online political discussion using three models of democratic communication. New Media & Society, 12(7), 1172–1190. Fuchs, C. (2014). Social media: A critical introduction. London: SAGE. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Penguin. Google. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.google.com.sg/intl/en/about Habermas, J. (1987). The theory of communicative action, Vol. 2: System and lifeworld. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1991). A reply. In A. Honneth & H. Joas (Eds.), Communicative action: Essays on Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action (pp.  214–264). Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (2006). Political communication in media society: Does democracy still enjoy an epistemic dimension? The impact of normative theory on empirical research. Communication Theory, 16, 411–426. Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M., boyd, D., Cody, R., Herr, B., et al. (2009). Hanging out, messing around, geeking out: Living and learning with new media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Retrieved from http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual poachers: Television and participatory culture. New York: Routledge. Jenkins, H. (2006a). Fans, bloggers, and gamers: Exploring participatory culture. New  York: New York University Press. Jenkins, H. (2006b). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press. Landes, J. B. (1988). Women and the public sphere in the age of the French Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Loader, B.  D., & Mercea, D. (2011). Networking democracy? Information, Communication, & Society, 14(6), 757–769. Loxley, J. (2007). Performativity. New York: Routledge. Papacharissi, Z. A. (2010). A private sphere: Democracy in a digital age. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Redden, J. (2011). Poverty in the news: Information. Communication & Society, 14(6), 820–849. Roberts, J., & Crossley, N. (2004). Introduction. The Sociological Review, 52(1), 1–27. Schneider, S. (1997). Expanding the public sphere through computer-mediated communication: Political discussion about abortion in a Usenet newsgroup. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Scott, J. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Soon, C., & Cho, H. (2011). Flows of relations and communication among Singapore political bloggers and organizations: The networked public sphere approach. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 8(1), 93–109. Stunt, V. (2014, February 19). Why Google is buying a seemingly crazy collection of companies. CBC News. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ why-google-is-buying-a-seemingly-crazy-collection-of-companies-1.2537110 The Economist. (2016, April 9). How to win friends and influence people. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21696507-social-network-has-turned-itself-oneworlds-most-influential-technology-giants Turkle, S. (1999). Cyberspace and identity. Contemporary Society, 28(6), 643–648. Wodak, R. (2001). What CDA is about: A summary of its history, important concepts, and its developments. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 1–13). London: SAGE. Wynn, E., & Katz, J. E. (1997). Hyberbole over cyberspace: Self-presentation and social boundaries in internet home pages and discourse. Information Society, 13(4), 297–327.

Chapter 4

Politics and Social Media in Singapore

Abstract  This chapter sets the socio-political context for the empirical examination of two Singapore-based comedic videos in the following two chapters. Given the country’s tightly regulated media spaces, the expression of free speech is considerably curbed in the eyes of its critics. It is therefore timely to interrogate the agency of its people in enacting voice in the digital vernacular discourse, particularly in the online subpolitical terrain. By delineating the socio-political development of the city-state in this manner, readers will gain an insight into how Singapore-based social media producers have to calibrate their performative tropes to successfully avoid the ire of regulators. This knowledge will enrich the understanding in the ways power circulates and reconstitutes itself in the performative digital culture. Accordingly, this chapter first begins with an outline of Singapore’s state ideologies and the development of its system of political rule in the 54 years of its nationhood. With this background, the chapter then focuses on the modus operandi of the state machineries in regulating free speech in various mediatized spaces. In the second part of the chapter, I consider the agentic potentials of the people both in response to a past government policy that was unpopular and, more broadly, in the way they participate in online subpolitical activities. In the latter, I focus on the instrumentality of humor as a central trope in such subpolitical performances.

4.1  Introduction In the previous chapters, I have argued for the need to reimagine newer ways to examine the movements of power in today’s performance-sensitive social mediascape. Given the increasingly performative nature of power in the digital realm, Bakhtin’s (1965) theory of carnivalesque is primed as a unique theoretical and empirical framework that unpacks the nuanced display of power interwoven in a comedic act. In light of this theoretical backdrop, this chapter therefore sets the context for the empirical examination of two Singapore-based comedic videos in the following two chapters. The move to dedicate an entire chapter for this purpose is necessary and important given the country’s tightly regulated media spaces, which have rendered the expression of free speech limited and sporadic. In light of the socio-political reality in the city-state, especially with the recent introduction of POFMA (Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act), it is timely to © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H.-Y. K. Kan, Digital Carnivalesque, Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2051-8_4

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consider the agency of its people in enacting voice in the restricted digital vernacular discourse. In the broader context of this book, this contextual knowledge furthers our understanding in terms of the reconstituting nature of power in today’s performative digital culture. Accordingly, this chapter first begins with an outline of Singapore’s state ideologies and the development of its system of political rule in the 54 years of its nationhood. With this background, the chapter then focuses on the modus operandi of the state machineries in regulating free speech in various mediatized spaces. In the second part of the chapter, I consider the agentic potentials of the people both in response to a past government policy that was unpopular and, more broadly, in the way they participate in online subpolitical activities. In the latter, I focus on the instrumentality of humor as a central trope in such subpolitical performances. Two key observations are noted in this chapter. Firstly, it is noteworthy that while digital subpolitical enactments in social media may seem comparable with theatrical or staged performances that are socio-politically motivated, regulators do not have the means to systematically monitor the cyberspace for subpolitical activities as the nature of the digital sphere is embodied and networked. In this regard, it is therefore foolhardy to assume the absence of punitive actions as consent of the Singapore government toward greater freedom of speech. It could simply signal careful deliberation on the part of the incumbent government in taming the digital subpolitical discourse in a considered and efficacious manner. Second, in light of the restrictive media environment in the city-state, the creativity of successful social media producers to circumvent regulatory restrictions through calibration of performative tropes in the production of counter-narratives deserves greater scholarly attention.

4.2  Ideology of Pragmatism Singapore’s phenomenal rise as an economic “powerhouse” in the last 54 years has been well-documented (Chua, 1995). Often, accompanying the telling of Singapore’s success story is the Singapore Story, a narrative based on accounts of hardships and sacrifices of the founding generation and the nation’s only ruling party since independence, the People’s Action Party (PAP). Through numerous iterations of the same story transmitted in political speeches, national songs, and citizenship education lessons, the intention of the ruling party has been to foster a common sense of national identity among the racially diverse populace based on a constant heightened state of crisis, of vulnerability, and of survivability as a nation (Koh, 2005). This perceived sense of crisis is the result of a confluence of geopolitical factors. Firstly, as a small island nation, Singapore is disadvantaged by the absence of a natural hinterland and material resources. Secondly and historically, it has an ethnic majority of Chinese. These two social realities contribute to Singapore’s precarious position given its geopolitical location in the Malay/Muslim archipelago that is dominated by ethnic Malays. Further, the rise in terrorism activities since the

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September 11 attacks in the USA and elsewhere has invariably intensified the rhetoric of fear and uncertainty in public discourse (Spykerman, 2016). Alongside the ideology of survival has been the ideology of pragmatism in PAP’s style of government. In pursuing an economy-centric plan for its people, the PAP adopted a “problem-solving” mind-set (Hill & Lian, 1995, p.  65) in managing a plethora of social issues (e.g., job creation, housing, security, urban planning) that came with nation building (Nasir & Turner, 2014). Solving critical nation building issues in the first decade after independence in a pragmatic manner won electoral popularity for the ruling party (Chua, 1995). In fact, the ruling party has won every election for the last 54 years. The PAP has often framed this accomplishment as a mandate from the people as evident in the “common sense of the population” (p. 4) in favoring “a better life over political ideology” (Ho, Sim, & Alviar-Martin, 2011, p. 267).

4.3  A Neo-confucian System of Political Rule Viewed through the lens of western-style democracy, Singapore’s legitimacy as a democratic state has often been challenged by western political scientists and foreign journalists (Allison, 2015). McCarthy (2006) describes the system of government in Singapore as a form of tyranny, while Mauzy and Milne (2002) frame it as draconian. On the other hand, Nasir and Turner (2014) have opted to frame the discussion of Singapore’s socio-political system as “soft authoritarianism” (p. 35), one that is deeply entrenched in the tradition of Confucianism as an approach to government. The Confucian ideal follows a paternalistic familial structure where the father is the head of the household. In this role, the benevolent father shoulders the responsibility for the welfare of all under his stewardship, while members of the household are passivated against the dominant father figure. In extending the familial concept of Confucianism as a polity model, the notion of the government as the head of the household and the citizenry as compliant children are to be observed for the collective good of the populace. Within this neo-Confucian style of rule, the ruling party in Singapore has successfully operated a tightly controlled system of socio-political domination that has sought to contain dissident voices at all levels of society (Ho et  al., 2011). In the parliamentary system, for example, opposition parties fulfill only a tokenistic role in presenting alternative views for the purpose of constructive feedback (Thio, 2004). In the current 13th Parliament of Singapore, the ruling party occupies 82% of the seats, the opposition representation accounts for only 9% of the parliamentary seats, and nonpartisan representation accounts for the remaining seats (Parliament of Singapore, 2019a, June 6). This same approach in fostering the PAP’s brand of political rationality is evident in the way it has systematically engineered all aspects of social life in Singapore for the past 54  years (Nasir & Turner, 2014).

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4.4  G  overnance of the City-State: A Shift from Repression to Calibrated Coercion In ensuring a firm grip in governing the city-state, the PAP government adopted a generally repressive approach in silencing political dissidents in the first decades of nationhood (George, 2012). Its most formidable tool in exerting control has been the Internal Security Act (ISA), which was instituted in 1963 to arrest suspicious individuals without warrant and to detain them without trial. Over the decades, the ISA has been wielded on several occasions to deal with dissidence involving the media, student activists, and political opponents. However, toward the end of the twentieth century, with the increasing emphasis in civil rights worldwide that coincided with the unfolding of significant world events (e.g., end of the Cold War, fall of the Soviet bloc) that favored a more democratic disposition in matters of governance, the instrumentality of ISA appears to have been used for matters associated with terrorist and security threats in recent history (Tham, 2019b, June 26; Baharudin, 2019, Jan 16). More specifically, the shift toward a progressively lighter touch of government control was in part due to Singapore’s increasing prominence on the world economic stage by the 1990s. Given the importance of trade and political relations to Singapore’s open market strategy, the PAP leadership is cognizant of its precarious position in managing the more liberal expectations of its western trade partners while keeping an ironclad control in the running of the state. In the eyes of western and local critics, this shift toward openness in governance has been suspicious, contradictory, and at times reversionary. However, with the passing of the first generation of PAP leaders who had justified repressive means as an unavoidable part of nation building, and the emergence of fourth-generation leaders who are products of western thought raised in different geopolitical conditions, there appears to be a more concerted effort to move away from repression as a dominant tool of governance. In its place, a more calibrated stance, enforced mainly through hegemonic macrostructures, has become more apparent in contemporary Singapore.

4.5  T  he Rule of Law and Hegemonic Instrumentality in Curbing Expressions Through Media Platforms The shift toward the strengthening of hegemonic social structures as a mode of governance is always ring fenced by a robust system of laws and governmental policies in Singapore. In addition to the ISA as an extreme form of punitive and deterrent measure, the legislation of press laws and permit systems has been put in place to reduce the risk of media outlets being hijacked as ideological platforms by untamed media groups and foreign influencers.

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4.5.1  Press The comprehensive press laws as encapsulated in the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act (NPPA) ensure all bases are covered in the maintenance of status quo in Singapore’s society. Among all press-related regulations, the most contentious could be the press licensing scheme in Section 21 of the NPPA.  Inherited from Singapore’s colonial days, it requires all publications to apply for a yearly license. While the licensing scheme is not an uncommon regulatory practice in journalism worldwide, the contention in the case of Singapore lies in the involvement of the state as the licenser, as opposed to that of an independent body as observed in most developed nations. The right to grant, extend, or revoke one’s license rests completely with the minister in charge. Additionally, those who contravene the Act risk the possibility of a jail term (up to 3 years) and a fine of S$50,000 (Newspaper and Printing Presses Act, Chapter 206, Section 21). This Act was invoked in a few instances before the turn of the current century. The licenses of affected publications (i.e., Nanyang Siang Pau, the Singapore Herald, and Woman’s Affairs) were revoked for broaching on sensitive issues of politics and race (George, 2012). Section 24 of the revised NPPA is another press-related regulation that seeks to assert the state’s control over the interpretation of press freedom. This clause imposes limits (concerning sales, distribution, and importation) over the influences of foreign publications particularly in “meddling” with what is deemed as Singapore’s domestic affairs. Accordingly, not only would Section 21 be invoked if Section 24 is found to have been contravened, persons found distributing or in possession of five copies of a banned foreign publication will be liable to be jailed, fined, or both. In conjunction with this rule, senior PAP cadres have resorted to suing foreign publications (as well as local political dissidents) on grounds of personal defamation and/or contempt of court. The more infamous cases involved the International Herald Tribune in 1994 and 2010, Bloomberg in 2002, Malaysia’s Star in 1987, and the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1988 and 2006 (George, 2012). The unapologetic deployment of draconian policies in censoring media in the city-state has served the ruling government’s objective in explicitly deterring firebrand journalism. Consequently, Singaporeans and foreigners alike have become circumspect in their exercise of freedom of speech in the public sphere. Running concurrent with the hardline approach is the suite of additional clauses within NPPA that appeal to market rationality, among others, as a natural way to foster a sense of self-censorship within the press industry (Rodan, 2004). In the first instance, newspaper houses are publicly listed companies in the Singapore Stock Exchange (Section 8). This ensures that profit interests of shareholders act as a restraint to curb ideologically driven motivations of publishers from giving space to dissident voices. Second, through the management of ownership (Section 11) and matters involving voting rights (Section 11), there is no major shareholder who is able to significantly alter the ideological position of the publication (George, 2012). Lastly, in reserving the right to issue and transfer management shares to any persons as assigned by the minister, the government retains final control in ensuring that the newspapers will

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not be ideologically conflictual with the government (Section 10). In this way, self-­ censorship within the industry is achieved by controlling the structural composition of publishing entities in Singapore such that any ideological threats could be dealt with easily. In tandem with the enactment of the NPPA as a way to appeal to the sensibility of press owners to focus on profit objectives of the company, communication scholar George (2012) has observed how the appointment of senior officials (i.e., trusted senior officials of PAP leadership) and editors is another means to balance the tension between ideological control and demand for professional journalistic ethics in the newsroom.

4.5.2  Artistic Performances and Films Similar to the print industry, the local arts scene and film industry too face regulatory restraints in the scope of their artistic performances. In mitigating the increasing demand for greater openness over the past decades, the permit system and procedures have been modified since the 1980s. In 1988, the Committee of Performing Arts was commissioned by the government to manage the delicate business of enforcing restraint while promoting the arts in Singapore (Iau et al., 1989). In the 1990s, this trend toward a more tolerant disposition for alternative voices from the arts was realized in the adoption of respective classification schemes, as opposed to censorship, for theatrical performances and that of moving images (George, 2012). Yet the movement toward liberalization in Singapore’s civil society is never a given. As exemplified in the case of the press industry, it is always undergirded by swift legislative amendments and backed up by punitive measures, when necessary, to ensure that the government’s overarching interest in ideological consent is never compromised. This was evident in 1994 when government funding for “unscripted genres such as forum theatre or performance art” (George, 2012, p. 142) was halted as a response to a performance by the Necessary Stage that was deemed as Marxist in nature. In 2011, the National Arts Council (NAC) withdrew publishing grants for a volume of collected plays by playwright Chong Tze Chien. In the collection, the theme of national service and race was touched upon in one of the plays entitled Charged (Today, 2015). Again, in 2015, NAC withdraw a publishing grant for the graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye on the grounds of “sensitive content” (Today, 2015). While specific reasons were never revealed, it is understood that artist-illustrator Sonny Liew reimagined the Singapore’s Story in his fictional interpretation of the country’s past. A further restraint in expression has been in the area of politically motivated films. Prompted by the production of a political film by the opposition party, Singapore Democratic Party, Section 33, of the Films Act was enacted in 1998 to prohibit the making, distribution, and exhibition of party political films for the purpose of political campaigns in the city-state (Films Act, Chapter 107). Culpability is based on “actual or constructive knowledge” (Hang, 2014, p.  163) that the

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t­ransgressor has in believing that the material in question constitutes a party-political film (Films Act, Chapter 107, Section 33). In this case, transgressors will not only have their productions confiscated; they will also be liable to pay a maximum fine of S$100,000 or be imprisoned for a term not exceeding 2 years. According to the state statutes, a film is interpreted under Section 2(1) as party political when it takes the form of “an advertisement made by or on behalf of any political party in Singapore or anybody whose objects relate wholly or mainly to politics in Singapore, or any branch of such party or body” or when it is made by any person and directed toward any political end in Singapore (Films Act, Chapter 107, Section 2). This framing is further ring fenced by further clarifications, effected in 2009, in Sections 2(2) and 2(3). While Section 2(2) seeks to clarify the aspect of political intent of the film, Section 2(3) provides a series of ten instances that excludes the film in question from being associated as a party-political film. According to Hang (2014), the broad definition of party-political film and the largely interpretative nature (e.g., Section 2(2a) “in the opinion of the Board”) of the legal framework afford “broad powers to the Minister and leaves much to his discretion” (p. 164). A prominent case in point is the categorization of Martyn See’s documentary “Singapore Rebel,” which is about Singapore Democratic Party leader, Dr. Chee Soon Juan, a political film under the Films Act, and the banning of the same film in the 2005 Singapore International Film Festival. This decision was subsequently reversed when the film was recategorized for restricted release under age-­ advisory rating Scheme (M18) 4 years later in 2009. In the same way, Section 2 of the Films Act has called into question the categorization, investigation, and/or banning of numerous films in recent memories (e.g., “Speakers Cornered” filmed by Martyn See in 2008 was categorized for restricted release, while his other documentary entitled “Zahari’s 17” was banned for screening in the city-state) that have, in one way or another, embodied certain political agendas that are problematic for the ruling party. While the generally restrictive climate in the domain of performing arts has possibly given shape to a performance culture that is conditioned to always second guess its own actions, the challenging circumstances have also emboldened artist-­ activists to push back against the restrictive climate. In this regard, the arts community has been more vocal than journalists in its activism. These efforts include proactive engagement with policy makers in periodic censorship reviews and the use of stage as a powerful tool to respond to contentious social issues in the city-­ state (George, 2012).

4.5.3  Cyberspace As compared to print and films, cyberspace is a considerably more problematic space to regulate. This can be attributed to both the structure and nature of the Internet. Architecturally, the Internet is networked according to the “end-to-end” principle (George, 2012). This means that unlike both print and broadcast platforms

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that require the mediation of print companies or broadcast establishments to push media contents, the networked public as both content generator and distributor does not require similar intervention from these entities. As such, the enforcement of a licensing system as deployed in press and films is difficult to administer in the context of cyberspace. On the other hand, the option of a complete ban of the Internet, as observed in China, is not viable as the ruling party recognizes the tremendous utility of the Internet for its economic value. The complexity in maintaining control over cyberspace is further complicated given the embodied nature of Web 2.0, which places focus on online self-representation over interest-based affiliation (boyd, 2006). Accordingly, it is practically impossible for the government to systematically sieve out dissident voices from banal online communication without co-opting the support of SNS platform owners or resorting to legislative avenues. Since SNS platform owners are international conglomerates which the PAP government has incomplete control over, the rule of law is once again called forth as an instrument to engineer desired changes in the city-state. The government first imposed the Class Licensing System (or the Internet Code of Practice) on online news sites as a whole in 1996 (Infocomm Media Development Authority, n.d.). While the content providers were not mandated to register under the Class Licensing System, the scheme served as a reminder of the government’s presence in cyberspace and for site owners to enforce self-censorship in matters concerning contents and intervention from foreign influences (George, 2012). Prior to its most recent update in 2013, the Act was activated on 24 occasions for various breaches of content guidelines (Singapore Government, 2013). In this regard, one instance was related to religiously sensitive content, while most instances were associated with pornographic or sexually explicit contents. In a move to clearly distance itself from its infamous reputation as autocratic, the government further clarifies on its website (gov.sg) that “there has not been an instance where MDA has directed sites to take down content that is critical of the Government or any Minister.” Despite the government’s justification that the Internet Code of Practice is meant to safeguard the interests of the people, the message did not resonate with political activists and socio-political commenters in general. Two anecdotal examples could be observed from the government’s requests to socio-political websites Sintercom (Singapore Internet Community) and The Online Citizen to register as political websites in 2001 and 2011, respectively (George, 2012). While Sintercom chose to shut down due to what was perceived as an onerous assignment of personal liability that the site owner had to bear for contents posted by site contributors (George, 2006), The Online Citizen consented but threw a party as a resistive expression (Zaini, 2011). In conjunction with the regulatory framework, hegemonic efforts couched in the form of public education have been simultaneously employed as softer approaches to inoculate the populace against inherent “social ills” associated with unregulated access to online platforms (Weninger, 2017). Some past and current measures include the formation of PAGi or the Parents Advisory Group, a ground-up initiative “to protect children as they ventured into cyberspace” (Ibrahim, 2012); ­Inter-­Ministry

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Cyber Wellness Steering Committee “to encourage and promote safe, responsible use of the Internet”; programs by the National Library Board to “equip students as well as the broader adult population with skills to evaluate the accuracy and reliability” of digital resources; and the formation of the Media Literacy Council (MLC) to drive and coordinate public education initiatives and policy discussions pertaining to cyberspace (Media Literacy Council, 2012). The Internet Code of Practice was subsequently updated in 2013 “in recognition of the changes to the media landscape” (Singapore Government, 2013). In this revision, instead of licensing the Internet as a class, online news sites are individually licensed if their web activities satisfy the following conditions: 1. Report an average of at least one article per week on Singapore news and current affairs over a period of 2 months. 2. Are visited by at least 50,000 unique IP addresses from Singapore each month over the same period of 2 months. Online news sites are expected to comply within 24 hours with MDA’s directions to remove content that is found to be in breach of content standards. An additional requirement is that online news sites are required to put up a performance bond like all other individually licensed broadcasters, and the sum of $50,000 is consistent with that required of niche TV broadcasters. In explicating the intentions in the revision of the regulatory framework, Singapore’s Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim, argued that the changes made were for the purpose of protecting “the interests of ordinary Singaporeans” so that they read “the right things” (Han, 2013). A case in point was the suspension of a socio-political website, The Real Singapore (TRS), under the Internet Code of Practice. The licenses of its owners, Ai Takagi and Yang Kaiheng, to operate in similar capacities on various SNS were suspended in 2015 (Au-Yong, 2016). The owners were subsequently charged in 2016 under the Sedition Act for publishing articles that willfully incited religious and class-based tensions in Singapore. A recent controversial move of the incumbent government in regulating digital expressions is the legislation of against online falsehood or Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) in May 2019. According to (POFMA) Bill (Parliament of Singapore, 2019b), POFMA is intituled as: An Act to prevent the electronic communication in Singapore of false statements of fact, to suppress support for and counteract the effects of such communication, to safeguard against the use of online accounts for such communication and for information manipulation, to enable measures to be taken to enhance transparency of online political advertisements, and for related matters.

The enactment of POFMA requires the satisfaction of two conditions (Section 7, POFMA Bill). First, falsehood must be established in the online communication. Second, the false statement is intended to cause public harm (Parliament of Singapore, 2019b). When these two conditions are met, the piece of communication concerned must be corrected or be removed. Persons who contravene the Act would

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be liable on conviction and/or fines, depending on judicial discretion. While the scope of the Act focuses on individuals whom the falsehoods are attributed to, for pragmatic reasons, the interest of the incumbent government is to target technology forms and platforms, or proxy entities (Tham, 2019a, May 4), to curb the aspect of virality in the spread of online falsehoods. Accordingly, Internet platforms/intermediaries and access service providers are obligated to undertake respective corrective actions categorized under Targeted Correction Direction (e.g., issue a correction notice to all its end users), Disabling Direction (e.g., disable access by end users in Singapore to identified falsehood), or General Correction Direction in the Act (Parliament of Singapore, 2019b) to tackle the spread of online falsehoods. In the first instance and from the lens of the masses, the PAP-styled systematicity and rigor in the formalization of a well-conceived POFMA may provide much comfort to its citizens who have grown accustomed to the ideology of pragmatism or the rhetoric of survivalism (Hill & Lian, 1995; Koh, 2005; Nasir & Turner, 2014). At a deeper level, what could perhaps be perceived as unsettling or “chilling” for the average citizen is the dialectical disjuncture or disconnect between the perceived interpretative powers that ministers have to both trigger the Act and to define the scope of public interests to justify the enforcement of the Act and the legalistic approach in setting out watertight judicial terms in Legal English that is steeped in legal terminologies, linguistic conventions, and structure. To the man-on-the-street who are unfamiliar with legalese, threading on unmarked territories can be particularly daunting. Further, unlike previous legislative actions and revisions (e.g., Print Act, Broadcasting Act, Internet Code of Practice) that similarly seek to address the issue of “problematic” communications deemed to be against public interests, and may be perceived as equally draconian in their judicial outcomes, the reach and effects of POFMA could be far more obtrusive to the ordinary citizens given that the modes of online communication are everyday channels of communication (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram) in the twenty-first century. Invariably, given the uncertainty in assessing the clear boundaries in exercising one’s expressions freely without running afoul of the law, most ordinary citizens may end up keeping an unnecessarily wide berth from testy out-of-bound (OB) markers (e.g., information that may be ambiguous or sensitive politically, religiously, and/or culturally) in their online communication and be circumspect not only in the selection of topics and posturing of messages but also in managing platform settings (e.g., circulated among friends as opposed to public) and curating one’s online personae more deliberately (but not always logically). As explicated in this section, while the ruling party has certainly moved away from the draconian adoption of ISA as its formidable instrument to govern, it has stuck largely to formal policy and legal frameworks, as well as hegemonic tools, which appeal either to market sensibilities or resort to public education, in the governing of Singapore (Jacobson, 2010; Tan, 2015).

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4.6  E  ffects of Calibrated Governance and the Social Cost of Globalization The paternalistic and heavy-handed approach of the ruling party encountered little resistance from the people in the early decades of nationhood. In fact, the PAP’s pragmatism and swiftness in resolving domestic social problems and in establishing international trade relations were often credited for Singapore’s ascent to the status of a First World country in the late twentieth and twenty-first century (People’s Action Party, 2016). Yet, the social effects of its policies implemented in the early days of independence have had dire ramifications that have manifested only in more recent decades. In particular, in the context of Singapore’s elevated status as a prominent global trade player since the start of the millennium, archaic social policies – most prominently that of population control – have impinged on the response of the PAP government to supply the needed labor to support key infrastructural initiatives (e.g., public housing, healthcare, and transport) and for the seamless running of the city-state as a well-oiled machinery (Lim, 2017; Yong, 2013). The end of World War II gave rise to increased births (i.e., baby boom) in many countries including Singapore. This unregulated population expansion was a grave burden on the young nation that had no natural resources nor military capabilities to defend itself. In its endeavor to reduce fertility rates and to encourage a delay in marriage, a slew of policies (e.g., Voluntary Sterilization Act and the Abortion Act of 1969) were passed (Nasir & Turner, 2014). In conjunction, the “Girl or Boy, Two is Enough” campaign was rolled out to encourage the idealized family size of four – father, mother, and two children. By 1975, population growth was declining. At the same time, the proportion of citizens dwindled sharply from 86% of Singapore’s population in 1990 to 64% by 2009 (The Economist, 2009). Contemporary scholarship and popular opinion alike have mostly pointed to the government’s interventionist approach in the early years as an explanation for today’s problems of declining fertility rate and aging population (Sun, 2012; Youngblood, 1987). In addressing these demographic concerns, the incumbent government turned toward immigration policies to shore up its only natural resource, human capital, needed to drive its plan of sustained economic growth. One of the most recent moves in this aspect was the release of a White Paper on Population in February 2013. It proposed an increase in population from 5.3 million in 2013 to 6.9 million by 2030 (National Population and Talent Division, 2013). In view of the stubbornly declining fertility rate among citizens, the shortfall in the proposed population numbers would be met through targeted immigration policies. This meant that 15,000 to 25,000 immigrants a year would become new citizens (Nasir & Turner, 2014). In other words, according to the PAP plan, 45% of the population would be noncitizens (Yew, 2016). While this legislative move aligns with past actions of the incumbent government to exert control over the populace with limited consultation, the pushback of the people (both online and offline) in this instance was unprecedented (BBC, 2013).

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For the ordinary Singapore citizen, the foreigner issue was considered a “proxy” issue (Yew, 2016, p. 104) that was associated with the aggregated bread-and-butter concern with one’s livelihood (or one’s sense of safety). Foreigners bore the brunt of the citizens’ frustration with the incumbent government and its (past) plan to deal with Singapore’s population problem and in unlocking the “immigration floodgates” (Yew, 2016, p. 106). Accordingly, foreigners have been blamed for contributing to increased pressure in housing options, career and tertiary places, and positions in sports teams and for overcrowdedness in the tiny city-state (Today, 2014). This increasingly xenophobic posture among the populace has to be understood against the backdrop of a significant political development that occurred during that period. The event was the General Election 2011 (GE2011). Touted as a watershed election in popular discourse, GE2011 saw the PAP ruling party suffered its most severe electoral setback since independence (Lim, 2016). Given the political resonance associated with the “foreigner issue” in the build up to GE2011 and in the aftermath, a series of governmental initiatives and policies were put in place in a bid to regain trust from the citizens. These included conciliatory efforts to engage citizens (i.e., Singapore Conversation that was started in October 2012) and policy changes to curb the influx of unskilled migrant workers (i.e., Foreign Worker Levy scheme) and strengthen the skills of Singapore workers (i.e., Fair Consideration Framework and the SkillsFuture scheme) (Yew, 2016). While these measures were not particularly problematic, the sudden introduction of the contentious Population White Paper, as foregrounded earlier, threw into question the sincerity of the incumbent government in responding to the concerns of ordinary citizens (Yew, 2016). Given the contradictory message as signaled by the government’s legislative and grassroots efforts, it also reinforces the view of the PAP cadres as being out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Singaporeans (Yew, 2016). Arguably, the socioeconomic implications associated with the “foreigner issue” are not unique to Singapore. These problems of immigration stated here mirror a global phenomenon that is attributable to the effects of globalization in today’s networked economy (Castells, 2010). With accelerated migratory movements, economic and social conflicts caused by the resettling of massive communities are unprecedented and are often fraught with xenophobic sentimentality (Ciarniene & Kumpikaite, 2008). While the effects of migration may be a common global phenomenon, the “foreigner issue” has undeniably produced unique political effects given the particular socio-political context in Singapore. For the purpose of illuminating the extent of xenophobic sentiments in social media, I now describe a case in point. In January 2014, Anton Casey, an affluent British citizen, had to flee Singapore with his family after causing a major uproar by insinuating on his Facebook posts that Singaporeans who rode the metro with him were poor and smelly (AsiaOne Singapore, 2014). In his first post, he uploaded a picture of his son with the caption “Daddy, where is your car and who are all these poor people?” (Huffington Post, 2014). In the second post uploaded several days later, it showed his son in his silver sports car. It captioned “Ahhhhh reunited with my baby. Normal service can resume, once I have washed the stench of public transport off me.”

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In the buildup prior to his departure, netizens derided his actions through the creation and distribution of opinion pieces in blog posts and status comments. Casey even received death threats and had to issue a public apology (Tadeo, 2014). YouTubers took to the video sharing site to disclose personal information about Casey’s wife (Bernice Wong), a Singaporean and former beauty pageant winner, and to lampoon his actions in various other manners (Looi, 2014; Milroy, 2014; mrbrown, 2014; SG Party, 2014). He was eventually fired by his employer, and within 2 weeks from the start of the event, he left the country with his family. Notwithstanding the offensiveness of Casey’s post, the political significance of this incident must be comprehended against the backdrop of an increasingly politically engaged citizenry that has tapped into the affordances of social media for various forms of politicized participation. This active digital practice is further buoyed by the proliferation of socio-political websites that have become a mark of counter-­ narrative in the city-state (Salleh, 2015). The socio-political websites run the gamut from those that have been labeled by the state as subversive (e.g., The Real Singapore) to those who seek the middle ground (e.g., now-defunct The Middle Ground) in providing alternative journalistic perspectives.

4.7  Online Subpolitical Discourse in Singapore As aforementioned, a growing impatience among the new breed of Singaporeans for greater political voice runs concurrent with significant developments in the technologization of the informational age in the past two decades. As reviewed earlier, these phenomena include the convergence of social spaces in the networked economy and the growing prominence that online users place on the performativity of multiple selves through SNS (boyd, 2006). The coalescing of these separate developments contributes to the construction of a peculiar subpolitical phenomenon in Singapore’s online political discourse. In the context of this book, subpolitics are understood as political performances that are beyond the traditional framing of political activism (Beck, 1997). While the realization of this aspect of subpolitics varies depending on technological affordances associated with different SNS, they are constitutively counter-­ narrative and comedic in nature (Sreekumar & Vadrevu, 2013; Tan, 2011). A popular genre of this subpolitical performance takes the form of satirical critique (Tan, 2011), which is either realized in the form of amateur low-quality user-generated contents (UGC) or more professionally produced videos that are uploaded onto SNS. Tan investigated this dimension of counter-narrative in the local social media scene through a podcast that satirizes the prime minister in the bigger context of a political gaffe that took place during the General Election (GE) in 2006. The podcast was posted by mrbrown (mrbrown, n.d.), a well-known socio-political commentator, after a series of veiled and open political exchanges between the prime minister and him after the election. In the podcast entitled “Harmless podcast,” mrbrown pokes fun at the prime minister’s ignorance of local food culture, thus

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insinuating that the prime minister is out of touch with the ordinary citizens (Knighttjy, 2007). The full extent of mrbrown’s political agenda disguised in the literary genre of satire was comprehended mainly by “younger, technologically savvy set (of citizens) active on YouTube forums and other blogs” (Tan, 2011, p. 58). Viewers who did not fit this profile were generally unaware of the presence of the podcast, unclear of the backstories surrounding its production, or simply dismissed the production as mere humor or petty politics (Tan, 2011). In her discussion, she conceptualizes resistance in terms of macro- and micro-views. She parallels “micro-­ view of Internet resistance” (p. 64) with de Certeau’s (1984) notion of resistance as tactical and fleeting, while macro-views of resistance are espoused by critical scholarship. Metaphorically, Tan describes the perspective of micro-view of resistance as follows: Frustrations are aired, but they do not so much push forward agenda as rush to fill up (metaphorically) closed-off chambers separated from the crucial nodes of action. Hot air contracts as it cools over time, and the chambers are emptied – until the next rush of frustrations are aired. (p. 65)

This thread of counter-narrative that is at times subversive, comedic, and trivial is a common phenomenon in Singapore’s subpolitical discourse. In a similar study of subpolitics in Singapore, Sreekumar and Vadrevu (2013) interrogated the role of “twitterati” in shaping the quality of democratic debate within the context of GE2011. While GE2006 was often touted as the Internet election, GE2011 was the social media election as it had a more diverse participation that included oppositional parties, citizens, and interest groups (Lim, 2011; Yeo, 2011). In the study, 13 Twitter accounts that were active in generating socio-political tweets relating to Singapore in the run up to GE2011 were analyzed quantitatively. From the analysis, two most popular Twitter handles (i.e., Fake_PMLee and mrbrown) were further selected for in-depth qualitative analysis. While Fake_PMLee focused on parodying the Singapore prime minister, mrbrown is the well-known socio-political commentator who was foregrounded in Tan’s (2011) study earlier. Sreekumar and Vadrevu (2013) observed that pro-governmental tweets received low retweet counts. That is probably not unexpected given the potentials of SNS as a rallying point for alternative perspectives. However, it was significant to note that not all counter-narrative tweets were successful in being retweeted. To account for the difference, the authors identified several central features of the two most retweeted Twitter accounts in order to differentiate them from other alternative narratives. One central feature was the aspect of comicality that is infused in the approaches that the two Twitter accounts took toward satirical critique. Specifically, rhetorical devices such as “wit, sarcasm, parody and satire” (Sreekumar & Vadrevu, 2013, p. 231) were distinguished as central tropes in procuring the comedic factor. Beyond this, what is perhaps more important is the notion of curated presence that the Twitter personalities textually created in their tweets. This is evident in the way newer tweets fit into past tweets in a coherent manner on the timelines of both

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accounts. This contributed to a sense of conversation that was focused on the discussion of perennial concerns that have irked Singaporeans. Overall, while the article foregrounds the significance of social media-based politicized conversations as important in shaping the quality of democratic discourse in the city-state, it acknowledges that its resonance in directly impacting election outcomes was insignificant. In the subpolitical online scene as described above, two socio-political commentators stand out as household names in the city-state: mrbrown and Dr. Jiajia & BigBro (Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show, n.d.). mrbrown was singled out in both of the earlier studies. It is one of many monikers that the creator, Lee Kin Mun, uses for various parodying purposes. As for Dr. Jiajia & BigBro, they are the monikers for two off-screen brothers. Between the pair, the younger of the two is the show’s protagonist (Dr. Jiajia), while BigBro is the older sibling and “sidekick”. Both mrbrown and Dr. Jiajia & BigBro have maintained social media presences on popular SNS such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and websites. While mrbrown has maintained his reputation in this regard since the late 1990s, Dr. Jiajia & BigBro became active only in 2011. Both personalities have significant fan bases across all SNS that they maintain. In the case of YouTube, mrbrown has a following of 40,433 subscribers, and Dr. Jiajia & BigBro has 57,324 subscribers (as of August 22, 2019), numbers that are not insignificant in small Singapore’s alternative mediascape. Both commentators regularly upload videos in response to socio-political issues that take place in the country. To date, mrbrown has 501 videos uploaded to his YouTube account (https://www.youtube.com/user/mistabrown), while Dr. Jiajia & BigBro has produced 212 videos on the same platform (https://www.youtube.com/ user/liangjiasun). Given their immense popularity among Singaporeans, they have attracted corporate partnerships as evident in the form of celebrity endorsement that the personalities have done on occasions for the promotion of various products, services, or organizational messages in many of their video productions. In sum, the popularity of mrbrown and Dr. Jiajia & BigBro stems from their counter-narrative scripts that are often comedic and light-hearted in nature. Without breaking the surface, the appeal of their productions appears similar: the procurement of self-indulgent laughter. However, when the comedic factor is interrogated closely, their performances may reveal different ideological postures in their respective uses of social media space to mark their responses to various socio-political concerns. In this sense, their purposes in invoking the counter-narrative may differ ideologically. Yet, at a different level, both socio-political commentators are not dissimilar in the challenges that they face in responding to contesting demands while operating in the highly regulated media space. In this regard, while keeping to the purpose of providing counter-narrative perspectives in response to socio-political issues, the artists have to constantly calibrate their use of creative resources so as not to incur the ire of media regulators or their corporate partners.

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4.8  Summary With the maturation of social media and its ubiquitous prominence in Singapore’s civic life, digital politicized practices appear to have expanded beyond the confines of debates as a dominant way of political participation. For the incumbent government that has favored a heavy-handed approach in governing the city-state for the last 54 over years, this shift toward a light-hearted display of online political activism in popular discourse is possibly a great source of ire because its existing modus operandi, which consists mainly of legislative measures and education, may seem inadequate to respond to counter-narratives that are embodied in nebulous comedic performances. In this regard, humor that is hidden in online subpolitical discourse is analogous to aesthetic performances that are socio-politically charged. Yet, unlike the regulation of artistic performances that are associated with proxy entities (e.g., theatre groups), it is practically impossible for regulators to systematically monitor the cyberspace for subpolitical activities by netizens. However, the absence of punitive actions does not connote consent or openness of the PAP government toward greater freedom of speech. It might signal, to a limited extent, a sense of tentativeness and uncertainty or, perhaps, to a greater extent, careful deliberation on the part of the incumbent government in taming the digital subpolitical discourse. In order to regulate the cyberspace more efficaciously, what appears necessary is for the PAP government to reexamine its approaches in punishing proxy entities and adopt newer social media-relevant measures that are in line with digital social practices in today’s contemporary age. On another note, given the increasing popularity in the use of comicality and other rhetorical tropes such as wit, sarcasm, and irony in the performance of digital (sub)political acts in recent years, more scholarly emphasis is needed to interrogate politics and power in the digital age. Specifically, in the context of Singapore, this book seeks, firstly, to examine the performance of subpolitics in the vernacular online media and, secondly, to propose an empirical tool in order to uncover the expressions of power in the digital age systematically. In line with this aim, the following chapter revisits Bakhtin’s (1965) theory of carnivalesque as a tenable theoretical and empirical framework to unpack nuanced displays of power hidden in comedic acts.

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Spykerman, K. (2016, March 30). Islamophobia poses significant risk to Singapore: Shanmugam. Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/islamophobia-poses/2648978.html Sreekumar, T. T., & Vadrevu, S. (2013). Subpolitics and democracy: The role of new media in the 2011 General Election in Singapore. Science, Technology, & Society, 18(2), 231–249. Sun, S. H.-L. (2012). Population policy and reproduction in Singapore: Making future citizens. London: Routledge. Tadeo, M. (2014, January 22). British expat banker Anton Casey causes uproar in Singapore after mocking poor people and calling a taxi driver a “retard.” The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/british-expat-anton-casey-causes-uproarin-singapore-after-mocking-poor-people-calling-a-taxi-driver-a-retard-9077795.html# Tan, A. (2015, March 26). Lee’s Fine City had tough laws with clean Singapore government. Bloomberg. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-25/ lee-s-fine-city-had-tough-laws-with-clean-singapore-government Tan, S. E. (2011). Harmless and hump-less political podcasts: Censorship and internet resistance in Singapore. Spring, 5(1), 39–70. Tham, Y-C. (2019a, May 4). Law minister spells out how law on fake news will work. Straits Times. Tham,Y-C. (2019b, June 26). Three radicalised persons dealt with under ISA. Straits Times. Retrieved from https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/three-radicalised-persons-dealt-with-under-isa The Economist. (2009, November 12). A PR problem: Immigration becomes the hot political issue in a model city-state. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/14859345 Thio, L.-A. (2004). Rule of law within a non-liberal communitarian democracy: The Singapore experience. In R. Peerenboom (Ed.), Asian discourses of rule of law: Theories and implementation of rule of law in twelve Asian countries, France, and the US (pp. 183–224). London: Routledge. Today. (2014, January 18). Foreigner-local relations: It takes two to tango (p. 14). Today. (2015, May 30). NAC withdraws grant for graphic novel publisher due to sensitive content: Charlie Chan author-artist Sonny Liew expresses disappointment at decision. Retrieved from http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/ national-arts-council-revokes-grant-for-graphic-novel-Sonny-Liew Weninger, C. (2017). Media literacy education in Singapore: Connecting theory, policy, and practice. In K. Chan, K. Zhang, & A. Lee (Eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to media literacy (pp. 399–416). Beijing, China: Communication University of China Press. Yeo, A. (2011, May 11). 5 ways social media has impacted the Singapore General Election. TechinAsia. Retrieved from https://www.techinasia.com/social-media-singapore-general-election Yew, L. (2016). The foreigner issue and dilution: From GE2011 to GE2015. In T. Lee & K. Tan (Eds.), Change in voting: Singapore’s 2015 General Election (pp.  104–121). Singapore, Singapore: Ethos Books. Yong, C. (2013, October 23). Construction boom, but challenges such as manpower shortage looms. The Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ construction-boom-but-challenges-such-as-manpower-shortage-loom Youngblood, R. (1987, June 21). Stop at 2 Campaign works too well: Singapore urges new baby boom. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/1987-06-21/news/ mn-8983_1_baby-boom Zaini, K. (2011, January 31). TOC Uncassetted: TOC’s strength lies in a collective heartbeat. The Online Citizen. Retrieved from http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2011/01/31/ toc-uncassetted-tocs-strength-lies-in-a-collective-heartbeat

Chapter 5

Carnivalesque as Theoretical Framework

Abstract  Given the rich layering of social-emotional-political meanings enmeshed in comedic performances, what appears currently lacking in scholarship is a robust theoretical framework that systematically teases out the fullness in the performativity of comedies. In this chapter, I propose a fresh theoretical framework in light of its attendant orientation toward comedic performances as resistive (or perhaps, more broadly, counter-narrative in today’s impression-obsessed social media space). In transforming the theory into a sharp empirical tool, I first break down the concept into its constituent attributes by reviewing relevant scholarship on its appropriation in four select cinematic productions. They are The Big Lebowski, Super Size Me, Chris Farley’s performances in Saturday Night Live, and the Girls Gone Wild’s franchise. In doing so, I differentiate performing features, or form, from its intended resistive quality, or function. Accordingly, I introduce the comparative studies, two Singapore-based comedic videos and map out the analytical approach to distinguish comedies that are potentially subpolitical from comedies that are hegemonic in nature. While this proposition may afford an inventive and systematic approach to examine comedic performances, it is acknowledged that critical acceptance within academic circles is contingent upon a necessary reframing of politics as not always rational and/or deliberative.

5.1  Introduction Given the plethora of social mediatized texts that are multimodal in construction (e.g., videos and Internet memes), it is clear that sound and image have, to a certain extent, displaced language as the dominant semiotic resource in everyday communication (Iedema, 2003). In fact, multimodality scholars have emphasized the need to move away from a monomodal approach in the study of communication to a multimodal perspective in deconstructing semiotic complexity in the social world (Kress, 2010; Lim, 2011; Machin, 2007; Ventola, Charles, & Kaltenbacher, 2004). However, even with the proliferation of multimodal texts in online discourse, much of multimodal research still orients toward “language as meaning potential” (Pang, 2004, p.  29) and focuses on the empirical examination of static images (Baldry, 2004; Jewitt & Oyama, 2001; Lim, 2011; Machin, 2007). In order to make sense of the rich layering of social-emotional-political meanings that are associated with © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H.-Y. K. Kan, Digital Carnivalesque, Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2051-8_5

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online comedic performances, I return to Bakhtin’s (1965) postulation of carnivalesque for further inspirations. Although Bakhtin’s (1965) notion of carnivalesque was reviewed in Chap. 2 as a theoretical tool of resistive power among the masses, it was not expounded in an in-depth manner for its carnivalesque tropes. In this chapter, I expand and develop the theory of Bakhtin’s (1965) as an analytical framework. The key dimensions of Bakhtin’s carnivalesque form include grotesque realism, inversion of social hierarchies, rhetorical tropes, ambivalent laughter, publicness of the carnival event, and the inclusivity of audiences as insiders in the performativity of the resistive act. While these tactics and tropes holistically constitute Bakhtin’s conceptualization of the carnivalesque as existing within the sociocultural conditions of Rabelais’ nineteenth-­century Europe, the performativity of the carnivalesque in the twenty-­ first century, as foregrounded in the Introduction, responds to a vastly different and complex set of socio-political circumstances as afforded by participatory digital culture. As was discussed in previous chapters, a key consideration in this respect is the instrumentality of political economic considerations in the embodied online sphere that has inevitably reframed classical boundaries between dominant and subversive discourses (Burgess & Green, 2009). Resistive efforts that once motivated Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque in Rabelais’ terms are now more fleeting and nuanced in their realizations. Given the fragmentary nature of such “resistive” endeavors, it is perhaps more accurate to describe such mediatized productions as counter-narratives in today’s digitized economy. However, in expounding Bakhtin’s carnivalesque as an empirical instrument in the following paragraphs, I keep to the term “resistance” (or resistive) in order to underscore resistive potentials that are hidden in counter-­ narratives. This, I argue, is in keeping with Bakhtin’s notion of carnivalesque. Accordingly, in this chapter, I first propose a repositioning of Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque as a fresh theoretical framework in light of its attendant orientation toward comedic performances as broadly counter-narrative in today’s performance-­ sensitive social media space. This is done by breaking down the “anatomical structure” of the carnivalesque essence through the review of its appropriation in four select cinematic productions. They are The Big Lebowski, Super Size Me, Chris Farley’s performances in Saturday Night Live, and the Girls Gone Wild’s franchise. In doing so, I differentiate performing features, or form, from its intended resistive quality, or function. Thereafter, I introduce the comparative studies, which are two Singapore-based comedic videos, before mapping out the analytical approach to distinguish comedies that are potentially subpolitical from comedies that are hegemonic in nature. In the final analysis, I concede that while this proposition may afford a fresh and plausible approach to examine comedic performances, its acceptance within critical academic circles might be precarious as it demands a necessary shift in framing politics as not always rational and/or deliberative.

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5.2  Differentiating Authentic from Pseudo-carnivalesque Performances Within the digital sphere, perhaps one way to distinguish “authentic” carnivalesque expressions from the fray of “pseudo-carnivalesque” (Martin & Renegar, 2007, p. 303) realizations is to interrogate the constituent features that are often associated with carnivalesque expressions. By dissecting the anatomical structure of carnivalesque in this manner, we can differentiate salient characteristics of carnivalesque from subordinate features that serve to either augment resistive expressions or aestheticize dominant power (Cherrington, 2014; Goh, 2011, 2013; Ungureanu, 2015). The saliency and power of the carnivalesque rest with its ambivalent, collective, and public nature. When any of these definitive dimensions of the carnivalesque is compromised, festive laughter quickly loses its potential as “a shared social experience” (Olbrys, 2006, p.  245), and it grows sickly. It becomes reconstituted and reduced as it becomes individualized (Bakhtin, 1965). Instead of laughing with the others over humanity’s shared narratives, individualized laughter turns the spotlights unto the clowns, and audiences become mere spectators who partake in the game of laughing at the tragedies of the others (Olbrys, 2006; Singer, 2011). Once laughter as a critical tool to deconstruct the social world (Martin & Renegar, 2007) is decimated to that of “reduced laughter” (Olbrys, 2006, p. 243) or mockery, the resistive purpose of the other carnivalesque dimensions becomes murky as well. In this aspect, rhetorical tropes, such as satire, sarcasm, and even market language, loses its subversive potential and becomes associated with artistic performativity or framed as a literary genre, and the dimension of grotesque realism too that fosters one’s juxtaposition of life’s tumultuous themes now serves the purpose of temporal entertainment logic (Martin & Renegar, 2007). In sum, the character of carnivalesque is altered, and the carnivalesque no longer serves resistance but becomes a tool of hegemony. Bakhtin (1965) himself lamented the proliferation of “pseudo-carnivalesque” (Martin & Renegar, 2007, p. 303) performativity as an index of the “colonization of the festive world” (Ravenscroft & Gilchrist, 2009, p. 243). Contemporary critical scholars too attest to Bakhtin’s (1965) prediction of the carnivalesque as existing only in the “most paltry state” (Olbrys, 2006, p. 242) in contemporary western culture. Although the realizations of contemporary carnivalesque in Rabelais’ terms may appear somewhat untenable to many, communication scholars have argued otherwise. Much of the empirical works undertaken by scholars using carnivalesque as a lens have been in the examination of various media genres such as films, documentaries, television programs, and infomercials. In light of this, this book makes a significant contribution by filling a gap in research by taking on Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque as a tool to examine carnivalesque expressions in the informal social media space.

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5.3  A  ppropriation of Carnivalesque in Cinematic Productions Two media products that have been analyzed as examples of the “contemporary appropriation of the carnivalesque” (Meddaugh, 2010, p. 376) are Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski (TBL) and Spurlock’s Super Size Me (SSM). Both these productions adopt a carnivalesque lens as a cinematic form of social critique against the established social order. TBL was released in 1998, but it performed badly at the US box office (Rohrer, 2008). The film is based on a case of mistaken identity, which then develops into a series of convoluted events involving the protagonist and underdog, Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski. Over time the movie attained its status as a cult classic in the west after a shift in the political and social climate that was backgrounded by the terrorist attacks of September 11, a flagging US economy, and an extended (first) Gulf War (Martin & Renegar, 2007). TBL’s cult following could be attributed to its articulation of “an alternative worldview” (Martin & Renegar, 2007, p. 299) that rallied fans during the period of immense uncertainty and tension. As for SSM, it is a “critique for democratic culture” (Singer, 2011, p. 135). Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker, juxtaposes the neoliberal notion of personal responsibility and free choice and that of corporate responsibility in his documentary that features him attempting a 30-day MacDonald’s diet. Spurlock’s move was motivated by a failed lawsuit by two teenage women against MacDonald’s restaurant chain for their health concerns in 2002. In marking their resistance against dominant cultural values, the producers of TBL and SSM invoke carnivalesque strategies, namely, grotesque realism, inversion of hierarchies, and other rhetorical tropes, as a way to foster “a shared social experience” (Olbrys, 2006, p. 245) between producers/actors and their audiences through ambivalent laughter. The quality of this laughter is festive, public, generative, and emancipative given the universal appeal of underdog theatrics that undergird the carnivalesque scripts in both productions. While the examples of TSL and SSM orient toward a more authentic carnivalesque expression in contemporary mediatized discourse, not all media works performed in carnivalesque spaces engender the same qualities of resistance and emancipation. In fact, the potential of the carnivalesque is often exploited for its association with the aspect of grotesque realism. More specifically, bizarre behaviors realized in the form of debaucherous fun, revolting experimentations, or even violence performed during boisterous festivities have often been billed as carnivalesque (Cherrington, 2014; Pitcher, 2006; Ravenscroft & Gilchrist, 2009). In this respect, Chris Farley’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) and Joe Francis’ Girls Gone Wild (GGW) are two media examples that demonstrate how the “carnivalesque-­grotesque” (Olbrys, 2006, p. 240) is hijacked by Hollywood and transformed into a burlesque. Chris Farley’s fame in SNL was predicated upon the abuse of his grotesque body to serve the purpose of commercial entertainment. Farley was a celebrated cast member of the American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show during the 1990s before he tragically died of drug overdose in 1997. In SNL, Farley

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was routinely scripted to portray “hefty iconic figures” (p.  240), “out-of-control celebrities” (p. 244), hyperactive children, characters who are physically deformed, and obese women. Seemingly resistive, hidden in Farley’s rambunctious and grotesque parodies of contemporary culture and politics was an affront to Bakhtin’s (1965) representation of the carnivalesque as a resistive enterprise. On one level, the appropriation of carnivalesque tactics (e.g., rhetorical tropes, grotesque realism, parodies of life events) could be attributive factors; yet, on a deeper and perhaps more sinister level is the hegemonization of Farley, the actor, and perhaps those like him. In life, Farley was much like the characters he portrayed: indulgent, excessive in weight, comedic, awkward, and self-deprecating (Olbrys, 2006). Given the lack of social distance between Chris Farley’s onstage personas and his offstage personality, the audiences’ capacity to critically distinguish Farley’s reel and real lives could have impacted the nature of engagement between the actor and his audiences. Instead of connecting with the audiences as a storyteller, Farley was tragically framed as a clown who enacted his own life’s tragedies under the glare of others. In doing so, Farley’s audiences could only partake as spectators in his self-­ dramatizations, and the quality of their laughter might have morphed from one of solidarity to one motivated by narcissistic indulgence. Accordingly, the resistive potential and emancipative quality implicit in ambivalent laughter are diminished. In sum, the poignant case of Chris Farley demonstrates the invisibility and complexity of hegemonic instrumentality that functions innocuously within the dominant Hollywood entertainment culture. In the case of Joe Francis’ Girls Gone Wild (GGW), we encounter a different formulation in the way the discourse of the carnivalesque is appropriated by dominant practices. Created by Joe Francis in 1997 as late-night infomercials, GGW has evolved into a pornographic entertainment franchise that includes the distribution of DVDs and film series (Pitcher, 2006). The GGW videos typically involve camera crews capturing images of white college-aged women who willingly undress and/or perform lewd sexual acts for the camera in various party environments. Unlike the earlier case of the SNL series where Chris Farley, along with the marginalized characters that he portrayed, was cast as a laughing stock, GGW reduces the carnivalesque discourse by upholding bourgeois attitudes in defining cultural norms and also in fostering a neoliberal perspective through the exercise of personal choice in the consent to participate. For instance, the women approached in the filming of GGW conform to heteronormative expectations (e.g., white, middle-class, classed body, innocent looking) so as to cater to the profitable audience profile of 18–24-year-old heterosexual males. In addition, “excessive and deviant behaviors” (p. 205) (e.g., sexual acts between women or masturbation) spontaneously performed during the productions are often constructed by media as “an innocent rite of passage for white, middle-class youths” (p.  204) taken during sanctioned carnivalesque spaces (e.g., summer breaks). Further, the inclusion of both consent and dissent scenes in the productions falsify the impression of empowerment (as opposed to exploitation) for the young women in their exercise of free choice. In sum, GGW exploits the carnivalesque discourse

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for its capacity to temporarily suspend cultural observance of established order (Bakhtin, 1965) for the hegemonic purpose of reifying bourgeois standards in favor of the privileged middle class. In the sanctioned carnivalesque spaces of both SNL and GGW, we observe how bourgeois cultural markers framed in terms of appropriateness, taste, and social mores are reified. On the one hand, Farley, and the others that he represented, was systemically typecast by the stereotypical roles that he was scripted (and probably consented) to play. On the other hand, transgressions by the middle class, as represented by the real women in GGW, were celebrated as acceptable social behaviors for the privileged social class. Both these productions discipline Bakhtin’s notion of carnivalesque for its tactics of grotesque realism, rhetorical tropes, and comedic relief for commercial gains. As a result, carnivalesque cannot ensue as the established hierarchal social order was not disrupted or inverted for the temporary reign of resistance or emancipation.

5.4  W  hy the Notion of Carnivalesque as Social Critique Is Problematic with Critical Scholarship Ironically, the subtle distinction between carnivalesque, par excellence, and pseudo-­ carnivalesque as demonstrated here may not resonate with critical social scientists on two grounds. Firstly, carnivalesque discourse has never been associated with traditional construction of resistance ideologies within critical scholarship. In fact, the premise of western philosophical thought that undergirds western scholarship has always leaned toward the pursuit of social critique and emancipation through rational discourse. As Bruner (2005) posits, “true, open seriousness requires critical form of consciousness” (p. 151); rational discourse therefore serves as a “political necessity” (p.  151) in the critique of power inequality in western civilizations. Rational discourse is marked by deliberative rhetoric that demands serious inter-­ ideological discussions of everyday concerns (Freelon, 2010). This contrasts sharply with carnivalesque discourse, which is inherently nuanced, fluid, fleeting, and layered in its performativity of resistance. Yet, in the twenty-first century, boundaries between power and resistance, public and private, online and offline, and private and commercial have become rather porous. This social reality is problematic for the pursuit of intellectual activism on two levels. Theoretically, if critical scholarship remains stoic in the interrogation of power dynamics primarily through the deconstruction of dominant discourses, it misses the opportunity to unpack the complex workings of ideology and hegemony in contemporary mediatized forms of communication. Empirically, the conventional examination of carnivalesque as social critique by communication and cultural studies scholars has proceeded from a strong literary critique slant with a lack of analytic rigor and attention to form that has characterized critical discourse analytic approaches. Without a fresh methodological framework to examine power relations across different research contexts, the potential for theory-building is diminished.

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In addressing this concern, I propose a discursive analytical framework based primarily on the features of carnivalesque discourse (e.g., grotesque realism and the use of marketplace language) so that contemporary carnivalesque expressions may be interrogated for their form. Further, three key dimensions of the carnivalesque should also be investigated in order to clarify the social function of the carnivalesque act as a tool of power. In this aspect, the first dimension is the nature of laughter generated by the performativity, the second is the potentials of the carnivalesque performativity to act as a tool of social critique, and the third is the extent in the inversion of social hierarchies in enabling the carnivalesque performance.

5.5  Comparative Studies In the following two chapters, I use the carnivalesque framework as discussed in this chapter to examine two videos produced by Singapore social media personalities, mrbrown and Dr. Jiajia & BigBro, in response to a common socio-political discussion topic that was described in Chap. 4 (Sect. 4.6, “Anton Casey’s Case”). Given the intensity of the public outcry generated from the “foreigner issue” during the period chosen (i.e., GE2011 to GE2015) as well as the sensitive theme on class and race as played out in the Anton Casey episode, the two select videos not only offer great potentials to unpack the complex social relations along class and racial lines in the city state but also provide a useful insight to examine the attitudinal stances of the PAP government in responding to a politically participative and performance conscious citizenry in the twenty-first century. Procedurally, I first analyzed the videos for their form. Using the findings gathered at this first level, I next analyzed the performativity of the acts for their function as a tool to critique social concerns. Thereafter, I differentiate carnivalesque, par excellence, from pseudo-carnivalesque performances. How exactly are these steps achieved? I first broke down the analysis into two parts: semiotic resources and grotesque realism so as to establish the form of the comedic performances. Semiotic resources were further broken down into eight specific aspects that were observable from both videos. In this regard, the studying of meaning-making at the level of each identified semiotic resource is necessary so that an aggregative perspective in the performance of the characters through the deployment of semiotic resources can be inferred more cogently (Lim, 2011). Performative genre of the two videos was analyzed first. Thereafter, names of the characters, grooming, language, setting, body language (including the aspects of gestures, postures, facial expression, and non-spoken sound), props, and speech (i.e., use of linguistic and rhetorical devices) of the characters were also examined. As for grotesque realism, I operationalized this in terms of explicit and metaphorical references to bodily parts or functionalities for the overall purpose of caricaturing the characters in the video data. This includes references that indexed sexual activities, defecation, or secretion of bodily fluids.

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At the second level, I analyzed the social functions of the video data. The analysis centered on the salient features of the carnivalesque, which include the critique of social concern(s), the inversion of social hierarchies, and that of ambivalent laughter. The ultimate interest at this level is about the quality of generative laughter as one that mocks or one that is emancipative. Ambivalent laughter connotes the ideation of laughing with instead of laughing at others. The notion of laughing with foregrounds the notion of solidarity that is forged between audience and social actor(s) within the carnivalesque space. This sense of unity is fostered due to the stakes that members of the audience have with various aspects of the performance. For example, audience may identify with certain themes, characters, or plots in the production. As such, the notion of laughing with also connotes the dimension of laughing at oneself. Inevitably, through this sense of affiliation, audience are co-­ opted as insiders in the performance. On the other hand, the notion of laughing at others communicates a certain degree of mockery. However, not all manners of laughing at embody the notion of narcissism. At times, laughing at could simply be a response to the theatrics in the media productions. In this sense, audience in this context may be constructed as outsiders in the performance. In operationalizing the aspect of ambivalent laughter, it is crucial to acknowledge that in most social contexts, both forms of laughter, laughing with and laughing at, probably co-articulate at some level. In addition, the habitus of audiences may inform their responses toward the performativity of the carnivalesque as resistance or frivolity (Bourdieu, 1990). Given these considerations, it is therefore not in my intention to categorize all instances of laughter as one or the other. Instead, the intention is focused on uncovering the extent to which carnivalesque (ambivalent) laughter is manipulated as a tool of power in the two videos.

5.6  Summary To interrogate the rich layering of social-emotional-political meanings enmeshed in comedic performances, we need a robust theoretical framework that can systematically tease out the fullness in the performativity of comedies. In this chapter, I have proposed Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque as a fresh theoretical framework in light of its attendant orientation toward comedic performances as resistive enactments. Yet, in light of the centrality of impression management in the way social media users perform multiple online selves, the essence of resistance in Bakhtin’ original articulation of carnivalesque could be more aptly described as oppositional or counter-­ narratives in today’s embodied and networked economy. In repositioning Bakhtin’s (1965) notion of carnivalesque as a tenable analytical framework, I first break down the concept of carnivalesque into its constituent attributes by reviewing its appropriation in four cinematic productions: The Big Lebowski, Super Size Me, Chris Farley’s performances in Saturday Night Live, and the Girls Gone Wild. Through this, I differentiate the performing features of carnivalesque, or form, from its inherently resistive (according to Bakhtin’s original con-

References

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ceptualization) essence, or function. In this regard, features often associated with performances within the carnivalesque discourse include the aspect of grotesque realism and the use of various carnivalesque or rhetorical tropes (e.g., satires, marketplace language), while the intended function of carnivalesque performances could be evidenced in several ways: inversion of social hierarchies, the presence of ambivalent laughter, publicness of the carnival event, and the inclusivity of audiences as insiders in the performativity of the resistive act. Invariably, the ultimate litmus test of carnivalesque as potentially counter-narrative is evidenced in the nature of laughter, laughing with or laughing at, as generated from the comedic performances. While it is untenable to consider laughter, a complex physiological response, as simply one or the other (i.e., laughing with or laughing at), the use of these labels does provide a way to describe a certain plausible posture when corroborated with further sources of findings conducted in the study. In a nutshell, with the formulation of this analytical tool, it is possible to systematically differentiate “authentic” carnivalesque expressions from the fray of “pseudo-carnivalesque” (Martin & Renegar, 2007, p. 303) realizations. In the final analysis, although this may provide an inventive and disciplined approach to interrogate comedic performances as subpolitics, it is possibly provocative to promote its acceptance within critical scholarship domain since politics is quintessentially rational and deliberative (Freelon, 2010). These are qualities that carnivalesque do not embody. In the next chapter, I present and analyze the first of two Singapore-based videos, foregrounded in Sect. 5.5 of this chapter, as comparative studies in the context of this book.

References Bakhtin, M. (1965). Rabelais and his world (H.  Iswolsky, Trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Baldry, A.  P. (2004). Phase and transition, type and instance: Patterns in media texts as seen through a multimodal concordance. In K. L. O’Halloran (Ed.), Multimodal discourse analysis (pp. 83–108). London: Continuum. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bruner, M.  L. (2005). Carnivalesque protest and the humorless state. Text and Performance Quarterly, 25(2), 136–155. Burgess, J., & Green, J. (2009). YouTube: Online video and participatory culture. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Cherrington, J. (2014). “It’s just superstition I suppose…I’ve always done something on game day:” The construction of everyday life on a university basketball team. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 49(5), 509–525. Freelon, D. (2010). Analyzing online political discussion using three models of democratic communication. New Media & Society, 12(7), 1172–1190. Goh, D. (2011). State carnivals and the subvention of multiculturalism in Singapore. British Journal of Sociology, 62(1), 111–133. Goh, D. (2013). Multicultural carnivals and the politics of the spectacle in global Singapore. Inter-­ Asia Cultural Studies, 14(2), 228–251.

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Iedema, R. (2003). Multimodality, resemiotization: Extending the analysis of discourse as multi-­ semiotic practice. Visual Communication, 2(1), 29–57. Jewitt, C., & Oyama, R. (2001). Visual meaning: A social semiotic approach. In T. Leeuwen & C. Jewitt (Eds.), Handbook of visual analysis (pp. 134–156). London: SAGE. Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge. Lim, F.  V. (2011). A systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis approach to pedagogic discourse. Doctoral thesis. Retrieved from ScholarBank@NUS. http://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/ handle/10635/29928 Machin, D. (2007). Introduction to multimodal analysis. New York: Bloomsbury. Martin, P., & Renegar, V. (2007). The man for his time: The Big Lebowski as carnivalesque social critique. Communication Studies, 58(3), 299–313. Meddaugh, P. M. (2010). Bakhtin, Colbert, and the center of discourse: Is there no “truthiness” in humor? Critical Studies in Media Communication, 27(4), 376–390. Olbrys, S. G. (2006). Disciplining the carnivalesque: Chris Farley’s exotic dance. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 3(3), 240–259. Pang, A.  K. M. (2004). Making history in from colony to nation: A multimodal analysis of a museum exhibition in Singapore. In K. L. O’Halloran (Ed.), Multimodal discourse analysis (pp. 28–54). London: Continuum. Pitcher, K.  C. (2006). The staging of agency in Girls Gone Wild. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 23(3), 200–218. Ravenscroft, N., & Gilchrist, P. (2009). Spaces of transgression: Governance, discipline, and reworking the carnivalesque. Leisure Studies, 28(1), 35–49. Rohrer, F. (2008, October 10). Is the big Lebowski a cultural milestone? BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7662943.stm Singer, R. (2011). Anti-corporate argument and the spectacle of the grotesque rhetorical body in Super Size Me. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 28(2), 135–152. Ungureanu, C. (2015). Aestheticization of politics and ambivalence of self-sacrifice in Charlie Brooker’s The National Anthem. Journal of European Studies, 45(1), 21–30. Ventola, E., Charles, C., & Kaltenbacher, M. (Eds.). (2004). Perspectives on multimodality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Chapter 6

mrbrown Show: Who Say We Smelly?

Abstract  Given the emergence of newer social conditions that are associated with the age of the Internet, reliance on traditional conceptual approaches to interrogate power relations in the digital epoch is inadequate. In light of this, the notion of carnivalesque is therefore proposed as a robust theoretical and empirical framework to examine the expressions of power enmeshed in online comedic performances. Situating the empirical study of this book in the context of the tightly regulated mediatized spaces in Singapore, this chapter presents the first of two Singapore-­ based videos as comparative studies. The chosen context is particularly relevant as it affords a highly challenging environment for social media producers to perform subpolitical acts successfully without incurring the ire of media regulators. The chapter begins with the synopsis and context of the first video before the carnivalesque form of the mediatized performance is examined. This is followed by the examination of the carnivalesque function of the same video. In the final part, the on/off screen personae of the producer is also scrutinized so as to understand the level of careful choreography that goes into the construction of multiple personae both at the level of the video clip and beyond in expressing power cogently as performance.

6.1  Introduction In the previous chapters in this book, I have argued for the need to reimagine newer conceptual tools to examine the movements of power in today’s digital economy. This is necessary as the nature of the Internet as both participatory and convergent has reconstituted the way power is manifested. While the enduring theme of class conflict between the rulers and ruled continues to ring true, the access to information/knowledge and the centrality to manage impression online have not only initiated newer power holders (e.g., social media influencers) to the digital domain but have also given prominence to power as a form of performance/performative. In light of these newer social realities of the twenty-first century, Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque stands out as a potential theoretical and empirical framework, given its resistive, liminal, and comedic qualities, to examine the expressions of power enmeshed in online comedic performances. Accordingly, the empirical study of this book is set in the context of the tightly regulated mediatized spaces in © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H.-Y. K. Kan, Digital Carnivalesque, Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2051-8_6

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Singapore. This is particularly relevant as the highly restrictive environment poses a challenging task to local social media producers to perform subpolitical acts successfully while not incurring the ire of media regulators. In this chapter, a Singapore-­ based video is presented as the first of two comparative studies to examine the authenticity of carnivalesque as oppositional. The synopsis and context of the first video are presented before the carnivalesque form of the mediatized performance is examined. This is further subcategorized in terms of the use of semiotic resources and the aspect of grotesque realism as carnivalesque tools. In the use of semiotic resources, they are, namely, the performative genre of the video, name, grooming, language, setting, kinesics and the use of props, and the speech/verbal mode. Subsequently, the carnivalesque function of the first video is then scrutinized. This part is subdivided into the critique of social concerns, the inversion of social hierarchies, and the aspect of ambivalent laughter. In the final part, the on/off screen personae of the producer are interrogated as well. This is particularly revealing as it uncovers the centrality of image/brand management as a salient consideration in choreographing successful multiple brand personae both at the level of the video and beyond to perform (power) cogently in a tightly monitored media space.

6.2  Synopsis and Context mrbrown show: Who say we smelly? (mrbrown, 2014) (video 1) is a parodic critique of the affront created by Anton Casey described in Chap. 4. It is staged as a monologue by Kim Huat who represents (a caricature of) lower social class Singaporeans, against the (assumed) affluent cosmopolitanism of Casey as “rich England banker expat.” The video is 2 min and 25 s in duration and is structured in two parts. The first part is 30 s long and it sets the context for the second part of the video. In the first part, Kim Huat introduces himself as “Singapore number one public transport fan” and rants about the incident surrounding Casey’s social media comments. As a response to Casey’s remarks, Kim Huat teaches the audience “how to be high class” (0:24) in the second part of the video. The second part of the video lasts about 2 min. In this part, Kim Huat launches into a five-part instructional guide teaching his audience ways to acquire “good taste.” These cover aspects of one’s grooming (e.g., scent and dress sense) and lifestyle choices (e.g., choice of girlfriend, reading habits, and material possessions). The video is delivered in Singlish, which is an English-based creole language variety frequently used in Singapore, as well as in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect that originates in southern Fujian, China. Today, variations of the Hokkien dialect are spoken in southeastern China, in Southeast Asia, and among overseas Chinese worldwide including Singapore. In order to keep to intended meanings as communicated contextually, the transcription is done to approximate Singlish in its written form. In instances where it is challenging to understand the vernacular form, the equivalent meanings in Standard English are provided as I analyze the textual cues

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in context. A Singlish glossary and the transcript of the video can be found at the back of this chapter. The YouTube video can be accessed via this link: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=fYl3Ov4Hhpg

6.3  Carnivalesque Form 6.3.1  Semiotic Resources in Performing Kim Huat 6.3.1.1  Performative Genre Kim Huat’s performance in the video is delivered via the communicative form of a monologue. Not only does he use this performative genre to mark his stance against Casey’s online provocation in the first part of the video, he also exploits the genre to demonstrate his expertise on elite discourse in the second part of the video. Arguably, this monologue format affords Kim Huat a sense of dominance during the space of his performance while simultaneously rendering the social group represented by Casey as voiceless. This capacity of the monologue as a tool of dominance can be attributed to the materiality of the characters as represented in the production. Kim Huat’s physical on-screen presence is a critical consideration in him monopolizing the theatrical space, and in so doing, he is able to position the social group of “rich England banker expat” uninterrupted. 6.3.1.2  Name The choice of the name Kim Huat embodies the stereotypical values of the Chinese working class in Singapore. It is a common masculine name among the generations of Singaporeans born in the early decades of the nation’s independence. The name is to be understood in the Hokkien dialect, and its literal translation is gold (“Kim”) and prosperity (“Huat”). Naming one’s son Kim Huat is to communicate the normative goal of the working class for social mobility. Yet, when this name choice is understood within the context of Singapore’s tumultuous founding years, it unmasks a deeper sense of powerlessness or desperation among the Chinese working class in framing aspirations for their offspring solely in terms of an economic or material rationality. 6.3.1.3  Grooming Aesthetically, Kim Huat’s working-class subcultural identity is expressed through his general lack of “good taste” and overall coarseness in mannerism. In general, this staged personalization is meticulously conjured through semiotic choices made

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in several aspects. In terms of Kim Huat’s grooming, he sports a home-styled Mohawk hairstyle (see Fig.  6.1). While the Mohawk haircut appears to have its roots in Native American tribal history, one of its most popular associations could be that of western punk subculture (e.g., British punk with spike Mohawk haircut). In the twenty-first century, Mohawk haircut has evolved into the faux hawk, which is popularized by Hollywood celebrities. This modern articulation of the Mohawk hairstyle indexes the notion of nonconformity or edginess, an aspect of fashion that is associated with today’s global and regional trendsetters. This attempt to caricature Kim Huat as someone who is fashion forward is further accentuated in the way he is attired. Kim Huat first appears on the screen in a home-wear patterned round-neck T-shirt with rolled up sleeves (see Fig. 6.2). At one point of the video clip (0:52), he even puts on a psychedelic tie on the patterned T-shirt to demonstrate one way to be high class” (see Fig. 6.2). Further, it appears that Kim Huat wears a purple strap-on device, which might have been a watch, on his left wrist (see Fig. 6.2). While Kim Huat may have knowledge of individual markers of taste or distinction (such as his awareness of a tie as an accessory for more formal occasions), his lack of cultural knowledge in assembling fashion items into an aesthetically coherent whole (e.g., mismatching colors and patterns and pairing a round-neck cotton T-shirt with a tie) and the absence of material brand endorsement (e.g., functional instead of a brand name watch) co-construct a persona who is ignorant of dominant standards associated with being “high class.” His lack of “good taste” is also evident Fig. 6.1  The protagonist, Kim Huat, in video 1. (Reproduced with permissions from Mr. Lee Kin Mun)

Fig. 6.2  The protagonist, Kim Huat, in video 1 wearing a tie over a round-neck T-shirt . (Reproduced with permissions from Mr. Lee Kin Mun)

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in his inattentiveness to heteronormative standards of masculinity in procuring a “gym-toned” body with a tanned appearance (Connell, 2005). This is demonstrated through Kim Huat’s rotund physique as well as his fair and untoned upper arms. Overall in the aspect of grooming as a signifier of class identity, Kim Huat’s attempts not only caricature the efforts made by the working class to acquire the taste of the dominant, it communicates the almost futile struggle that the social group faces in understanding the ways of the rich as an outsider. 6.3.1.4  Language On the aspect of language choice, Kim Huat uses predominantly Singlish and some Hokkien lexis in the video. In Singapore, the Hokkien dialect is often associated with the working class, while Singlish is generally used in casual social contexts in the city-state. Both these vernacular forms serve the purpose of establishing solidarity among native Singaporeans. However, in official discourses (e.g., workplace correspondences or medium of instruction in schools), the use of Singlish and any forms of dialects is frowned upon. This is in line with the state’s language policy of linguistic instrumentalism that frames English as the only lingua franca for the country (Wee, 2008). Hence, Kim Huat’s deliberate decision in foregrounding both Singapore vernacular forms is critical on several fronts. Firstly, Kim Huat’s proficiency in the use of both vernacular forms marks his status as an insider among Singaporeans. Secondly, the choice of the vernaculars implies that the video targets native Singaporeans familiar with the cultural nuances of the spoken forms as its primary audience. Consequently, in the context of Casey’s class-based antagonism, the selection of the vernacular forms of communication constitutes a defensive posture to intensify the rhetoric of class division among native Singaporeans. 6.3.1.5  Setting The setting of the video is a somewhat cluttered room (see Figs. 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3). In the background, a framed picture of a single blond female in a white latex suit occupies the space on the right of the frame. On the left of the screen, there is an easel. Next to it, a large flat screen TV, a TV set-top box, and a DVD player can be spotted on a white TV console. There are several other undefined items that are placed on the shelves of the TV console. In the foreground, Kim Huat is positioned in the middle of the camera frame. Behind him a translucent storage box containing numerous files is visible. There is also a poster that is sandwiched between the storage box and the wall behind it. The poster is positioned in an upside-down orientation. From the array of seemingly unrelated household and stationery items that are “scattered” in the background, the setting of the production appears to be that of a store (or spare) room in a residential apartment. It seems to communicate Kim Huat’s social subcultural identity as one who is partial to functional rationality as

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Fig. 6.3  The protagonist, Kim Huat, in video 1 with a prop. (Reproduced with permissions from Mr. Lee Kin Mun)

opposed to aesthetics. Accordingly, this may index Kim Huat’s uncultured status since aesthetic knowledge as a cultural capital of the rich (Bourdieu, 1986) escapes Kim Huat’s habitus. 6.3.1.6  Kinesics and the Use of Props Table 6.1 depicts the manipulation of these semiotic cues in the context of the video clip. The table is divided into frames that correspond with the chronological sequence of the video narrative. These frames are sectioned thematically. Each frame is between 2 s and 26 s in length. Within each segment, the table captures Kim Huat’s speech, descriptions of his actions (i.e., posture, gesture, facial expressions, and non-spoken sound), and props that he uses. Kim Huat’s speech is transcribed in Singlish. Forward slashes (“/”) are used to indicate pauses. Additional emphasis in the form of bold or underlined text is inserted. From these contextual cues, I infer the intended social meaning of each frame and state them in the rightmost column of the table. In the next few paragraphs, I discuss key findings as revealed from Table 6.1. Throughout the video, Kim Huat adopts a commanding posture, which is demonstrated in the way he maintains a frontal angle with the camera. Apart from this posture, Kim Huat co-opts other kinesic actions to bolster his messages in both parts of the video. The first part of the video (frames one to seven) depicts Kim Huat in a rant on the subject of Anton Casey’s insult posted on social media. In these scenes, Kim Huat’s dominant presence can be observed through his rigid posture. It is also realized in the way he leans forward to engage the camera and when he keeps his arms akimbo in the first frame. However, as the narrative progresses, Kim Huat’s posture shifts to reflect his increasing agitation with Casey’s slur. This is depicted in the way Kim Huat lengthens his upper body and thrusting it forward toward the camera (frame 7) and in the way he dramatizes his facial expressions (i.e., raising his eyebrows and enlarging his eyes). In the second part of the video, Kim Huat embarks on a procedural discourse that teaches his primary audience of native Singaporeans “how to be high class” (frame 7). In this satirical endeavor, the semiotic resources as tabulated in Table 6.1 are carefully manipulated from frames 8–13 for the purpose of dramatization. In terms

Wide forward-slicing movements (both forearms)

Seated Frontal facing

Seated Frontal facing

I heard/got this rich England banker expat/who say that we Singaporean who take public transport is poor people/and even say we smelly

Who say we are smelly

3 0:06– 0:16

4 0:16– 0:18

Wide forward-slicing movements (both forearms)

Wide forward-slicing movements (both forearms)

Seated Frontal facing

Gesture Left arm thrusts upward

Singapore/number one/public transport fan

Posture Seated Frontal facing Arms akimbo

2 0:02– 0:06

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech Hello/this is Kim Huat 1 0:00– 0:02

Kinesics

None

None

None

None

Some amount of facial dramatization (widened eyes and raised eyebrows)

Increased dramatization (widened eyes and raised eyebrows)

None

None

Props None

Knitted eyebrows

Facial expression Not significant

Non-­ spoken sound None

(continued)

Gesture: To introduce KH Gesture and facial expression: To punctuate speech (and to emphasize KH’s loyalty as a public transport fan) Gesture and facial expression: To emphasize KH’s increasing anger toward Casey’s antagonistic remarks on social media Gesture and facial expression:To emphasize KH’s rejection of Casey’s accusation

Social meaning Posture: To assert KH’s dominance

Table 6.1  Tabulation of semiotic elements (i.e., posture, gesture, facial expressions, non-spoken sound, and props) in mrbrown’s show: Who say we smelly? (mrbrown, 2014)

6.3  Carnivalesque Form 83

Ang moh tua kee ah [In English: Caucasians (“ang mo”) as the big one (“tua kee”)]

Neh’mine/Kim Huat show you how to be high class/so that rich England banker expat won’t look down on us

6 0:20– 0:22

7 0:22– 0:30

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech 5 I bathe almost every week ok 0:18– 0:20

Table 6.1 (continued)

Seated Frontal facing Arms akimbo Sitting taller and thrusting upper body forward Seated Frontal facing Slight tilting of the head toward the end

Posture Seated Frontal facing

Kinesics

None

None

None

None Less dramatic as compared to the previous four frames

Wide forward-slicing movements (right forearm)

Props None

Intense dramatization (widened eyes and raised eyebrows)

Facial expression Increased dramatization (widened eyes and raised eyebrows)

None

Gesture Wide forward-slicing movements (both forearms)

Non-­ spoken sound None

Gesture and facial expression: To express defiance (with the tilting of head)

Social meaning Gesture and facial expression:To emphasize KH’s rejection of Casey’s accusation Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To emphasize KH’s rejection of C’s accusation

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9 0:5– 1:14

Frames/ timings 8 0:30– 0:50 Facial expression A wide range of dramatized facial expressions

A wide range of dramatized facial expressions

Gesture Spraying device held in the left hand while the right hand gestures freely. Movements include displaying the front and back of the device and pressing on the lever of the spraying device to emit a mist like substance

Both arms gesture freely. Movements include “tapping” in mid-air, pointing to self (torso and downward toward lower limbs), and unfolding of sleeves

Posture Less rigid sitting posture but a general frontal engagement with the camera is still maintained

Less rigid sitting posture but a general frontal engagement with the camera is still maintained

Corresponding speech One/wear expensive perfume/I want to intro you to my new creation/Kim le Huat/my/you the toilet/if you want to smell like rich England banker expat likdat/just spray/Kim le Huat/ and you will smell like the inside of a Porsche or Ferrari

Two/wear more formal likdat/ wear a tie/if I casual/I keep my sleeve up/but if I formal/like if I have to go with other rich England banker expat to drink international beverages/then I roll my sleeve down/and if I need to eat at a/fancy restaurant/like/Le Amis French zichar/I even wear long pants

Kinesics

None

Non-­ spoken sound None Props A bottle shaped like a bathroom detergent that emits a mist-like substance when the lever is pressed The bottle has on one side the words “KIM LE HUAT” and “YOU THE TOILET” on the other side A psychedelic stripped tie worn over a dull green round-neck T-shirt

(continued)

Posture, gesture, and facial expression:To foreground the prop Prop:To caricature KH’s lack of good “taste”

Prop:To caricature KH’s lack of good “taste”

Social meaning Posture, gesture, and facial expression:To punctuate speech and to foreground the prop

6.3  Carnivalesque Form 85

11 1:40– 1:56

Frames/ timings 10 1:14– 1:40

Corresponding speech Three/must have chio bu girlfriend or wife/Kim Huat always get the most chio bu/ because I’m yen tao and stylo/I always read the men magazine/ like/HFM/EQ/and Her World/ How to get chio bu/come/Kim Huat show you/Ah/there got one/Oi/sexy/ (catcalling sounds)/what/she forgot to shave is it Four/go to expensive club to party/my favorite music is lub step/go to where all the rich England banker expat go/like Pangaea/Avalon/and my favorite/water melon princess KTV launch and night club

Table 6.1 (continued)

Facial expression A wide range of dramatized facial expressions

A wide range of dramatized facial expressions

Gesture Both arms gesture freely. Movements include free dancing actions in mid-air, outlining the curvature of a female, glancing and pointing intermittently toward his left, and catcalling

Both arms gesture freely. Movements include dynamic free dancing actions in mid-air

Posture Less rigid sitting posture but a general frontal engagement with the camera is still maintained

Less rigid sitting posture but a general frontal engagement with the camera is still maintained

Kinesics

None

None

Non-­ spoken sound Props Catcalling The side profile of an unshaven Indian man hidden under a large red cloth

Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To dramatize contents of speech

Social meaning Posture, gesture, and facial expression:To foreground the prop Prop and sound:To caricature KH’s lack of good “taste”

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Toilet roll KH’s dramatization Jingle in this frame differs (instead of named “the Anton” speech) from all previous frames as he appears decisively upbeat. This is evident from his smiles

A toilet roll is held close to KH’s face in both his hands as he moves it from one side of his face to the other in an endearing manner

Less rigid sitting posture but a general frontal engagement with the camera is still maintained

When your kachng needs to wipe/and you want to clean it right/use the Anton/use the Anton

Props Toilet roll named “the Anton”

Facial expression A wide range of dramatized facial expressions, most noticeably toward the end of the frame where KH looks seductively toward the camera

Gesture A toilet roll is held in the left hand, while the right arm gestures freely

Posture Less rigid sitting posture but a general frontal engagement with the camera is still maintained

Non-­ spoken sound None

Corresponding speech Five/you must use the best of the best tings/like my new product/this toilet roll made of recycled money/when you rub your back side with my toilet roll/you will feel expensive/I call it/the Anton

KH Kim Huat

13 2:10– 2:24

Frames/ timings 12 1:56– 2:10

Kinesics

Social meaning Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To accentuate the special quality of the prop Prop: To caricature Casey Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To accentuate the special quality of the prop Prop: To caricature Casey

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of posture, Kim Huat’s commanding presence as maintained in his rigid composure gives way to a less rigid posture. Kim Huat also loses his repetitive “chopping in the air” motions (presumably to punctuate his speech) as evident consistently in the first seven frames. Instead, his gesticulations are more varied and choreographed. For example, in frame 8, Kim Huat’s gestures are specific either for the purpose of signposting (0:30 “One, wear perfume”) or in bringing attention to the prop (“Kim le Huat”); and in frame 11, Kim Huat executes dancing motions to complement the mention of his music preference (1:40 “my favorite music is lub step”). As for his facial expressions, while Kim Huat continues his theatrics, the execution differs from those observed in the first seven frames. For instance, in frame 12, Kim Huat gazes suggestively into the camera as he introduces the toilet roll (2:09 “I call it my anton”). This fleeting moment is captured in Kim Huat’s intense eye contact and coy smile. While the use of non-spoken sound and props is absent in the first seven frames, they are present in this second part of the video narrative. The use of non-spoken sound can be observed in two instances. In frame 10, Kim Huat performs a catcall to attract the attention of his assumed girlfriend; and in frame 13, Kim Huat delivers his script by way of a composed jingle instead of his usual spoken speech. The presence of non-spoken sound, especially the use of music in the last frame, stands in sharp contrast to the complete lack of musical accompaniment throughout the clip. As for the deployment of theatrical props, there are four instances where props are featured (i.e., psychedelic tie, “Kim le Huat,” unshaven Indian man, and “the anton”). Just as how non-spoken sounds are co-opted to co-create the theatrical effect, the props serve a similar purpose. Their symbolic meanings will be discussed further when I discuss the representation of Casey in the video. 6.3.1.7  Speech/Verbal Mode Kim Huat’s embodied representation as discussed in the previous section should be analyzed in the context of his spoken text so that a more holistic representation of the character can be inferred. In the following paragraphs, I examine Kim Huat’s speech using the information presented in Table 6.1. In the first instance, Kim Huat introduces himself as “Singapore number one public transport fan” (frame 2). He gives emphasis to the phrase “number one” (0:04) by projecting his voice and by stressing the first syllable (“num”) in the word “number.” On the surface, this statement could be indicative of Kim Huat’s pride with the local public transport system, but at a deeper level, the emphasis serves as a satire on two fronts. Firstly, Kim Huat’s expressed confidence is made in the context of negative public sentimentality against Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) system. In the past decade, SMRT has incurred a spate of complaints for its lapses in service and safety standards (Kwara, 2014; Yahoo, 2016; Yong, 2016). Secondly, the statement caricatures Singaporeans’ sense of over-competitiveness. In this context, it refers to the preoccupation of Singaporeans to be ranked favorably (in being “number 1”) in neoliberal discourses (e.g., education, sports, financial standing). This disposition is affectionately referenced in the Hokkien dialect as “kiasu.” It means afraid (“kia”)

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to lose out (“su”). On the one hand, this colloquial reference underscores the sense of insecurity Singaporeans experience in keeping up with the Jones; but on the other hand, it is credited for fostering Singaporeans’ sense of industry and resilience in responding to the shifting geopolitical and economic climate in the twenty-first century. When analyzed in this light, this statement could communicate a sense of ambivalence that the working class maintains in negotiating social tensions in the cosmopolitan city-state. However, when this satirical statement is further analyzed in terms of the social conflict with the social group of “rich England banker expat,” its ambivalent character takes on a defensive dimension. This is because in the context of the video, Kim Huat’s declaration serves as an assertion of national pride against Casey’s stereotypical representation of the Singapore brand (i.e., its transport system and the people). In the next five frames, Kim Huat maintains this defensive posture as he rants on the subject of Casey’s social media remarks. In frame 3, Kim Huat begins by framing Casey’s remarks as a “rumor.” This can be inferred from his choice of the word “heard” (0:07), which evidences his lack of clarity with regard to the episode surrounding Casey’s online provocation. The lack of specificity is also demonstrated in the way Kim Huat refers to the source of the rumor not by name but en masse as a social group of “rich England banker expat” (0:08–0:10). This underscores Kim Huat’s working-class status that is made apparent through his lack of prudence and perceived disinterest in differentiating facts from hearsay. Sagacity is a cultural capital of the elites, and it is associated with the capacity to deliberate and reason. As evidenced in Kim Huat’s remarks in the video, it is a capital that Kim Huat does not possess and is unconscious of. Next, Kim Huat marks his defiance at being positioned by Casey’s provocation (frame 3 – “Singaporean who take public transport is poor people and even say we smelly”) through the use of various stylistic devices. Firstly, the use of the rhetorical question “who say we smelly” in which we can be cataphorically established as Singaporeans who use the public transport system (frame 4) constitutes an act of solidarity with the intended audience of heartland Singaporeans who would very likely defy the stereotype of being poor and smelly as labeled by Casey in his social media remarks. In this regard, “heartland” not only refers to the majority of Singaporeans who live in public housing projects, but it also signals a sense of “authenticity in Singapore” (Poon, 2013, p. 562). Secondly, this act of solidarity is reinforced through the use of paradox in the next statement “I bathe almost every week” (frame 5), which serves to caricature Kim Huat’s blissful unawareness of differing norms of personal hygiene. The interjection “okay” that follows thereafter (frame 5) uttered in Singlish, a vernacular form of English, is a continuation of Kim Huat’s retort. Its use here heightens the sense of comedy and irony in this statement. Thirdly, Kim Huat uses a colloquial phrase “ang mo tua kee” (frame 6) to reject the bourgeois ethos as embodied by the fictional social group of “rich England banker expat.” The phrase is a derogatory term uttered in Hokkien. It is a phallic reference to Caucasians (“ang mo”) as the big one (“tua kee”). One needs to understand the historical context and symbolism of the Hokkien vernacular in order to appreciate its connotative meaning. This phrase is perhaps best understood in the

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context of Singapore as a former British colony. In referring to its former colonial master in this manner, Kim Huat is invoking the once pejorative view of whites as being socially differentiated, entitled, and conceited. Further, as this phrase is only articulated in Hokkien, a local dialect that is often considered crass and vulgar, it not only intensifies the social class difference between the bourgeoisie and the working class but also between local Singaporeans (who understand it) and foreigners (who presumably do not). Additionally, this stance of defiance is complemented with the colloquial interjection “ah” (frame 6), which expresses sarcasm in this instance, and it signals one’s utter disagreement (with the phrase “ang mo tua kee”). Overall, Kim Huat makes sure that this particular message of outright defiance receives the attention of his audience for he addresses the camera frontally with exaggerated facial expressions, his arms akimbo, and his upper body thrusted forward in a challenging posture. Frame 7 signals the end of Kim Huat’s tirade and the beginning of his instructional discourse “to be high class”: Neh’mine/Kim Huat show you how to be high class/so that rich England banker expat won’t look down on us

In the above example, neh’mine is Singlish, and it is a contraction of “never mind” in English. In this instance, the word refers to the notion of licking one’s wounds, and in the context of the insult levied by Casey, Kim Huat is attempting to restore equilibrium in the unbalanced power relations by empowering his intended audience of heartland Singaporeans to be one (i.e., high class). This statement is layered, ironic, and revealing on several levels. Firstly, it is ironic that Kim Huat should be the expert in elite culture since he is not an insider to the group. In framing the social practices of the upper class in this manner as an outsider, Kim Huat reduces the social practices of the elite community to a stereotypical litany of do’s and don’ts. At the same time, Kim Huat has also carnivalized himself in the process as his complete lack of expert knowledge in the ways of the elite becomes obvious. Secondly, in framing himself as an expert in elite discourse, Kim Huat sets himself apart as more powerful in comparison to ordinary Singaporeans whom he has identified as “we Singaporeans” (frame 3) in an earlier sentence. While this self-­ positioning is betrayed by the obviously misguided advice and the manner in which it is delivered, it signals the social reality of intra-class stratification (i.e., those who perceive themselves as more knowledgeable than the rest) within the broad spectrum of working class Singaporeans. Thirdly, in instructing the audience to be high class, Kim Huat gives admission that the lifestyle choices of the social group labeled as “rich England banker expat” are indeed to be aspired. In sum, the character of Kim Huat is carefully coiffed through the use of a range of semiotic devices for two purposes. It is firstly to reinforce the notion of the bourgeoisie as crass but to-be-desired; and secondly, it is to turn the spotlight on Kim Huat as a caricature of ordinary Singaporeans who are responsible for fanning the desire for all things bourgeois in the first place. While this enactment of Kim Huat continues throughout the video, the second part offers a substantive examination of Casey and the social outgroup of “rich England banker expat”.

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6.3.2  Semiotic Resources in Representing Anton Casey As foregrounded in the earlier section, the character of Anton Casey is passivated in the video clip as he has no possibility in responding to Kim Huat’s unidimensional representation of him in the monologue. Textually, Casey is genericized (Fairclough, 2001) in several prominent ways. On five occasions, Casey is identified as “rich England banker expat” (frames 3, 7, 8, 9, and 11). This is an example of synthetic personalization (Fairclough, 2001) of the social group of white expatriates in Singapore. In treating Casey en masse as representative of all in the membership, Kim Huat is mocking all white expatriates in Singapore and, perhaps, mirroring Casey’s indiscriminate comment about ordinary Singaporeans in the first place. Casey is further genericized and represented by means of stereotypes associated with white male expatriates in Singapore. In the video, Kim Huat collapses the cultural practices of the rich into five discrete categories that (to him) represent the attitudes or aspirations of the social group. These five categories include preference for perfume (frame 8  – “wear expensive perfume” and “smell like rich England banker expat”), dress sense (frame 9  – “wear formal”), heteronormative view of woman as eye candy (frame 10 – “must have chio bu1 girl friend or wife”), social activities (frame 11 – “go to expensive club to party”), and taste (frame 12 – “you must use the best of the best things”). For each of these, Kim Huat cites examples to further lampoon the social group of white male expatriates in Singapore by insinuating all to be pretentious and extravagant in their ways: One/wear expensive perfume/I want to intro you to my new creation/Kim le Huat/my/you the toilet/if you want to smell like rich England banker expat likdat/just spray/Kim le Huat/ and you will smell like the inside of a Porsche or Ferrari

In the first example, “you the toilet” (see Fig. 6.3) is probably a play on the term eau de toilette, which is French, and it represents a weaker concentration of fragrance than eau de parfum. In this instance, not only does Kim Huat objectify Casey as cheap perfume encased in a bathroom detergent packaging, he uses sarcasm to equate this lower-grade scent to that of the “inside of a Porsche or the Ferrari” – themselves markers of the economic elite. He continues on this track, making a fool of both the upper class (represented by Casey and the rich England banker expat) and the working class (represented by Kim Huat), systematically in the next few examples: Two/wear more formal likdat/wear a tie/If I casual/I keep my sleeve up/but if I formal/like if I have to go with other rich England banker expat to drink international beverages/then I roll my sleeve down/and if I need to eat at a/fancy restaurant/like/Le Amis French zichar/I even wear long pants

In the second example, Kim Huat mocks the lifestyle of the rich by associating Les Amis, a well-known French fine dining restaurant, with the notion of “zichar,” which is a style of Chinese home cooking that is akin to hawker fare. Simultaneously,  Chio bu – A somewhat rude term in Hokkien, which means a pretty woman

1

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he mocks himself. This is evidenced by his bizarre style suggestion (i.e., pairing a psychedelic tie with a home-wear round-neck patterned T-shirt) and in the use of the expression “international beverages.” This expression is probably a reference to specialized drinks (e.g., carbonated water, fusion teas, or selection of wines) that are not usually offered in standard drinks list in most local food establishments. If this had been a Singlish expression, the lack of collocational harmony as perceived by native English speakers could have been dismissed as an issue of subcultural language code. However, since the phrase is intended to be a phrase in Standard English, Kim Huat’s lack of collocation awareness exposes him as an outsider without the specialized cultural knowledge and vocabulary of (western) fine dining. This status as an outsider is parodic since Kim Huat constructs himself as an insider in western elite discourse: Three/must have chio bu girlfriend or wife/Kim Huat always get the most chio bu/because I’m yen tao and stylo/I always read the men magazine/like/HFM/EQ/and Her World/How to get chio bu/come/Kim Huat show you/Ah/there got one/Oi/sexy/(catcalling sounds)/ what/she forgot to shave is it

So far, the passivation of Casey is fostered by the way he is excluded physically from the video clip, genericized (“rich England banker expat”), and objectivated (frame 8 – “inside of a Porsche or the Ferrari”). However, only in one instance in the video clip is Casey identified as a social being through the representation of a stereotypical girlfriend. The girlfriend is referenced derogatively as “chio bu,” a Hokkien term for a sexy woman. Kim Huat attributes his ability to attract the company of an attractive female companion to the fact that he is good looking (“yen tao” in Hokkien) and that he exudes a certain desirable style (“stylo” in Singlish). The presence of an attractive female company is framed as a possession that can be procured. Textually, this notion is signaled with the material verb “get” in the phrases “always get the most chio bu” and “how to get chio bu.” This stereotypical construction of “chio bu” is in reference to Casey’s wife, Bernice Wong, who is a former beauty pageant queen in Singapore (Milroy, 2014). The expression is also associated with another derogatory term “Sarong Party Girl” (SPG) popularized in the 1990s, which refers to attractive single Asian women who dress provocatively and date only white men (Aitchison & Chan, 1994). In an almost bizarre manner, the supposed eye candy in the video however is represented by an unshaven Indian man who wraps his head in a piece of red fabric. While satirizing Casey’s wife in this endeavor, Kim Huat again turns the laughter on himself with the description of “men magazine,” which refers to magazines that appeal to male readers who adhere to heteronormative standards. The list of magazines cited are also spoofs of the actual magazines. For example, “HFM” refers to “FHM” (http://www.fhm.com) and” EQ” likely stands for “Esquire,” an American men’s magazine (http://www.esquire.com/). As for “Her World,” it is, ironically, a women’s magazine: Four/go to expensive club to party/my favorite music is lub step/go to where all the rich England banker expat go/like Pangaea/Avalon/and my favorite/water melon princess KTV launch and night club

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In the fourth example, Kim Huat continues to caricature the social life of white expatriates in Singapore while mocking his own antics. In listing the favorite night spots of the rich, Kim Huat includes “water melon princess KTV lounge and night club.” Although the name of the establishment is possibly a fictional entity, the reference in both name (“water melon princess”) and entertainment type (“KTV lounge and night club”) is often associated with the “uncultured” social groups in Singapore. In turning the laughter upon himself even more, Kim Huat mispronounces “dubstep” (a genre of electronic dance music) as “lub step” and “lounge” as “launch”: Five/you must use the best of the best tings/like my new product/this toilet roll made of recycled money/when you rub your back side with my toilet roll/you will feel expensive/I call it/the anton

In the above example, Casey and the social group of rich England banker expat are objectivated materially as a “ting” (i.e., thing) and a “product” and have qualities that are described as “the best,” “new,” and “expensive.” Further, they are also equated with “toilet roll made of recycled money.” “The anton” is a double metonymy that stands not only for Casey and the social group that he represents, but also with toilet paper and excrements. Additionally, it is interesting to note how Casey is only named (“the anton”) in the last two frames of the video clip. In all earlier frames, Casey has only been referenced vaguely as the social group indexed by the rich England banker expat.

6.3.3  Grotesque Realism In addition to performing the character of Kim Huat and representing Anton Casey through the use of semiotic resources, the dimension of grotesque realism, a central tenet in Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque, is enabled. As foregrounded in the previous paragraph, this is most evident in the association of Casey as “the anton” or toilet paper in cleaning one’s bottom. Dysphemism is delivered by way of a final song at the end of the video that marks the most pejorative stance Kim Huat takes toward Casey. “Kachng,” a Malay word, in the example below refers to one’s rear end: when your kachng needs to wipe, and you want to clean it right, use the Antonnn, [places the tissue roll on his other cheek] use the Antonnnn. [flips the loose end of the tissue roll]

How do we make sense of the analyses presented so far in the context of performing carnivalesque? First, let us remember that carnivalesque is intended to inverse power relations in the social world. It is a space where ordinary folks have the freedom to dominate the powerful through the use of various performative devices. In this video, this is achieved through the choice of monologue as the performative genre for the script. In rendering Casey physically absent in the video, Kim Huat exercises exclusive agency in representing Casey and the social group of rich England banker expats.

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Second, in order for one social group to dominate the other, the cultural identities of both groups have to be distinctively differentiated so that the performances of each social group may foster the framing of the target audience as either insiders or outsiders in the carnivalesque discourse. In this video, the subcultural identity of Kim Huat is indexed as one who is from the working class. This is evidenced from the employment of several semiotic resources: name, grooming, language, setting, kinesics and the use of props, and the speech and verbal mode. As examined earlier, Kim Huat’s name embodies the hegemonic aspirations of a typical Chinese family in Singapore. His grooming (or lack of) speaks of someone who is familiar with individual markers of distinction but lacks cultural capital to assemble a coherent high-class persona. His use of Singlish and Hokkien further characterizes him as a native who is competent in the use of the vernacular form. The cluttered setting of the production foregrounds him as lacking in the appreciation for middle-class aesthetics, a symbolic capital that the rich possess. Similarly, the use of props and kinesics highlights Kim Huat’s rather coarse mannerism. On the other hand, Casey and the social group of rich England banker expat are distinguished from the lower social group by their socio-cultural practices. These practices are indexed by hegemonic masculine markers in the use of scent, dress sense, feminine companionship, social activities, and affinity for material items that connote status. While the employment of semiotic resources has sought to establish the necessary conditions to frame a performance within a carnivalesque discourse, they function also to caricature both social groups. This is achieved mainly in the way Kim Huat’s persona is constructed through the use of visual (i.e., grooming and kinesics) and verbal (i.e., script) modes. In particular, the script in which Kim Huat teaches his audience “how to be high class” and the element of grotesque realism aid in fostering the carnivalesque effect in the performance. Together with the use of other semiotic resources and that of grotesque realism, the various elements cumulatively hyperbolize the representation of the two social groups as a way to perform the political statement that is hidden in the script. In short, it can be said that the presence of semiotic resources and grotesque realism constitutes necessary features in a carnivalesque discourse. These features are consistent with the intent of Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque in so far as to caricature social groups. However, to judge if the video clip is a performativity of carnivalesque, par excellence, or simply a pseudo-carnivalesque performance, we need to uncover the political statement that the caricaturizing of social groups (through the use of semiotic resources and grotesque realism) serves.

6.4  Carnivalesque Function 6.4.1  Critique of Social Concerns To reiterate Bakhtin’s (1965) position on the concept of carnivalesque, the carnival was a juxtaposition to the dogmatism of the Church during the medieval age. This view of Bakhtin has been adopted by contemporary communication scholars as a

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form of cultural resistance against hegemonic ideologies (Santino, 2011; Ungureanu, 2015; Whitesel & Shuman, 2013). To ascertain the extent to which mrbrown’s production is resistive, we need to question if social issues are framed as resistance in the production. In this regard, mrbrown’s video raises critical political questions for Singaporeans with regard to class stratification and, related to that, the construction of one’s national identity as Singaporean. Firstly, on the topic of class stratification, Kim Huat’s lower-income status is an outcome of the semiotic choices that mrbrown, the producer, makes in realizing Kim Huat’s on-screen persona. As reviewed earlier, these include decisions made in the aspects of grooming (i.e., hairstyle, dress sense, and choice of watch), languages (i.e., Singlish and Hokkien), production setting (i.e., cluttered storeroom), non-­ spoken actions (i.e., posture, gesture, facial expressions, and the use of voice), and props selection and in the use of linguistic and rhetorical devices. Invariably, while these decisions construct Kim Huat’s subcultural identity as a native, it also indexes him as one who is unacquainted with the nuances attached to the social practices of the rich. This underscores Kim Huat’s unawareness of the symbolic currency that these semiotic resources hold in marking him as outsider among the elites. In Bourdieu’s (1977, 1986) framework of social stratification, Kim Huat’s incognizance of the social effects in his choices is an instance of misrecognition, while the semiotic and textual resources that he could have manipulated are cultural capital. Secondly, a related social concern is the value that the working class assigns to the notion of socioeconomic mobility. This is signaled through Kim Huat’s name (which means “gold, prosperity”) and the emphasis that he places in teaching ordinary Singaporeans to be “high class.” Textually, the notion of economic capital is also foregrounded as the primary denomination of social class in Kim Huat’s instructional steps to be high class since all the advice given entails some form of economic activity. This includes the notion that feminine companionship can be procured (e.g., frame 10 – “Kim Huat always get the most chio bu”) and that one’s social acceptance is marked by one’s participation in social activities that are consumption-­oriented and ostentatious in nature (e.g., frame 9, “need to eat at a fancy restaurant,” and frame 11, “go to expensive club to party”). In short, the notion of “high class” appears to conform with the idea of petite bourgeois or that of the nouveau riche. Incidentally, in mrbrown’s caricature of the rich as ostentatious, the notion of middle-class taste or the aspect of sophistication that characterizes the bourgeoisie seems inaccessible to Kim Huat. Taste is a marker of symbolic capital in Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of social differentiation. Among the elites, taste is a prized resource that is well-kept within the walls of the elite community. It is nuanced in realizations (i.e., appreciation for food, the arts, or music), and it is hence difficult for the working class to observe and replicate. This concealment of symbolic capital from the reach of the working class is termed symbolic violence in Bourdieu’s theory. As evidenced in this production, the cultural markers of the elite’s social position are not accessible to Kim Huat, and economic capital seems to be the only currency that he can identify with. Without the endowment of cultural and symbol capitals, economic capital alone is limited in the pursuit of social mobility. It extends only a tokenistic shift in social position for the “marginalized.” However, for the rich, this

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extension of goodwill to the powerless is an efficacious hegemonic tool since it appeases the aspirations of the lower class in improving their economic status while concealing from them symbolic capital that would significantly jeopardize the power position of the rich. Lastly, the video creates an opportunity for the audience to reimagine their own national identity. For instance, the seemingly harmless rhetorical question that Kim Huat poses “who say we Singaporean who take public transport is poor people and even say we smelly” (frame 3) is significant in generating critical conversations on the issue of the Singapore identity: Should national identity be constitutively defensive in nature? Would the rhetoric of upper-middle-class Singaporeans (who do not use public transport) be one of empathy toward Casey or one of solidarity with the “masses”? Would Kim Huat’s construction of ordinary Singaporeans resonate with new citizens (or immigrants) in the city-state? These are important questions to consider given the changing profile of the Singapore. In sum, in this video clip, we observe how mrbrown employs the performativity of carnivalesque as a way to euphemize the discussion of social issues in the island-­ state. As foregrounded in the paragraph before, these contentious social concerns are consequences of policy shifts in Singapore that have been formulated fundamentally for economic reasons. Invariably, these policy moves have social ramifications. One significant cost is the emergence of newer social fault lines (e.g., extent of one’s Singaporeanness) (Xue, 2013) and the deepening of existing ones (e.g., widening income gap between the classes). Given this state of heightened social relations in Singapore, mrbrown’s attempt to problematize these concerns signals his deliberation in framing the carnivalesque performance in this video for the purpose of social critique in Singapore.

6.4.2  Inversion of Social Hierarchies The inversion of social hierarchies is clearly evident from the way Kim Huat is performed and in the way Casey is represented. As iterated earlier, the performative genre of a monologue creates the space for Kim Huat to inverse the power relations between both social groups. Next, in teaching the audience “how to be high class,” Kim Huat assumes the powerful position in teaching the ways of the rich to ordinary folks. Also, in invoking the Hokkien derogatory term “ang mo tua kee,” Kim Huat asserts himself by mocking the social group of rich England banker expat. Further, the employment of grotesque realism in the metonymical form of “the anton” (that stands not only for Casey and the social group that he represents but also with toilet paper and excrements) indexes Kim Huat as the aggressor in this video. Simultaneously, Casey’s social status is decimated in this production in the way his identity is genericized as “rich England banker expat” and as “the anton.” While it is evident that social hierarchies have been inverted in this video, the question is whether the inversion is a sufficient condition in an authentic carnivalesque performance. The inversion of social hierarchies is a central tenet of

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Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque for the purpose of temporarily disrupting the power dynamics during the carnivalesque space. Without this feature, there is no semblance of carnivalesque. Having said that, even with the inversion of social hierarchies, it is still uncertain if a performance that resembles a carnivalesque carries a resistive spirit as espoused by Bakhtin’s conceptualization.

6.4.3  Ambivalent Laughter In extant literature, carnivalesque scholars have associated carnivalesque laughter as an emergent, innovative, and powerful political tool in the twenty-first century (Badarneh, 2011; Klumbyte, 2014). In this regard, laughter is simultaneously framed as a cathartic tool (Marc, 2009) and a critical response for ordinary folks in the face of hegemonic repression (Gray, Jones, & Thompson, 2009; Thompson, 2009). Further, Klumbyte (2014) describes laughter as “a form of affective and moral participation in politics” (p. 476). In this video, I question the character of laughter that is raised from the performance. Is it an emergent, innovative, and powerful political tool in the twenty-first century, or is it a reduced form of laughter that is akin to laughing at someone’s misery? In attempting to make sense of laughter in this video, I start by examining how laughter is procured. First, we observe how the privileged practices and standards of the rich are named and ridiculed simultaneously: “…and you will smell like the inside of a Porsche or Ferrari” (frame 8) “…eat at a fancy restaurant like the Le Amis French zichar restaurant” (frame 9) “…must have chio bu girlfriend…what she forgot to shave is it” (frame 10) “…I always read the men magazine like HFM, EQ and Her World” (frame 10) ‘…go to expensive club to party…like Pangaea, Avalon and my favorite water melon princess KTV launch and night club” (frame 11) “…you must use the best of the best tings…I call it the anton” (frame 12)

The social practices and norms are represented in the examples above in bold text, while attempts to lampoon these standards are indicated by texts that are underlined. For instance, “Porsche and Ferrari” (frame 8) are stereotypical material associations of the rich. Both cars invoke both elitist (e.g., luxury car category, steep pricing) and heteronormative (e.g., performance cars, masculinity, attention to aesthetics) standards as foregrounded by their associative images in popular culture. Yet, when the naming of these cars is preceded and juxtaposed with the phrase “smell like the inside of…,” the sense of exclusivity that they signal is reduced to the level of boorishness. This manner of juxtaposing notions of elitism and coarseness is consistently demonstrated in the rest of the examples stated. Accordingly, the nature of laughter that has been raised from these satirical realizations and throughout the video seems to foster the impression of laughter that is layered. In specific, this employment of laughter as a tool of power is articulated at two levels simultaneously. At the immediate level, laughter is used to mock the social practices of the elites as crass and ostentatious. At another level, laughter is

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used to caricature Kim Huat’s misrecognition of his own lack of symbolic capital. While the laughter raised in this second instance seems to be targeted at Kim Huat, it also indexes the target audience of ordinary Singaporeans as being crass and ostentatious too. In other words, laughter (laughing at) is framed as a tool to defend one’s (i.e., lower class) social identity against Casey’s hegemonic action, as well as a tool to liberate the collective consciousness of the working class by turning the laughter on themselves. Instead of being subjugated by the rhetoric of social and economic instrumentalism, those in this social group are able to shift from the position of have-nots to a festive position to celebrate their subcultural identity as native Singaporeans. In other words, carnivalesque laughter is both resistive and emancipative at the same time. However, how is laughter performed in the video? mrbrown operates ambivalent laughter by appealing to what is considered humorous subculturally among heartland Singaporeans. He achieves this through the use of Hokkien phrases, Singlish features, metapragmatic utterances, and props in the video. Table 6.2 tabulates each of these three manners. First, ambivalent laughter is operationalized through the use of Hokkien. Specifically, Kim Huat uses five familiar Hokkien phrases that are associated with everyday practices in Singapore. In particular, these phrases are likely to invoke a sense of nostalgia among adult Singaporeans who grew up before the 1980s when dialects were predominantly used among the lower socioeconomic income group. Second, Kim Huat demonstrates proficiency in the use of the Singlish syntactic structure. His mastery of Singlish signals him as a native Singaporean. This social identity is a powerful tool that privileges him in achieving the dual objectives of seeking redress (from Casey’s provocation) on behalf of the working class and in establishing camaraderie (as a result of Casey’s provocation) among the same group. As categorized in Table  6.2, Kim Huat’s proficiency is Singlish can be observed in five ways. One conventional Singlish form is the feature of contracted speech such as the missing verb form in “If I casual…if I formal” in frame 9. Another Singlish feature is the phonetic peculiarity in replacing the consonant “d” with “l” (e.g., “lub step” instead of “dubstep” in frame 11) and pronouncing the sound “th” as “t” (e.g., “tings” instead of “things” in frame 12). Third, metapragmatic utterances are used to foster a sense of cultural connection among native Singaporeans. For instance, the textual examples in Table 6.1 are not common phrases used in the city-state. Yet, their use in these specific contexts invokes a tacit understanding among native Singaporeans. One example is in the expression “water melon princess KTV launch and night club” (frame 12). “KTV launch” refers to karaoke TV lounge. Particularly, the entity refers to a sleazy establishment because it is both a KTV lounge and a night club. The bizarre and random references to “water melon” and “princess” mocks the naming convention that most KTV lounges in Singapore adopt (e.g., Melody KTV Lounge and Night Club), which is often a direct translation from Chinese. This is a satire made in reference to female immigrants from China who are stereotyped as mistresses and even hostesses engaging in vices in Singapore. Next, props used in

9 0:50–1:14

8 0:30–0:50

Ang moh tua kee (Caucasians/ the big one)

Hokkien phrases

Neh’mine/Kim Huat show you how to be high class/so that rich England banker expat won’t look down on us One/wear expensive perfume/I want to intro you to my new creation/Kim le Huat/ my/you the toilet/if you want to smell like rich England banker expat likdat/just spray/ Kim le Huat/and you will smell like the inside of a Porsche or Ferrari Two/wear more formal likdat/wear a tie/if I Zichar(Chinese home cook casual/I keep my sleeve up/but if I formal/ style) like if I have to go with other rich England banker expat to drink international beverages/then I roll my sleeve down/and if I need to eat at a/fancy restaurant/like/Le amis French zichar/I even wear long pants

Ang moh tua kee ah

6 0:20–0:22 7 0:22–0:30

4 0:16–0:18

Text I heard/got this rich England banker expat/ who say that we Singaporean who take public transport is poor people/and even say we smelly Who say we are smelly

Frame 3 0:06–0:16

Metapragmatic utterances Rich England banker expat

Likdat/if I casual…if I formal International beverages (examples of contracted speech form in Singlish) Go (overuse of the verb “go” in Singlish)

Who say (common Singlish expression used as a defensive posture) Ah(a common interjection in Singlish) Neh’mine (an example of contracted speech form in Singlish) Intro you/likdat (examples of contracted speech form in Singlish)

Singlish features Got this (overuse of the verb “got” in Singlish)

Table 6.2  Operationalization of ambivalent laughter in mrbrown: Who say we smelly? (mrbrown, 2014)

(continued)

Tie

Kim le Huat

Props

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13 2:10–2:24

12 1:56–2:10

11 1:40–1:56

Frame 10 1:14–1:40

Text Three/must have chio bu girlfriend or wife/ Kim Huat always get the most chio bu/ because I’m yen tao and stylo/I always read the men men magazine/like/HFM/EQ/ and Her World/How to get chio bu/come/ Kim Huat show you/Ah/there got one/Oi/ sexy/(catcalling sounds)/what/she forgot to shave is it Four/go to expensive club to party/my favorite music is lub step/go to where all the rich England banker expat go/like Pangaea/Avalon/and my favorite/water melon princess KTV launch and night club Five/you must use the best of the best tings/like my new product/this toilet roll made of recycled money/when you rub your back side with my toilet roll/you will feel expensive/I call it/ the anton When your kachng needs to wipe/and you want to clean it right/use the Anton/use the Anton

Table 6.2 (continued)

Kachng (one’s bottom)

Yen tao (good looking)

Hokkien phrases Chio bu (sexy woman)

Tings(phonetic features in Singlish)

Go (x3) (overuse of the verb “go” in Singlish) Lub step/launch (phonetic features in Singlish)

Singlish features Stylo (a common Singlish lexical) Got one (overuse of the verb “got” in Singlish) Oi (a common interjection in Singlish) Water melon princess KTV launch and night club

Metapragmatic utterances Men men magazine

Toilet roll

Props Unshaven Indian man

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the video also serve a similar purpose as that of metapragmatic utterances. An example is the representation of Kim Huat’s eye candy in the form of an unshaven Indian man. Overall, we observe how ambivalent laughter is enabled through the strategic selection of sociocultural emblems (e.g., Singlish, Hokkien, cultural references) that resonate with the target audience in this video. By invoking their common cultural identity in this manner, mrbrown is able to create “a shared social experience” (Olbrys, 2006, p. 245) that enables the social stigma of being working class to be lifted during the carnivalesque discourse. Accordingly, this examination of mrbrown’s video seems to echo Bakhtin’s (1965) notion of carnivalesque as being ambivalent, collective, and public. However, to what extent is contemporary performativity of carnivalesque in today’s mediatized environment different from Bakhtin’s carnivalesque as framed in Rabelais’ tradition? In the aspect of the carnivalesque form, Bakhtin’s notion of carnivalesque engenders a more rambunctious performativity than that of mrbrown’s use of carnivalesque in mediatized discourse. While both carnivalesque expressions foreground the use of rhetorical tropes such as satire, sarcasm, vernacular (or marketplace) language, and the dimension of grotesque realism, it is clear that mrbrown’s performativity is somewhat lacking in the level of brazenness as imagined in nineteenth-­century ritual spectacles. This is likely a result of the community guidelines that govern the practices of YouTube users. Among its many ground rules, the regulation against contents that are sexually explicit, violent and gory, hateful expressions, harmful, and copyrighted curtail the range of comedic performances in social media (YouTube, n.d.). To circumvent these restrictions, contemporary carnivalesque performances adopt richer semiotic cues, such as that of props, setting, music, and other technological affordances, to communicate the same carnivalesque intent as originally conceived by Bakhtin. In sum, not only is the video indexed discursively as carnivalesque, it appears to embody the resistive and emancipative qualities of a carnivalesque performance too. In this sense, it can be argued that mrbrown’s video is in keeping with Bakhtin’s (1965) articulation of carnivalesque as both resistive and emancipative. But, how are power relations evidenced in a carnivalesque performance? We can appreciate how the arrangement of semiotic resources is set up to culturally index the characters as a first step to enable Kim Huat, the protagonist, to temporally dismantle the social hierarchies through the use of select semiotic resources and grotesque realism. In a carnivalesque discourse, these are the power tools. The carnivalesque script is based on socio-political issues that resonate with the audience, and the sign of political triumph is the character of laughter that is at once resistive and emancipative. However, in the digital age where the performance of multiple selves is a central concern of producers of mediatized contents, an insight into the producers and their works may reveal further details that help to articulate more cogently the performativity of the carnivalesque as a tool of power in the twenty-first century. Therefore, there is a need to go beyond the level of the text and interrogate the multiple personae of the creator of the video, Lee Kin Mun, or more popularly known as mrbrown.

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6.5  Further Thoughts: mrbrown and His Many Aliases 6.5.1  Lee Kin Mun: The Private/Public Man There appears to be little effort on Lee’s part to disassociate or mask his private self from his public self. This can be observed on two fronts. Firstly, both Lee Kin Mun and his moniker mrbrown are almost always represented interchangeably when Lee introduces himself in public spaces and even across different social media platforms where his (or mrbrown’s) presence is maintained. This is done consistently through the use of the abbreviated form a.k.a. (also known as) in foregrounding his dual identities (i.e., mrbown a.k.a. Lee Kin Mun, or Lee Kin Mun better known as mrbrown, or Kinmun Lee) (www.mrbrown.com; AWWA Caregiver Service, 2012). Secondly, over the decades, Lee has revealed much of his private life in interviews as well as in his own blogposts entitled Musings on his website (http://www. mrbrown.com). For instance, the general public is aware of his accommodation choice (public housing flat), his preferred mode of transport (six bicycles and more significantly, not owning a car), and his hobbies (traveling, photography, gaming). In particular, Lee’s frequent musings as a family man in raising three children, one of whom is severely autistic, have generated much positive public support, in both online and offline spaces (Sun 2012; Tan, 2014; Wee, 2014). Lee’s open and consistent posture in the way he represents himself and his appeal as an average Joe could be a key reason why he is accepted as an insider in the eyes of heartland Singaporeans. In turn, this positively impacts the various projects that Lee undertakes in the name of mrbrown. 6.5.1.1  mrbrown: The Performer While mrbrown is often associated with the production of serious socio-political satirical media contents, he also creates a plethora of other social media contents such as photo essays, Internet memes, musical performances, products and movie reviews, travelogues, and blogposts that chronicle aspects of social and commercial practices in and beyond the island-state (http://www.mrbrown.com). In these varied capacities, mrbrown maintains different personae in communicating his various messages. In terms of his non-satirical social media contents, the persona of mrbrown is foregrounded. mrbrown is marked by his fluency in the use of Standard Singapore English, his quick-wittedness, his acute awareness of policy issues as well as sentiments on the ground, his ability to code-switch between Standard English and Singlish purposefully, his educational pedigree (being educated in premier educational institutions in Singapore), and his cosmopolitan and dynamic relationships with foreign cultures (e.g., travelogues) (mrbrown.com; Nizam, 2011; Teo, 2009). At the same time, despite the embodiment of these middle-class qualities, mrbrown seems to eschew luxury as evident in his aesthetic (dress-down or

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s­ometimes causal smart dress sense), accommodation, and transport choices. mrbrown is also indexed by his frequent intermingling of Singlish with Standard English in his creative works intentionally to establish rapport with the grassroots. This purposeful and selective taming of one’s symbolic capital as observed in mrbrown’s case may have promoted his associative membership as “one of us” among heartland Singaporeans. In the capacity of mrbrown, the performer engages in past and present commercial projects for companies in the likes of Singapore Changi Airport (i.e., Changi Airport Millionaire Dance in 2010), Cable News Network or CNN (as a regular columnist for Say What? With mrbrown in 2011), Philips (i.e., Philips Home Lightover in 2012), Volkswagen (i.e., VW Polo Non-Stop Challenge in 2009), and many others (http://www.mrbrown.com/). He also produces media contents that capture everyday practices in categories such as random rants, movies and TV, musings, everyday life, cycling, and many others (http://www.mrbrown.com). As for his satirical works, the characters of Minister Midas Jin Jue Lui and Kim Huat (Lee, n.d.) serve as Lee’s theatrical mouthpieces. These two characters are featured separately in the monologues, and they are caricatures of dominant (Minister Midas) and subversive (Kim Huat) forces in society, respectively. Minister Midas Jin Jue Lui: Caricature of the Dominant Minister Midas Jin Jue Lui is the fictional caricature of a minister (or acting minister when the character was first introduced) from the incumbent PAP government. This character was first introduced in 2012/2013, and there is a series of about 20 video clips (as of December 19, 2019) featuring Minister Midas Jin Jue Lui discussing various socio-political concerns with his intended audiences whom he addresses in endearing terms such as “my loving residents” (mrbrown, 2015). The media contents are often parodies that are based on hot topic issues that have made headlines in the island-state from time to time. They often stereotype and poke fun at PAP ministers for being out-of-touch with popular sentiments. The name Midas is most commonly associated with King Midas, a Greek mythological figure who is known to have the ability to turn everything he touches into gold. Ironically, this gift was a bane as it left him accursed as even food he was to consume turned into gold as well. Arguably, this choice of name by mrbrown appears to be an explicit pun that simultaneously exhorts the dominant position of the PAP government and warns of the dangers of an absolute power base. In fact, Minister Midas’ Chinese name Jin Jue Lui is also framed materially as it is literally translated as a lot of (“Jin Jue”) money (“Lui”) in Hokkien. Aesthetically, Minister Midas is indexed as a PAP cadre member by his attire (a mirror of PAP party uniform of white-on-white), his Singaporean accented speech pattern (akin to Standard Singaporean English spoken by second language users), his language use (formal lexis), and his overall formal and socially awkward demeanor (well-pressed short-sleeved shirt on pants, greasy hair parted in the middle, conventional metal frame glasses).

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Kim Huat: Singapore Number One Opinion Giver Unlike Minister Midas, Kim Huat serves as a layered caricature of a broad band of ordinary Singaporeans. Since the introduction of the character in 2013, there have been 150 videos (as of December 19, 2019) produced under the name of Kim Huat, Singapore Number One. While Minister Midas always introduces himself as “your favorite minister” (mrbrown, 2015), Kim Huat gives himself the role of “Singapore’s number one (opinion giver)” (Lee, n.d.) in most everyday matters that are newsworthy in the island-state. 6.5.1.2  M  r Brown Index: Once You’ve Lost Mr Brown, You’ve Lost Public Opinion (Ong, 2014) mrbrown’s immense popularity and appeal could stem from the representation of a social persona who is affable, witty, informed, nonconformist, and down-to-earth. This appeal has proven to be sustainable over the past two decades of mrbrown’s public existence. This is evident from his hugely popular and broad-based support across the key social media platforms (CoolSocial, n.d.). He has 412,000 followers on Twitter, 105,000 followers on Facebook, 41,000 subscribers on YouTube, and 32,500 followers on Instagram (as of December 19, 2019). It does appear that mrbrown’s sedulous construction of a complex yet coherent social media persona is a critical consideration in understanding mrbrown as social media project. However, what does this project of mrbrown really stand for? Is his use of humor no more than comic relief in Singapore’s restrictive online sphere? What is mrbrown’s political intention in his production of socio-political satirical media works? Over the years, mrbrown has openly declared his interest to document “the dysfunctional side of Singapore” (http://mrbrown.com) and his nonpartisan political position (Lim, 2011; Nizam, 2011; Teo, 2009). He has also described his media productions as a natural extension of the “class clown” persona, a label which he has been associated with since his days in school. Yet, the social world may perceive it differently. According to an article on “Top 20 Asian progressives” by World Business magazine (which has since been renamed as Management Today) in 2007 (Backman, 2007), Lee Kin Mun (or mrbrown) was (and remains till today) the only Singaporean who was listed among Asia’s top minds in “promoting debate where governments of the region seek to restrict it.” This assertion of mrbrown’s influential presence is likewise echoed by Ong (2014) who describes the performer’s social prowess as the “Mr Brown Index.” The article was made in reference to mrbrown’s negative comments regarding the actions of a group of anti-PAP protestors who disrupted an onstage performance by a group of special needs children while pursuing their political agenda (Ong, 2014). In his brief examination of mrbrown’s influence as “an indicator of public opinion,” he measures the performer’s popularity vis-à-vis other celebrity bloggers in Singapore and also in the context of a run-in that mrbrown had with the PAP government in 2006 over a tongue-in-cheek article written by mrbrown in a local daily, Today, newspaper (mrbrown, 2006).

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In sum, what appears certain is that mrbrown’s construction of a unified multilayered social identity performed within a heartland discourse is certainly intentional, and it encompasses a high level of strategy in mapping out macro- and micro-level details in supporting the overall performance of the creator Lee Kin Mun. Through the examination of the personalities of Lee Kin Mun, mrbrown, Minister Midas, and Kim Huat, we uncover how the construction of an overarching personality is central in animating Kim Huat, Singapore’s number one transport fan, to perform politics in the vernacular digital culture. Overall, given the level of careful choreography that goes into the construction of multiple personae both at the level of the video clip (i.e., Kim Huat and the social group of rich England banker expat) and in the broader social contexts (i.e., Lee Kin Mun, mrbrown, Kim Huat, and Minister Midas), it is evident that mrbrown is serious and deliberate in generating critical conversations through his works. Also, given the significant number of videos produced in the names of Kim Huat as “Singapore’s number one (opinion giver)” (Lee, n.d.) and that of Minister Midas as a PAP spokesperson, it seems indicative of mrbrown’s systematic effort to poke fun at dominant influences in the country. In a nutshell, this insight provides further clarity in characterizing the first video as a contemporary carnivalesque enterprise that seeks the purpose of social critique while satisfying the desire for self-­ representation in the digital age. In the next chapter, I proceed to examine the second video in the comparative study.

Glossary The table below captures Singlish and Hokkien phrases that are used in video 1 mrbrown show: Who say we smelly?. The list is arranged chronologically. Singlish Ang moh/tua kee/ah Neh’mine Intro you Likdat Zichar Chio bu Yen tao Stylo Men Isit Kachng

Standard English Caucasians/the big one/exclamation Never mind Introduce to you Like that Chinese home cook style Sexy woman Good looking Stylish Masculine Is it? One’s bottom

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Transcript (0.01) Hello this is Kim Huat, Singapore’s number one public transport fan. I heard, got this rich England banker expat, who say that we Singaporean who take public transport is poor people and even say we smelly. Who say we are smelly? I bathe almost every week…okay. Ang moh tua kee. Neh’mine (2) Kim Huat show you how to be high class so that rich England banker expat won’t look down on us… (Gestures) One – wear expensive perfume. I want to intro you to my new creation – “Kim Le Huat” – my “You the Toilet,” if you want to smell like rich England banker expat like that…just spray Kim Le Huat and you will smell like the inside of a Porsche and the Ferrari. (He sprays the bottle once.) (0.51) (Gestures) two  – Wear more formal like that (gestures to him wearing clothes and tie)...wear a tie. If I casual I keep my sleeve up (gestures to his sleeve rolled up) but if I formal…like if I have to go with other rich England banker expat to drink international beverages, then I roll my sleeve down (gestures and rolls his sleeve down) and if I need to eat at a fancy restaurant like…Les Amis French zichar I even wear long pants. (Gestures) three – must have chio bu girlfriend or wife. Kim Huat always get the most chio bu because I’m yen tao and stylo. I always read the men men magazine like HFM, EQ and Her World. How to get your bu.…come Kim Huat show you. Ah…(Pointing to someone)…there got one. Oye, sexy. (Gestures smooching like sound) …mooch, mooch, mooch… (to a lady wearing red cloth from head to toe) (lady turns around laughing) ..ha, ha, ha. (Shocking expression) What? She forgot to shave is it? (Gestures) four – Go to expensive club to party. My favorite music is lap step. Go to where all the rich England banker expat go like Pangaea, Avalon and my favorite water melon princess KTV lounge and night club. (Gestures) five – you must use the best of the bet things (gesturing thumbs up sign)…like my new product this toilet roll made of recycled money, when you rub your best side with my toilet roll, you will feel expensive. I call it “the anton.” (Places the toilet roll next to his cheek and starts singing) – “when your kachng needs to wipe, and you want to clean it right, use the Antonnn (places the roll on his other cheek), use the Antonnnn (flips the loose end of the toilet roll).

References Aitchison, J., & Chan, T. (1994). Sarong party girl. Singapore, Singapore: Angsana Books. AWWA Caregiver Service. (2012, December 16). Sharing by blogger and caregiver Lee Kin Mun aka mrbrown [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU_B9MxAsPA Backman, M. (2007, May 9). Top 20 Asian progressives. Management Today. Retrieved from http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/655151

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Badarneh, M. (2011). Carnivalesque politics: A Bakhtinian case study of contemporary Arab political humor. Humor, 24(3), 305–327. Bakhtin, M. (1965). Rabelais and his world. Trans. H.  Iswolsky. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenword. Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Cool Social. (n.d.). Social media impact for mrbrown.com. Retrieved from http://www.coolsocial. net/sites/www/mrbrown.com.html Fairclough, N. (2001). Critical discourse analysis as a method in social scientific research. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 121–138). London: SAGE. Gray, J., Jones, J. P., & Thompson, E. (2009). The state of satire, the satire of state. In J. Gray, J.  P. Jones, & E.  Thompson (Eds.), Satire TV: Politics and comedy in the post-network era (pp. 3–36). New York: New York University Press. Klumbyte, N. (2014). Of power and laughter: Carnivalesque politics and moral citizenship in Lithuania. Journal of the American Ethnological Society, 41(3), 473–490. Kwara, M. (2014, January 30). Train disruptions due to lapses by staff: SMRT. Yahoo News. Retrieved from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/train-disruptions-due-to-lapses-bystaff%2D%2Dsmrt-004814892.html Lee, K. M. (n.d.). LinkedIn. Retrieved from https://sg.linkedin.com/in/kin-mun-lee-66811590 Lim, P. (2011, April 29). Singapore’s top satirist thrives in election season. Associated Foreign Press. Retrieved from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/singapores-top-satirist-thrives-election-season-025109933.html Marc, D. (2009). Foreword. In J. Gray, J. P. Jones, & E. Thompson (Eds.), Satire TV: Politics and comedy in the post-network era (pp. ix–xiv). New York: New York University Press. Milroy, D. (2014, January 22). British banker: I need to wash off the stench of public transport used by the poor. Mail Online. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ article-2543851/British-businessman-married-Miss-Universe-Singapore-forced-issue-publicapology-mocking-local-people-poor.html mrbrown. (2006, July 3). Letter from MICA: Distorting the truth, mrbrown? Retrieved from http:// www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/07/letter_from_mic.html mrbrown (Producer/Director). (2014, January 23). The mrbrown show: Who say we smelly? [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYl3Ov4Hhpg mrbrown (Producer/Director). (2015, September 6). Everyday with Minister Midas: Party manifesto [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYl3Ov4Hhpg Nizam, A. (2011, June). How now, brown cow? Law Gazette. Retrieved from http://www.lawgazette.com.sg/2011-06/133.htm Olbrys, S. G. (2006). Disciplining the carnivalesque: Chris Farley’s exotic dance. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 3(3), 240–259. Ong, S. M. (2014, September 30). When you’ve lost Mr Brown, you’ve lost mainstream Singapore. Retrieved from http://smong.net/2014/09/when-you-lost-mr-brown-youve-lost.htmls. Poon, A. (2013). Common ground, multiple claims: Representing and constructing Singapore’s “Heartland”. Asian Studies Review, 37(4), 559–576. Santino, J. (2011). The carnivalesque and the ritualesque. Journal of American Folkore, 124(491), 61–73. Sun, D. (2012, June 5). Mr Brown’s 1 1/2-hour scare. AsiaOne. Retrieved from http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20120604-350389.html Tan, M. (2014, March 24). Blogfather Mr Brown’s messages to his daughter, who turned 13, causes Internet to melt. Mothership.sg. Retrieved from http://mothership.sg/2014/03/ blogfather-mr-browns-messages-to-his-daughter-who-turned-13-causes-internet-to-melt

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Teo, K. (2009, November 6). Kelvin Teo talks to satirist Mr Brown aka Lee Kin Mun. Kelvin Teo Writes. Retrieved from https://kelvinteowrites.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/ kelvin-teo-talks-to-satirist-mr-brown-aka-lee-kin-mun Thompson, E. (2009). Good demo, bad taste: South Park as carnivalesque satire. In J. Gray, J. P. Jones, & E. Thompson (Eds.), Satire TV: Politics and comedy in the post-network era (pp. 213– 232). New York: New York University Press. Ungureanu, C. (2015). Aestheticization of politics and ambivalence of self-sacrifice in Charlie Brooker’s The National Anthem. Journal of European Studies, 45(1), 21–30. Wee, D. (2014, March 28). Messages by ‘mrbrown to autistic daughter becoming an inspiration. Sing.com. Retrieved from http://features.insing.com/feature/ messages-by-mrbrown-to-autistic-daughter-becoming-an-inspiration/id-3e3e3101 Wee, L. (2008). Linguistic instrumentalism in Singapore. In P. Tan & R. Rubdy (Eds.), Language as commodity: Global structures, local market places (pp. 31–43). New York: Continuum. Whitesel, J., & Shuman, A. (2013). Normalizing desire: Stigma and the carnivalesque in gay bigmen’s cultural practices. Men and Masculinities, 16(4), 478–496. Xue, J.  Y. (2013, September 25). New fault lines may have emerged in society: DPM Teo. Today. Retrieved from http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/ new-fault-lines-may-have-emerged-society-dpm-teo Yahoo News. (2016, April 25). Train services on NSL disrupted for a second day in a row. Yahoo. Retrieved from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/smrt-train-services-resume-after-disruption-dueto-140359999.html Yong, N. (2016, April 25). Key safety lapses led to fatal SMRT accident: Panel. Yahoo News. Retrieved from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/key-safety-lapses-led-to-fatal-smrt-accident-031017052.html YouTube. (n.d.) Community guidelines. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/yt/policyandsafety/communityguidelines.html

Chapter 7

Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

Abstract  In this chapter I examine the second video (Anton Casey’s Mistake [Singlish 55]) in four parts. Prior to that, I state the synopsis and context of the second video. The first three parts are similar to the previous chapter. They include the part on the carnivalesque form of the mediatized performance. This is further split into the use of semiotic resources and the aspect of grotesque realism as carnivalesque tools. The second part focuses on the carnivalesque function of the video. This part is divided into the critique of social concerns, the inversion of social hierarchies, and the aspect of ambivalent laughter. The third part examines the personae of the actors and the producer. With the analysis done at this level for the second video, I comment on the character of the carnivalesque performance. Finally, the last part is a synthesis of chapters 6 and 7. In this part, I discuss the manipulation of the carnivalesque form and interrogate the carnivalesque function in the (pseudo) carnivalesque performances of Kim Huat (protagonist in the first video), Casey, and Taxi Driver.

7.1  Introduction As foregrounded in the opening section of the previous chapter, Bakhtin’s (1965) notion of carnivalesque proffers a robust analytic tool to interrogate comedic performances as subpolitical. This is due to the nature of carnivalesque as liminal, resistive, and theatrical. While this nature explicates the traditional literary-centered approaches favored by communication and cultural studies scholars in analyzing various aspects of social realities, it has largely ignored the immense potentials of the theory in terms of its discursively unified structure. In light of this, the empirical carnivalesque framework that I have proposed in this book is intended as a rigorous analytic tool, much akin to critical discourse analytic approaches, to examine the rich layering of social-emotional-political meanings enmeshed in comedic performances such as the first video that is examined in the previous chapter. In this chapter, I proceed to examine the second video in this comparative study so as to juxtapose both videos for their carnivalesque authenticity. Through this endeavor, I hope to contribute to the discussions of contemporary digital power display in vernacular discourse as well as examine the potentials of Bakhtinian

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H.-Y. K. Kan, Digital Carnivalesque, Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2051-8_7

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c­ arnivalesque as subpolitics in today’s performance-driven digital age in the last chapter. In terms of organization, this chapter follows the structure of interrogation in the previous chapter. I first analyze the carnivalesque form in the second video. This includes the assemblage of semiotic resources used in performing the two characters in the video. I then examine the same video for its carnivalesque function. Through the instrumentality of semiotic resources in caricaturing the characters, I question the three key aspects of carnivalesque function: the authenticity of the video as social critique and in inverting social hierarchies and the character of laughter. Next, through the examination of the video producers and characters beyond the level of the text, I provide more substantive corroboration to justify my analysis in terms of the carnivalesque authenticity of the second video. In the final part of this chapter, I juxtapose the characters in both videos and provide a synthesis in the way power is discursively performed in the carnivalesque discourse and quintessence of carnivalesque as oppositional. In the final analysis, it is observed that in today’s digital age where video editing freeware is accessible to ordinary netizens, the performance of carnivalesque, unlike in the days of Bakhtin’s Rabelais, now relies on a greater range of mediatized tools (e.g., music, animation, templates, special effects) in the performance of comedies. In fact, with greater domicile and platform restrictions as evidenced in the case studies, the aspect of grotesque realism (at least in public platforms) is possibly much more restrained. Further, it is observed that neither the carnivalesque form nor the instrumentality of social critique as script and that of social hierarchies’ inversion alone significantly differentiate authentic carnivalesque (as oppositional) from pseudo-carnivalesque. Rather, what is needed is the coalescence of these factors plus an understanding of the producers’ intentions in order to index a comedic act as intentionally counter-narrative or an aestheticization of hegemonic ideals. This, I argue in this chapter, is best framed and surmised from the perspective of carnivalesque as ambivalent laughter.

7.2  Synopsis and Context Similar to mrbrown’s production of Who say we smelly? (mrbrown, 2014), the production of Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55) (video 2) created by Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show (Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show, 2014) is a parodic critique to the affront created by Anton Casey that foregrounds the social tension between upper and lower classes. In the video, the child actor, popularly known as Dr. Jiajia among netizens in Singapore, is the protagonist, and he plays the character of Taxi Driver. Anton Casey, on the other hand, is played by the teenager popularly known as BigBro. The YouTube video can be accessed via this link: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=FpAoVdweENc

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The video is 2  min 49  s long. As observed from Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show YouTube channel, The Singlish series was started in 2010, and it features parodies of local contents that are both trivial and socio-politically contentious in nature. This video is the 55th video in The Singlish series. In terms of the plot structure, the first part is a spoof that reenacts the events leading to the posting of Casey’s comments on social media. The second part of the video centers on Casey’s actions in posting the comments and the corresponding consequences as a result of it. The first part of the video is filmed as two monologues in separate frames that alternate between the two characters. This segment lasts about 2  minutes. Casey begins by bragging about his social status, and he subsequently proceeds to post comments on social media regarding his encounter with the local public transport system. During this segment, the frame switches over to Taxi Driver on nine occasions. On the first two occasions, Taxi Driver responds to Casey’s questions about the color of Casey’s car as well as suggestions to occupy his time. Thereafter, on the other seven occasions, Taxi Driver responds to Casey’s social media activities with admonition and disbelief. The second segment of the video lasts 49  s. In this segment, both characters appear in the same frame. It begins with Casey expressing delight at his social media posts while Taxi Driver appearing shocked (presumably at Casey’s lack of discretionary judgment in posting his social media comments) as he enters the scene from the right side of the frame. Next, Casey enquires the identity of Taxi Driver and shames him for his grooming choices by calling him “retard” (2:12). There are also other physical actions taken to disparage Taxi Driver. At this point, Taxi Driver issues his final warning against Casey’s intimidation just as the strains of Chinese music begins to be heard. Taxi Driver proceeds to physically assault Casey. Casey becomes unconscious as a result. Thereafter, he declared “You’re fired” (2:37) to Casey. In the final scene, Taxi Driver addresses the camera in Hokkien saying “Airplanes fly into the sea” (2:39) and in English “AngMo, you think about the rest” (2:41). The video is delivered in English, Singlish, and Hokkien. In keeping to the meaning of the spoken text, verbatim transcription is observed when analyzing the video. Additionally, a Singlish glossary and the transcript of the video can be found at the end of this chapter.

7.3  Carnivalesque Form 7.3.1  Semiotic Resources in Performing Casey and Taxi Driver 7.3.1.1  Performative Genre Both Casey’s and Taxi Driver’s performances in the first segment of the video are delivered in the form of a monologue with the characters making their individual appearances in separate and sometimes split screens. In the cross-cutting mode, Casey appears to be engaging mostly in a monologue with an imagined audience,

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while Taxi Driver appears keen to engage Casey in a dialogue. This production mode enables turn-taking between the two characters who are in different locations. Each adjacency pair in this exchange begins with Casey presenting a statement (“Let’s talk about the recent public transport trip I’d with my son. Sounds cool.” at 1:00) or asking a (rhetorical) question (“Now what should I do next?” at 1:21). In all the frames in the first segment, Taxi Driver responds to each of Casey’s actions (“It’s really a bad idea.” at 1:01), while Casey appears oblivious to his presence or utterances. Although the monologue device is employed by both characters, it is used differently in the case of the two characters. In Casey’s case, the monologue is used initially as a way for Casey to establish contact with his imagined audience. This is observed at two points in this section of the video. First, Casey addresses his audience at the beginning of the video with “Hello everyone. My name is Anton Casey” (0:02). Second, Casey acknowledges the response from Taxi Driver (“That’s right. Silver color Porsche” at 0:35) after he invited the audience to guess the color of his car (“You want to guess what color it is?” at 0:27). In the former, Casey’s greeting signals his attempt to communicate with his audience, while his acknowledgment in the latter constitutes a form of general feedback to the answer given by Taxi Driver. However, Casey’s use of the monologue device changes after this point. Instead of using the monologue as a theatrical tool to address his imagined audience, it now serves as an interior monologue. The use of interior monologue allows the audience to access Casey’s thought process that informs his acrimonious Facebook comments. Table 7.1 depicts the eight occasions in which the responses of Taxi Driver are systematically ruled out or ignored by Casey. Each occasion is indicated by a row in the table. In each of these events, Taxi Driver’s response to Casey’s rhetorical question (or concern) is reflected in the second right column. As observed from Casey’s actions taken after Taxi Driver’s responses and reflected in the right most column in Table 7.1, Casey’s construction of thoughts did not take into consideration the responses by Taxi Driver on all occasions. On the other hand, in the case of Taxi Driver, we observe Taxi Driver’s active role in responding concertedly to Casey’s comments in each adjacency pair. On all nine occasions, Taxi Driver’s responses are prompted by Casey’s remarks. As exemplified earlier, in the first two occasions, Taxi Driver responds to the questions posed by Casey (i.e., color of his car and suggestions of activities), while on the other seven occasions, they are warnings in response to the foolery of Casey’s intention to post as well as expressions of despair as a result of Casey’s actions. Casey’s oblivion to Taxi Driver’s presence can be explicated in literary terms through classical Greek drama. The character of the Taxi Driver epitomizes the aspect of chorus in Greek drama. The function of Greek chorus is to serve as the voice of the audience. In classical Greek drama, chorus offers commentaries on the action on stage so as to establish deeper connection between characters and audience, acts as a literary device for the playwright to achieve the intended literary complexity, and signals to the audience impending actions on stage that are thematically significant (Weiner, 1980). It is noteworthy that the stage identity of Taxi Driver is not revealed in the first segment of the video. This may have something to

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Table 7.1  The use of interior monologue by Casey Time frame 0:39– 0:47 0:47– 0:55 0:56– 1:07 1:08– 1:15

1:16– 1:19 1:21– 1:32

1:33– 1:45 1:46– 2:00

Casey’s concern Taxi driver’s response Now, I’m really bored. What How ‘bout play ping-pong and should I do? badminton?

Casey’s actions Oh I know. How ‘bout make a Facebook post. Oh I know. How ‘bout make Bad idea. [Frown and a look of Ummm (1) what a Facebook post. concern] should I post? (2) (Ah) I know. It’s really a bad idea. [Frown and Daddy, where’s your Let’s talk about the recent car and who’re all public transport trip I’d with tapping of index fingers] these poor people? my son. Sounds cool. There we go. Should I post Don’t be a goodu lah. Don’t post Post. it? it. (Goodu, a Malay word that means stupid) Yeah (3) [Clapping hands No (3) [Grimace] and smiling] Oh Oh [Grimace] You know what? I’m Now (1) what should I do gonna brag about my next? Oh I know. How ‘bout car. making another Facebook post? Don’t do it. You’re going to You know what? Let Ah (1) Reunited with my regret it. me add another baby. Normal service can sentence. resume. This is horrigible. Don’t post it. Post! Once I wash the stench of public transport off me. Now You’re going to regret. (1) Big time! [Frown] that’s so much better yes? (Horrigible, a Singlish expression that is likely a derivation from the words horrible and terrible.

do with his theatrical role as chorus since the purpose of his presence in the first segment while highly symbolic is only visible to the audience. Further, it is significant to add that the personification of chorus as the social group of Taxi Driver is clearly strategic given the context of Casey’s social media tirade that was made against the public transport system. In this sense, Taxi Driver stands out as the voice of moral justice against Casey’s disparaging remarks against the system. In short, Taxi Driver knows more than Casey and can see how Casey’s actions will lead to his demise. 7.3.1.2  Name The name choices of the two characters give us an indication of the class conflict that ensues in this narrative. Anton Casey introduces himself at the start of the video (“Hello everyone. My name is Anton Casey.” at 0:05), but he is addressed as a social

114

7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

group of “AngMo” by Taxi Driver in the second segment of the video (“AngMo, you think about the rest.” at 2:42). On the other hand, Taxi Driver is nameless. He is only known by his occupation “taxi driver” (2:09) and is labeled as the social group of “poor people” (2:19) by Casey toward the end of the clip. Given that the video clip is a parody of Anton Casey, keeping Casey’s namesake for the character of the antagonist extends the theatrical repertoire in referencing Casey in an overt manner. The label of “AngMo” is a Singlish reference for Caucasians. Depending on its contextual use, this label is either a form of banter or a derogatory reference. This label is used as part of the Hokkien idiom [peh ki peh lok hai/ang mo jiak gao sai]. In its original colloquial Hokkien articulation, the literal translation of the phrase “Airplanes fly into sea. AngMo, you think about the rest” at 2:41 refers to “Airplanes fly into the sea [peh ki peh lok hai]. Caucasians eat dog feces [AngMo jiak gao sai].” In vernacular discourse, this well-known Hokkien idiom serves as an insider-joke among the working class about British colonial masters who ruled Singapore before its independence. Although the use of “AngMo” in the original articulation was made in jest, it is plausible that given the backlash from Casey’s affront, it could constitute, to a certain extent, as an indirect threat to Caucasians to be circumspect in their ways. However, on a more immediate level, given that Taxi Driver is addressing Casey directly at the end of this video, it appears more certain that the affront is more of an insult to Casey himself. Unlike Casey, Taxi Driver is not named. When queried by Casey about his identity, Taxi Driver provides only his occupation (“I’m a taxi driver” at 2:09). This move in genericizing Taxi Driver signals the centrality of the working class (or “poor people” at 2:19) as represented by the work they perform. While the social group of taxi drivers, especially before private car-hiring companies such as Grab became widespread, may be constructed as more of a mélange of the working class, certain labels such as being hardworking, socially engaged, and politically interested have generally been associated with them. Such stereotypical associations can be inferred from first-personal accounts in popular discourses such as interviews with taxi drivers, as well as blog and forum contributions by taxi drivers (Lollipop, 2013; Seow & Zhuo, 2015; Singapore Taxi Driver, 2013; Toh, 2014). Even though this impression of a taxi driver is not evident textually, the association of Taxi Driver as embodying these traits may have informed the choice and construction of the Taxi Driver. Consequently, it may have fostered the persona of Taxi Driver as a modern-day Robin Hood, or the unassuming hero who stands in solidarity with the target audience of ordinary Singaporeans against the bullying tactics of the upper class. In the final analysis, while the name of Casey serves the targeted theatrical purpose in ridiculing Anton Casey, it is also nuanced in indexing rich expatriates and more affluent Singaporeans who do not encounter the “inconvenience,” such as the public transport system, that ordinary Singaporeans do. In light of this, it is plausible that the message of the video is layered. In the first instance, the insult performed is a personal attack against Casey. In the second instance, it exploits class tension surfaced by Casey’s saga to invoke sentimentalities of rancor among ordinary citizens against the elites.

7.3  Carnivalesque Form

115

7.3.1.3  Grooming Casey’s aesthetic choices provide an exaggerated representation of his class status. First, the character dons a shoulder-length blonde wig with wavy curls. While the lighter hair color seeks to index Casey as someone of Caucasian descent, the style of wavy curls and longer bangs is possibly indicative of the producer’s efforts to stereotype Casey as someone who is culturally nonconformist in an Asian context. Contextually, this framing is reminiscent of a Singapore campaign in the 1970s against men from keeping long hair (Chua & Chang, 2015). Against the backdrop of a hippie subculture worldwide, men who were spotted with unacceptable hairstyles had their social privileges withdrawn (e.g., to be served last in government offices). In that campaign, the ideal hairstyles for men should reveal one’s facial features copiously and be short (i.e., not beyond the nape of one’s neck). This was possibly constructed as a marker of the ideal man who is honest, upright, and masculine. Such fastidious stereotypical stipulations, as compared to the more liberal western standards of that era, underscore the moralistic undertones of the incumbent government in the running of the city-state. While contemporary Singapore is comparatively more diverse and culturally tolerant than it was 40 years ago, it remains a highly conservative Asian society by the standards of western societies in today’s globalized world. For instance, in the local school system, students from primary and secondary schools with longer than deemed appropriate hair might be sent to the disciplinary master to have a haircut. Second, Casey wears a pair of sports sunglasses in an indoor setting. While the design of the glasses may appear brand-name aesthetically, its utility in an indoor setting is conventionally inappropriate. Third, Casey’s character wears a long-­ sleeved plaid shirt. On its own, this choice does not appear particularly odd. However, upon closer inspection, it can be observed that the shirt is put together with a pair of mismatched plaid shorts, which is only detectable at one point (2:03) in the video clip. Finally, there is a lack of significant material brand endorsements (e.g., wristwatch) to signal one’s social status as upper class. Overall, the over-the-­ top, stereotypical cultural markers of Casey (wig, expensive looking sunglasses, and plaid shirt) serve to create a comedic persona – one we should not take seriously or at face value. Similarly, the character of Taxi Driver is also a spoof of the working class. Taxi Driver wears a white singlet, puts on a pair of cutoff Nike gloves, and has a yellow bath towel thrown over his shoulders. This functional assemblage of clothing items signals the importance of comfort over aesthetics for Taxi Driver. Taxi Driver’s lack of fashion is apparent to Casey who dismisses the former as a “retard” (“Towel. Gloves. Retard” at 2:13). However, Taxi Driver dons a pair of children eyewear, which may not be consistent with the purpose in creating a subcultural identity for the social group of taxi drivers. Overall, while the aspect of grooming is enabled to mark the subcultural identities of both characters, the performative lapses (e.g., Casey’s plaid shorts and Taxi Driver’s children’s eyewear) underscore the sense of irony, which in turn enable the comedic effect in this performance.

116

7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

7.3.1.4  Language The character of Casey adopts what appears to be a western-accented speech at some points in the video to assume Casey’s ethnic identity as a westerner. Table 7.2 exemplifies instances where semblance of linguistic influences from spoken colloquial American English can be observed. The first is the use of contracted forms associated with American English (i.e., “wanna” [ˈwɒnə] refers to “want to,” “gonna” [ˈɡɒnə/] refers to “going to”), the second is associated with the placement of word stress on two-syllable nouns (e.g., “Daddy”), and the third is related to the rising intonation observed at the end of questions (“Should I post it ↗?”) and in statements that express excitement (e.g., “I know ↗”). From the above, Casey’s use of such linguistic markers appears repetitive and excessive signaling a mock accent. This raises questions about his social identity as a native speaker of American English. Casey’s pretense is also evident in several instances where he code-switches to Singlish  (see Table  7.3). Perhaps the most ironic and comedic aspect in the producer’s effort to caricature Casey lies in the absence of a British-accented speech when it is known that Casey is a British national (“I’m a British wealth manager working here in Singapore” at 0:08). On the other hand, Taxi Driver uses an eclectic mix of the vernaculars (i.e., Singapore English, Singlish, Malay as well as Hokkien) in his speech. Table  7.4 traces instances where these linguistic influences can be observed. In differentiating Singapore English from Singlish, I made the decision based on the syntactic structure of the spoken texts. Statements that are grammatically correct despite ­peculiarities in pronunciation (i.e., “tink” [/ˈtɪŋk’/] instead of [/θɪŋk/] at 0:32) and intonation pattern (e.g., general falling pitch pattern) are considered Singapore English. Whereas Singlish statements are those that contain specific Singlish features such as Singlish-inspired vocabulary (i.e., “horrigible,” “lah,” “AngMo”) and those that do not follow formal English syntactic rules (“Hey why [missing ‘are’] you so insulting?” at 2:16). From Taxi Driver’s use of language, it is clear that he is represented as a proficient speaker of the local vernaculars. In juxtaposing the two characters’ manipulation of language as a marker of their social identities, Taxi Driver’s consistent and Table 7.2  Adapted American-accented spoken texts by Casey Linguistic influences from American English “You wanna (American contracted form) guess what color it is ↗ (rising-fall intonation)?” (0:26) “I know ↗ (rising-fall intonation)” (0:55) “Daddy ↗ (word stress on the first syllable and rising pitch)” (1:07) “There ↗ (rising-fall intonation) we go. Should I post it ↗ (rising-fall intonation)?” (1:09) “I’m gonna (American contracted form) brag about my car (1:31).” “Reunited with my baby ↗ (rising-fall intonation). Normal service can resume (1:34).” “Now that’s so much better (flap in the middle), yes ↘ (rising-fall intonation) (1:50)?” “Towel. Gloves. Retard ↗ (rising-fall intonation).” (2:15)

7.3  Carnivalesque Form

117

Table 7.3  Singlish-accented spoken texts by Casey Influences from Singlish, an English creole “I’ve a very pretty wife who used to be a Singapore beauty pageant (mispronunciation).” (0:23) “Who are you ↘ (falling pitch)?” (2:07) “Towel ↘ (word stress on the ending syllable of two-syllable word and falling pitch). Gloves ↘ (falling pitch). Retard.” (2:15) “Poor people ↘ (words stress on the ending syllable of two-syllable word and falling pitch).” (2:19)

Table 7.4  Vernacular linguistic influences in Taxi Driver’s speech Linguistic features in Taxi Driver’s speech Singapore English Singlish “Let me tink [think]… “Don’t be a goondu lah.” (1:10) silver?” (0:32) [lah is a Singlish expression that is used as a way to reinforce a particular stance or emotion.]

Malay “Don’t be a goondu lah.” (1:11) [goondu means stupid in Malay.]

Hokkien “Airplanes fly into the sea.” (2:41)

“This is horrigible.” (1:53) [Horrigible, a Singlish expression that is likely a derivation from the words horrible and terrible.] “Bad idea.” (0:50) “Hey why you so insulting?” (2:16) [This is considered Singlish as the syntax does not abide by the English language system.] “It’s really a bad idea.” “AngMo, you think about the rest.” (1:01) “Don’t do it. You’re going to regret.” (1:40) “You’re going to regret. Big time!” (1:57) “How ‘bout play ping-pong and badminton?” (0:43)

fluent use of the vernacular variations conjures an impression of one who is an insider in Singapore’s nuanced linguistic culture. Incidentally, Casey’s mixture of western- and Singlish-accented speech is characteristic of a young person in Singapore who is substantially influenced both by Hollywood media culture and the Singlish linguistic culture. 7.3.1.5  Setting The video clip is probably filmed in the living room of a residence. For a large part of the clip, Casey appears in the foreground of the camera frame. He is seated on a dark brown leather-looking sofa and leans on two large pastel-colored cushions. There is a beige-colored wall behind the sofa. In a separate frame, Taxi Driver

118

7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

appears in the middle of an unadorned space. The wall behind him is clean and is painted in a light brown shade. Depending on the angle of the camera, sometimes a portion of a dull green-textured curtain can be seen in some scenes. At 2:02, Taxi Driver joins Casey on the brown sofa. From 2:32 onward, a larger part of this setting can be observed. There are two bicycles mounted on the wall at the back of a spacious living room. At the right side of the frame, a window along with two sets of curtains (white and green) can be observed. In front of the window sits what appears to be a small piano that is draped over with a piece of red fabric. Adjacent to the brown sofa that Casey sits on is another similar looking sofa set. A cushion is placed on it. There is also a wooden coffee table in front of both sofas. There is a small ornament placed on it. Judging from the aesthetic considerations (i.e., layout, style, and furniture) made with regard to the setting, this appears to be an actual lived environment rather than a stage. Additionally, the spaciousness of the setting and the old-fashioned design of the window grille give the impression of a private residential unit as opposed to that of a public housing unit. Given that the actors who play the characters of Casey and Taxi Driver are siblings in real life, the setting of this production may well be the living room of their home, and its selection as the setting for this production is probably born out of practical consideration. At the same time, it is curious that setting is not manipulated more copiously for the purpose of theatricalization. 7.3.1.6  Kinesics and the Use of Props Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show deploys a variety of embodied (i.e., posture, gestures, facial expressions, and non-spoken sound) and disembodied (i.e., use of props) performativity modes to conjure the representation of both Casey and Taxi Driver. Table 7.5 gives an overview in the way semiotic resources are manipulated in the context of the video clip. The table is presented in a similar manner to Table 6.1. The frames correspond with the chronological sequence of the video narrative. These frames are divided, as far as possible, according to coherent sections of sub-­ topical speech segments. In most cases these segments are marked naturally as breaks in the turn-taking process between Casey and Taxi Driver in a large part (frame 1 to frame 27 and frame 30) of the video. In the section of the video that corresponds with Taxi Driver’s physical assault on Casey (frame 28 to frame 29), the frames are delineated by the changes in Taxi Driver’s actions (e.g., dealing blows at Casey in frame 29) against Casey. The shortest frame is 1-second long (frames six, 11, 21, 24, and 28), and the longest segment is in frame 1 (i.e., 28-second long). The utterances made by both characters are indicated as (C) for Casey and (TD) for Taxi Driver. Pauses are marked in brackets with “.” and a brief pause is indicated with number within brackets (e.g., (2)) to indicate the approximate duration of the pause in measurement of seconds. Forward slashes (/) located under the columns for posture, gesture, non-spoken text, and props demarcate the descriptors in each category. Based on the semiotic cues obtained from the various columns (i.e., posture, gesture, facial expression, non-spoken sound, and props), I infer the intended social

2 0:29– 0:33

Frames/ timings 1 0:00– 0:28

Corresponding speech Casey (C): Hello everyone (.) My name is Anton Casey (2) I’m a British wealth manager working here in Singapore (2) I love the Little Red Dot here (1) It provides me with a nice and safe environment (.) And I make a lot of money here (.) And guess what (.) I’ve a very pretty wife who used to be a Singapore beauty pageant (.) I also drive a Porsche (.) And you wanna guess what color it is Taxi Driver (TD): Errrr (.) let me tink (3) silver

Gesture Left-hand gestures in a repetitive manner/ at times, the right hand does the same

Right fingers tapping on chin for 3 s before index finger on the same hand pointing toward the camera

Posture Seated on sofa/ left arm resting on the top of one cushion/ face facing left side of the screen and turns toward the camera after 0:01

Standing/head tilts upward toward left shoulder for the first 2 s

Kinesics

None A slight look of excitement for a moment at 0:32

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel/ cutoff black gloves with a prominent white Nike logo

Non-spoken sound Props None Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Facial expression A brief smirk at 0:28

(continued)

Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To express inquisition Props: To caricature TD

Social meaning Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To communicate a relaxed disposition Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents

Table 7.5  Tabulation of semiotic elements (i.e., posture, gesture, facial expressions, non-spoken sound and props) in Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

7.3  Carnivalesque Form 119

4 0:42– 0:45

Frames/ timings 3 0:33– 0:42

Standing/frontal Right index finger facing pointing toward the camera

TD: How ‘about play ping-pong and badminton

Gesture Left index finger pointing at the camera at 0:33

Posture Seated on sofa/ left arm resting on the top of one cushion until 0:38 when it is lifted off the cushion/ frontal facing for most parts of the segment

Kinesics

Corresponding speech C: That’s right (.) Silver color Porsche (2) Now (1) I’m really bored (2) What should I do

Table 7.5 (continued)

None Face brightened with a smile

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel/ cutoff black gloves (white Nike logo is not obvious)

Non-spoken sound Props None Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Facial expression A brief smirk at 0:33

Social meaning Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To communicate a sense of superiority Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To emphasize excitement Props: To caricature TD

120 7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

None Right thumb touching Lips parted and mouth the chin while the index finger rests on widens at 0:55 the side of the mouth for the first 3 s/at 0:55, the right hand is suddenly thrusted outward with the index finger pointing upward/thereafter, the same index finger points toward the camera in a repetitive manner

Seated on sofa/ largely frontal facing

C: (hmmm) what should I post? (2) ah! I know (.) Let’s talk about the recent public transport trip I’d with my son (.) sounds cool

None

7 0:51– 1:00

A frown

Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel/ cutoff black gloves (white Nike logo is not obvious)

Non-spoken sound Props None Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Index fingers tapping against others

Facial expression Lips parted at 0:46 breaking into a smile

Standing/head facing the camera at an angle

Gesture Left index finger pointing upward at 0:46

TD: Baaad idea

Posture Seated on sofa/ both hands by his sides/frontal facing

Kinesics

6 0:49– 0:50

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech C: (1) Oh I know (.) How ‘bout 5 let’s make a Facebook post 0:45– 0:48

(continued)

Social meaning Gesture and facial expression: To express excitement Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To express disapproval Props: To caricature TD Gesture and facial expression: To express contemplation Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents

7.3  Carnivalesque Form 121

Standing/frontal Not obvious facing

TD: Don’t be a goondu lah (.) don’t post it

10 1:10– 1:14

Appears to be typing away on the keyboard of the MacBook/right index finger thrusting upward suddenly at 1:08

Seated on sofa/ head faces downward toward screen of MacBook

C: Daddy (.) where is your car and who are all these poor people (1) there we go (.) should I post it

Gesture Index fingers tapping against others

Posture Standing/head facing the camera at an angle

Kinesics

9 1:02– 1:09

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech TD: It’s really a bad idea 8 1:00– 1:02

Table 7.5 (continued)

Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel

None A frown that turns into a grimace toward the end of the segment

Non-spoken sound Props None Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel/ cutoff black gloves (white Nike logo is not obvious)

None Not obvious until 1:08 when the head lifts up and faces the camera/a smug look appears at this point

Facial expression A frown

Social meaning Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To express disapproval Props: To caricature TD Facial expression: To express conceit Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Facial expression: To express a strong sense of disapproval Props: To caricature TD

122 7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

12 1:16– 1:20

Standing/frontal Head thrusting facing backward

TD: Nooooo

Clapping

Gesture Right finger tapping on a key on the keyboard of the MacBook

Seated on sofa/ frontal facing

Posture Seated on sofa/ frontal facing

Kinesics

C: Yeahhhhh

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech C: Post 11 1:15– 1:15

Grimace with writhed lips

None

A broad smile None

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel

Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Facial Non-spoken expression sound Props A broad smile None Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

(continued)

Social meaning Facial expression: To express self-satisfaction Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Facial expression: To express self-satisfaction Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Facial expression: To express strong concern Props: To caricature TD

7.3  Carnivalesque Form 123

14 1:27– 1:29

Frames/ timings 13 1:20– 1:26

TD: Oh

Corresponding speech C: Now (.) what should I do next (1) oh (.) I know (.) how about making another Facebook post

Table 7.5 (continued)

Gesture Right thumb touching the chin while the index finger rests on the side of the mouth for the first 2 s/at 1:22, the right hand is suddenly thrusted outward, and the index finger points upward/thereafter, the same index finger points toward the camera in a repetitive manner Standing/frontal None facing

Posture Seated on sofa/ frontal facing

Kinesics

Grimace with writhed lips

None

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel

Facial Non-spoken expression sound Props A broad smile None Two cushions/a at 1:22 MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Facial expression: To express a high degree of concern Props: To caricature TD

Social meaning Gesture and facial expression: To express excitement Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents

124 7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

A frown

None

Standing/head facing the camera at an angle

TD: Don’t do it (.) you gonna regret

16 1:39– 1:42

None

Seated on sofa/ the head faces downward toward the screen of MacBook

C: You know what (.) I’m gonna brag about my car (1) Ahh (.) reunited with my baby (.) normal service can resume

None

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel

Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Non-spoken sound Props None Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

None Right index finger pointing upward until 1:32/thereafter C appears to be typing away on the keyboard of the MacBook/ during this time, the head nods lightly as he types

Facial expression Smirk

Gesture None

Posture Seated on sofa/ frontal facing

Kinesics

15 1:29– 1:38

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech C: (no spoken text)

(continued)

Social meaning Facial expression: To express conceit and contemplation (what to post next) Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Gesture: To express excitement Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Posture and facial expression: To express disapproval Props: To caricature TD

7.3  Carnivalesque Form 125

A smirk

Forearms raised and shaking

Seated on sofa/ frontal facing

C: Post

Facial expression A brief smirk at 1:52

19 1:59– 2:01

Gesture Repetitive gestures with the right hand until 1:45/at 1:47 the right hand is thrusted upward for a brief moment

Head nodding toward A frown the end of the segment

Posture Seated on sofa/ frontal facing until 1:45/ thereafter C looks downward onto the screen of the MacBook

TD: This is horrigible (.) Don’t Standing/head facing the post it (.) you gonna to regret camera at an (1) big time angle

Corresponding speech C: You know what (.) let me add another sentence (2) once I wash the stench of public transport off me (1) now that’s so much better yes

Kinesics

18 1:53– 1:58

Frames/ timings 17 1:43– 1:52

Table 7.5 (continued)

None

None

Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel

Non-spoken sound Props None Two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Social meaning Facial expression: To express conceit Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To express concern Props: To caricature TD Facial expression: To express conceit Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents

126 7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

21 2:07– 2:08

Faces T as he appears from the left

Seated sideway facing T

C: (no spoken text)

C: Who are you

Kinesics Frames/ timings Corresponding speech Posture TD: No (.) Don’t post (.) Don’t Seated on sofa 20 possst on the left of C 2:02– 2:06

None

Not obvious

None

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel/ cutoff black gloves/ two cushions/ a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

None

None

Mouth agape

Non-spoken sound Props None Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel/ two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Facial Gesture expression Comes into the scene Grimace with writhed lips from the left side of the frame/both hands grasping the yellow towel

(continued)

Social meaning Posture, gesture, and facial expression: To express a high degree of worry Props: To caricature TD Facial expression: To express shock Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Not obvious Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents

7.3  Carnivalesque Form 127

Seated on sofa facing TD

Seated on sofa on the left of C

C: (filler) towel (.) gloves (.) retard

TD: Hey why you so insulting

24 2:16– 2:17

Posture Seated on sofa on the left of C

Kinesics

23 2:12– 2:15

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech TD: (panting) I’m a taxi driver 22 2:09– 2:11

Table 7.5 (continued)

Head tilts toward C/ both hands grasping two sides of the yellow towel

Flick a corner of TD’s yellow towel at 2:11/points at TD’s gloves with the left thumb at 2:12/flips left hand in the direction of TD at 2:14

Gesture Head tilts toward C/ both hands grasping two sides of the yellow towel

None

None

Not obvious

A frown

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel/ cutoff black gloves/ two cushions/a MacBook/blonde wig/sunglasses

Non-spoken sound Props None

Facial expression A frown

Social meaning Gesture and facial expression: To express a high degree of worry Props: To caricature TD Posture and gesture:To express a dismissive attitude toward TD Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Facial expression: To express indignation Props: To caricature TD

128 7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

25 2:18– 2:21

Seated on sofa facing TD

Seated on sofa on the left of C

TD: (no spoken text)

Posture Head turns toward TD

Kinesics

C: Poor people

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech C: (no spoken text)

Head tilts toward C/ both hands grasping two sides of the yellow towel

Turns toward TD/ pinches TD’s right cheek with left fingers

Gesture None

A dramatic Chinese music played using suona (Chinese trumpet)

A smirk

A frown

Non-spoken sound Props None

Facial expression Not obvious

(continued)

Social meaning Posture, gesture, and facial expression: Not obvious Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Gesture and facial expression: To express contempt Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Facial expression: To express distress Props: To caricature TD

7.3  Carnivalesque Form 129

C: (no spoken text)

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech TD: I warn yoouu 26 2:22– 2:25

Table 7.5 (continued)

Seated on sofa facing TD

Posture Seated on sofa on the left of C

Kinesics

Left palm rubs TD’s head

Gesture Right index finger points at C

A smirk

Facial expression Gazes at C from right corners of eyes

Non-spoken sound Props

Social meaning Facial expression: To express indignation Props: To caricature TD Non-spoken sound: To caricature physical confrontation taking place Gesture and facial expression: To express contempt Props: Non-­ spoken sound: To caricature physical confrontation taking place

130 7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

28 2:31– 2:32

Seated on sofa on the left of C

Seated on sofa on the left of C

TD: (no spoken text)

Posture Seated on sofa facing TD

Kinesics

TD: (no spoken text)

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech C: (laughter) now I need to 27 wash the stench off me 2:25– 2:30

Back of the right hand strikes C’s face

Right index finger points at C

Gesture Left palm rubs TD’s head

Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel/ cutoff black gloves/ two cushions/a MacBook/Blonde wig/sunglasses

Non-spoken sound Props

Gazes at C from right corners of eyes/eyes squint with an expression of a scowl A scowl A dramatic Chinese music played using suona (Chinese trumpet) / A series of “punch” sound effect

Facial expression A smirk

(continued)

Facial expression: To express anger Props: To caricature TD’s lack of “good taste” Non-spoken sound: To caricature physical confrontation taking place

Social meaning Gesture and facial expression: To express contempt Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Gesture and facial expression: Props: To caricature TD

7.3  Carnivalesque Form 131

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech C: (no spoken text)

Table 7.5 (continued)

Posture Gesture None Seated facing TD but slumps onto cushion on his right after being struck by TD

Kinesics Facial expression Mouth agape

Non-spoken sound Props

Social meaning Appears to be unconscious Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Non-spoken sound: To caricature physical confrontation taking place

132 7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

30 2:37– 2:47

None

A stern demeanor

None

Right index finger points at C/ thereafter, TD turns toward the camera from 2:39 onward

Seated on sofa on the left o C. Frontal facing/exits frame from the left at 2:45

TD: You are fired (2) peh ki peh lok hai (.) AngMo you know about the rest

Facial expression Scowl

Slumped over on the sofa

Posture Gesture Standing facing Dealing blows at C C who is slumped over in the sofa

Kinesics

C: (no spoken text)

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech TD: (no spoken text) 29 2:33– 2:36

(continued)

Social meaning Facial expression: To express anger Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents Non-spoken sound: To caricature physical confrontation taking place Not observed Non-spoken sound: To caricature physical confrontation taking place A dramatic Children’s eyewear/ Facial expression: To yellow bath towel/ Chinese cutoff black gloves/ express anger music played using two cushions/blonde Props: To caricature TD’s wig/sunglass suona lack of “good (Chinese taste” trumpet)

Non-spoken sound Props Foreground: Children’s eyewear/ yellow bath towel/ cutoff black gloves/ one cushion Background: Two mounted bicycles on the wall/a sofa set/a coffee table/a piano draped over with a piece of red fabric/ two sets of curtains (white and green)/ window grille/ brightened lit space 7.3  Carnivalesque Form 133

Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show (2014) C Anton Casey, TD Taxi Driver

Frames/ timings Corresponding speech C: (no spoken text)

Table 7.5 (continued)

Posture Slumps onto cushion on the right of TD

Kinesics Gesture None

Facial expression None

Non-spoken sound Props

Social meaning Appears to be unconscious Props: To caricature C as part of the concerted effort to mock him and what he represents

134 7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

7.3  Carnivalesque Form

135

effects of each frame and state them in the right most column of the table. In the next few paragraphs, I discuss key findings as revealed from Table 7.5. Overall, the producer of the video seeks to caricature Casey as conceited in most parts of the video. While the representation of Casey’s arrogance is conjured through the manipulation of more than one semiotic cue in most instances, the element of facial expression appears to be the most consistent semiotic tool that is deployed. In this regard, Casey’s arrogance is signaled by his smirk that is observed in numerous instances: frame 1 (0:28), frame 3 (0:33), frame 9 (1:08), frame 14 (1:27), frame 17 (1:52), frame 19 (1:59), frame 25 (2:18), frame (2:22), and frame 27 (2:25). In conjunction with this tactic, the self-congratulatory impression of Casey is also communicated in the relaxed posture that he adopts. For instance, Casey appears seated with his left arm resting on top of one cushion in frames 1 and 3. This sense of informality complements the smirk that Casey has in both these frames. However, Casey’s most pejorative display of arrogance appears in frames 23, 25, 26, and 27 when he denigrates Taxi Driver by flicking his towel (2:11), pinching his right cheek (2:18), and rubbing his head (2:22). In these instances, Casey’s transgression intensifies as the expressions are no longer nuanced or implicit, but physical and intrusive. However, this portrayal of Casey as dominant gives way to a Casey who is helpless after frame 28. This marks the point of departure when Taxi Driver shifts from a position of helplessness to one of strength as he deals blows at Casey and knocks him unconscious. In terms of multimodal representation, Casey’s helplessness is foregrounded in his lifeless posture as he slumps over onto the cushions from frame 29 onward. Accordingly, Casey is also powerless to gesticulate or express himself through any form of facial expression. Unlike Casey, Taxi Driver is foregrounded in two key manners. He is at first represented as affable and sincere. As the narrative progresses, Taxi Driver’s portrayal shifts, and his sense of concern over Casey’s intended actions intensifies from one of indignation to that of anger, which ultimately takes the form of physical aggression toward Casey. In these segments, his inquisitiveness in responding to Casey’s question about the color of his car (“errr (.) let me think (.) silver” in frame 2) and his sense of excitement over the prospect of suggesting activities in response to Casey’s complaint of boredom (“how ‘bout play ping-pong and badminton” in frame 4) foreground his naivety and sense of empathy toward a presumed stranger. This is also consistent with the role of chorus as collective consciousness that he plays at this point in the production. The representation of Taxi Driver as childlike is also evident in his eyewear choice (children’s sunglasses) and his shaved head (a common hair style among primary school children in Singapore). In addition, this representation of Taxi Driver as childlike is also manifested in frame 2 when he is observed to be tapping his fingers as he contemplates Casey’s question in earnestness. This representation of Taxi Driver gives way to an impression of one who is generally disconcerted. The intensity of this negative sentimentality unfolds as Casey’s antagonistic plot deepens. It is most pronounced from Taxi Driver’s facial expression, which shifts variably from that of a frown (e.g., frames 6 and 8), a

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g­ rimace (e.g., frames 12 and 14) to that of a scowl (e.g., 29). Complementing these shifts in Taxi Driver’s growing sense of discomfort, his gestures depict one who is increasing concerned with the gravity of Casey’s suggestions. In the earlier frames, Taxi Driver appears more deliberate in communicating his concern to Casey. In frames 6 and 8, Taxi Driver frowns as he taps his index fingers against each other. The certainty in executing these moves communicates the position of one who seeks to counsel Casey on the foolery of his actions. As the narrative develops, Taxi Driver appears less confident to influence Casey to change his mind. The sense of desperation is foregrounded in the way Taxi Driver nods his head consecutively in frame 18 indicating his increasing concern with Casey’s impending actions. Again, this sense of worry is displayed again in the tentativeness of Taxi Driver’s action in frame 20 when he appears in the frame with Casey. At this point, not only does he frown, he grasps onto the two corners of his yellow bath towel, thus indicating the demeanor of one who is perhaps uncertain or concerned. This sense of helplessness over Casey’s antagonism shifts with Casey’s physical assault. This is the point of departure when Taxi Driver draws strength to act against Casey’s transgression. Taxi Driver’s resistance is foregrounded in several ways. Firstly, his worried demeanor gives way to a look of indignation. It is clear from frame 26 onward as Taxi Driver adopts a sideway gaze toward Casey. Secondly, he issues a warning to Casey by pointing his right index finger toward Casey as he speaks. Thirdly, at the height of Taxi Driver’s anger, his resistive act turns physical as he strikes back at Casey’s provocation. Finally, in the last frame, Taxi Driver takes on the role of the more powerful one between the two as Casey is portrayed as incapacitated while Taxi Driver walks away from the frame. In addition to the multimodal representations of the characters, the selection of props in this video and the significance of music in the final frames serve to augment the overall comedic effect of this clip. While the overall carnivalesque effects associated with both multimodal elements are discussed in a later section, it is timely to consider the music choice and its functionality in representing the main characters. The music resembles sound tracks of Chinese martial arts movies screened in the period before the 1990s. Thematically, the melody appears to be masculine and triumphant and is often featured at climactic points in marital art movies when protagonists win crucial battles. In the context of this video clip, the music is played at the pivoting point when Taxi Driver’s frustration with Casey intensified. This takes place at frame 27 when Casey’s insult takes on both verbal (“Now I need to wash the stench off me”) and physical (rubbing Taxi Driver’s head) dimensions. Casey’s increasing provocation provides the impetus that Taxi Driver needs to retaliate. Given the symbolism of the music choice in popular culture, it is probably fair to assume the purpose of the music as a victory anthem for Taxi Driver.

7.3  Carnivalesque Form

137

7.3.1.7  Speech/Verbal Mode Casey’s speech performs three primary functions. Firstly, it describes the progression of Casey’s interior monologue, which leads eventually to the posting of his comments on social media. This is evident in the following instances: “I’m really bored…what should I do” (frame 3) “Oh I know…how about let’s make a Facebook post” (frame 5) “What should I post…Let’s talk about the recent public transport trip I’d with my son” (frame 7) “Now…what should I do next…How about making another Facebook post” (frame 13) “You know what…let me add another sentence…now that’s so much better yes” (frame 17)

Second, it foregrounds Casey’s self-congratulatory posture in positioning himself as a successful foreigner. This is first demonstrated in frame 1 where Casey boasts about his status (“British wealth manager”), his capitalization on Singapore’s record as a “safe environment” for his economic gains (“I make a lot of money”), and his acquisitions (“I’ve a very pretty wife who used to be a Singapore beauty pageant” and “I also drive a Porsche”). It is also explicitly stated in frame 15 where Casey foregrounds his intention to “brag about [his] car.” Third, textually Casey is depicted to be mocking “poor people” who include users and service providers (Taxi Driver) of Singapore’s local transport system. This is demonstrated in frames 9 (“…who are all these poor people…”), 17 (“…once I wash the stench of public transport off me…”), 25 (“poor people”), and 27 (“now I need to wash the stench off me”). It must be noted that these utterances are phrases taken from real-life Casey’s comments that he posted on Facebook, which therefore establish a strong intertextual link between Casey the character and the real-life person. In addition, Casey also mocked Taxi Driver for his lack of good taste in frame 23 (“towel…gloves…retard”). Perhaps the most scornful remark from Casey’s speech can be gleaned from the statement that reveals his intolerance of the “stench” as associated with the poor who are users of the public transport. Casey’s conceit is conveyed through the use of the verb “wash” that entertains the possibility of exterminating the presence of the poor by simply cleansing oneself from their company. In sum, Casey’s online affront is enacted in the video as being motivated by boredom (frame 3). Also, his decision to “make a Facebook post” (frames 5 and 13) about the subject matter of public transport (frame 7) appears to be randomly invoked. This fosters the impression of Casey as unthinking, and as described by Taxi Driver, “goondu” (frame 10), which means “stupid” in Malay. When this impression of Casey is analyzed in the context of his self-congratulatory and condescending ways, it further casts Casey as both airheaded and conceited at the same time. On the other hand, Taxi Driver’s semiotic representation depicts him as one who has grown increasingly impatient and indignant with Casey’s obnoxious antics as the narrative progresses. At the beginning of the narrative, Taxi Driver’s congeniality is apparent in his candid response to Casey’s question regarding the color of his car in frame 2 (“Let me tink…silver”) and suggestion to address Casey’s concern

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7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

with boredom in frame 4 (“How about play ping-pong and badminton”). This quickly gives way to a general sense of caution in frame 6 (“It’s a baaad idea”) and again in frame 8 (“It’s really a bad idea”) when Taxi Driver responded to Casey’s intention to “make a Facebook post.” This eventually shifts toward a feeling of disbelief (“don’t be a goondu…” in frame 10; “this is horrigible” in frame 18) and exasperation (“don’t post” in frames 10 and 20; “Noooo” in frame 12; “oh” in frame 14) when the offensive nature of Casey’s social media posts is made known. The sentiment is also framed at times as a form of a general warning (“you gonna regret” in frame 10; “you gonna regret… big time” in frame 20). In the final segment of the narrative, Taxi Driver becomes even more indignant when Casey’s affront takes on a personal slant toward Taxi Driver. In this context, Taxi Driver’s response begins first with a defensive response (“hey why you so insulting” in frame 24), which then becomes a threat (“I warn you” in frame 26). Taxi Driver’s most antagonistic response toward Casey comes in the last frame when he takes the offensive posture to “fire” Casey (“You’re fired” in frame 30). Viewed in the context of Casey’s dismissal from his employment as a result of this saga, it appears that Taxi Driver is performing the role of Casey’s superior and has the upper hand in this episode to dismiss Casey from the production. It appears also to be an intertextual reference to the popular reality American TV series The Apprentice, which focuses on the business skills of the TV contestants. At the end of each episode, an apprentice would be eliminated, and the catchphrase “You’re fired” would be uttered. In addition, the ending statement by Taxi Driver in the same frame (“peh kip peh lok hai…AngMo you know about the rest”) deals Casey the same affront that he has done to those marked as “poor people” in his speech. As explicated in an earlier section in this analysis, taken in its entirety, it is a derogatory Hokkien idiom that literally translates to “Caucasians eat feces.” However, in choosing to leave this portion of the idiom implied (“AngMo you know about the rest”), Taxi Driver retains a strand of moral righteousness in not stooping low to the level of Casey’s tirade against ordinary Singaporeans. 7.3.1.8  Grotesque Realism The Hokkien idiom (peh kip eh lok hai/ang mo jiak gao sai) as examined in the previous section is also implicit as a form of grotesque realism in this mediatized discourse. The fecal reference is the only instant in this video production where Taxi Driver’s indignation turns outward to include the white expatriates who live and work in Singapore. When this grotesque reference is analyzed in conjunction with the interplay with other semiotic cues, primarily the physical assault on Casey (frames 28 and 29) and the use of Chinese triumphant music (frame 25 onward), it seems that the fecal association embodies two messages: one for Casey and the other for the social group of white expatriates in Singapore. For the former, Taxi Driver’s action constitutes a form of revenge for Casey’s transgression. For the ­latter, it constitutes a form of warning for the social group of white expatriates not to abuse their privileges as guests in Singapore.

7.4  Carnivalesque Function

139

Overall, given the analysis done thus far, does this comedic performance align with the features of a carnivalesque act? In order to answer this question, we need to center our attention on the expression of power as demonstrated in this video. Clearly in this regard, power is indexed most overtly in the pivotal (and final) scenes in this production when Taxi Driver physically assaulted Casey. Since Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque focuses chiefly on the use of wit, sarcasm, irony, and other rhetorical tropes, and not physical assault, to invert power relations, the dominance of physical force in this production makes one question its essence as a carnivalesque performance. Second, the use of semiotic resources in reifying the subcultural identities of both characters in order to achieve the intention to invert power relations is observed. For instance, in the choice of name, while Casey is named, Taxi Driver is only associated by his occupation. In terms of grooming, language choices, kinesics and the use of props, and verbal mode, not only are the characters indexed subculturally, they are portrayed to be over-the-top to achieve the comedic effect. This focus on comedy is a central feature in a carnivalesque discourse. It is in the comedy that carnivalesque tools (e.g., wit, sarcasm, grotesque realism) can realize their potentials to invert power relations. However, in this video, the employment of carnivalesque devices appears limited or rather thin in lampooning Casey. The only significant instant could be the fecal reference embedded in the Hokkien idiom. For the major part of the production, it seems to be a comedic interpretation of the events leading to and from Casey’s saga. As mentioned above, the aspect of grotesque realism, another core tenet of carnivalesque, is evidenced by way of the use of the Hokkien idiom that associates Casey with fecal matter. However, this only reference at the end frame appears to be a rather weak exemplification of the notion as espoused by Bakhtin’s articulation of carnivalesque. This is a similar observation in mrbown’s video (video 1 in chapter 6), which can be explained in terms of YouTube as a public platform. Accordingly, performances of brazen or grotesque are curtailed. In sum, it is clear that there is effort in using semiotic cues to represent the social identities of Casey and Taxi Driver in a comedic way so as to invert power relations. However, given the rather weak employment of carnivalesque tools (i.e., literary devices and the aspect of grotesque realism) and the dominant display of physical force as an expression of power, I question this comedic performance as quintessentially carnivalesque.

7.4  Carnivalesque Function 7.4.1  Social Critique and the Inversion of Social Hierarchies To what extent does the discussion of social issues in the production Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55) constitute a social critique? The notions of class and, to a lesser extent, the construction of national identity are relevant social themes in this

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7  Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55)

video production. First of all, class stratification is evident in the juxtaposition between the characters of Casey and Taxi Driver. This can be demonstrated in three ways: the construction of good tastes, the choice of names, and the turn-taking patterns between the two characters. As explicated in the previous section, the depictions of both Casey and Taxi Driver are parodies of class-based stereotypes. On the one hand, Casey is personified as a nouveau riche, which is clear judging from his dress sense, his accented speech patterns, and his preoccupation with markers of elitism. On the other hand, Taxi Driver is a caricature of a Singaporean taxi driver. In this stereotype, Taxi Driver is represented as one who is a competent speaker of the local language varieties and is disinterested in aesthetic matters. The intentional class stratification is also clearly observed in the choice of names for Casey and Taxi Driver. While the producer’s decision to retain Casey’s name is possibly for the purpose of theatrics, the reification of his identity established through the retention of his name stands in stark contrast against Taxi Driver who is nameless and is labeled by his occupation. Further, judging from the turn-taking patterns between the two characters, Taxi Driver’s position is subverted in the way he eagerly responds to Casey’s questions in the first part of the video. Further, the strong theme of underdog theatrics that is observed at the concluding portions of the narrative constitutes a dimension of social critique and also an inversion of social hierarchies. In achieving a performance that is effective in driving home this message, the producer purposefully deploys semiotic cues in the form of music (melody associated with victory in Chinese martial arts movies), physical action (assault), and language (Hokkien idiom) in his production. Second of all, another relevant social theme relates to the construction of the Singapore identity. In this production, the xenophobic posture invites the (re)asking of the same question regarding the Singapore identity in relation to foreigners: what is revealed about the construction of the Singapore identity through this xenophobic performance? In sum, it is clear that the purpose of social critique is achieved in this video, and the inversion of social hierarchies is evident as a tool of critique. Even though this production embodies the carnivalesque purpose of critique through the inversion of power, as established in the previous section, the quintessentially carnivalesque feature in the form of literary devices such as sarcasm, wit, irony, and pun as tools of power is largely absent from this production. Interestingly, what this unravels is the ease and magnitude in which the comedic discourse can be aestheticized as social critique through the instrumentality of social hierarchies inversion; and this further reveals the nature of contemporary power relations as nuanced, multi-faceted, and fleeting.

7.5  Further Thoughts: Dr. Jiajia & BigBro

141

7.4.2  Ambivalent Laughter It is evident that the character of Casey is being mocked in the second video. This perspective is justified from the way Casey is typecast as dim-witted (despite warnings from Taxi Driver not to post his comments on social media) and conceited through the manipulation of semiotic cues (e.g., grooming, accented speech patterns, and speech). What is, however, less obvious is the quality of laughter associated with the characterization of Taxi Driver, the modern-day Robin Hood in this video. The characterization of Taxi Driver as an unassuming hero may procure the impression of someone who embodies the potentials to emancipate others from being dominated. In Bakhtin’s (1965) conceptualization of carnivalesque, emancipation is derived from laughter that is ambivalent. It possesses the capacity to laugh at oneself in the face of adversity, and it is described as collective, public, and free. Given this perspective of emancipation as ambivalent laughter, I argue that the laughter generated from Taxi Driver’s actions is perhaps inward and somewhat reduced. This is evident in the physical assault that Taxi Driver deals to Casey. In resorting to physical force in response to Casey’s affront, Taxi Driver is seeking redress by “getting even” to restore his self-respect. This action does not corroborate with the notion of laughing at oneself in the face of adversity. As such, this makes the action of Taxi Driver a vengeful one. In this sense, the laughter that is associated with assault cannot be adequately described as mere mockery, and it is clearly far from being emancipative. An interesting observation that arises from this analysis is how Dr. Jiajia, the child actor, could have successfully disguised the inherently disconcerting message of the video as unproblematic given his appeal as a popular child actor. In sum, while the video clip does serve as a form of social critique especially given the backlash that was generated from Casey’s social media comments, the quality of laughter raises the question about its carnivalesque potential. Accordingly, this video is a pseudo-carnivalesque performance. However, what has yet to be established is the nature of hegemonic power that the video seeks to aestheticize. In order to uncover this, I now examine the profiles of the actors and producer of this video. In doing so, I hope to uncover the ways of power as evidenced in a carnivalesque performance more thoroughly.

7.5  Further Thoughts: Dr. Jiajia & BigBro As iterated earlier, Dr. Jiajia and BigBro are stage names for the two siblings who take on the roles of Casey and Taxi Driver in the video clip. Their real names are Chua Jin Sen (Dr. Jiajia) and Chua Jin Chiu (BigBro). It is well-known that the father of the two boys (also known as BigDad) is the producer of the series of videos (Soh, 2012). Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s household appeal could be credited to Dr. Jiajia’s

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charisma as a child actor as well as his underdog story as a dyslexic learner in Singapore’s rigorous academic system. The duo are winners of Singapore’s best vlog award in 2012. On their YouTube channel site, it is stated that their channel “is all about fun and laughter” (Dr. Jiajia & BigBro, n.d.). Videos that have been produced under Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show include several mini-series such as the Singlish series, which this video data (the 55th in the series) is drawn from, and others titled “Funny,” “Big Talk,” “Mr Pea,” and “Sister Pow.” Most of the other productions are not categorized under any of these labels though. Upon closer scrutiny of the contents, it appears that the primary focus of these mediatized works is the generation of spontaneous laughter. While at some specific instances, social issues, such as the fallout from Casey’s episode, do lend themselves as suitable scripts due to the resonance of these issues among the general populace; most of the productions in these series (and also those that are not categorized in series) are not aimed for the purpose of social critique. Evidently, the centrality of spontaneous laughter in Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show is, in fact, the channel’s most important feature. This concurs with its proposed purpose – “It’s all about fun and laughter” (Dr. Jiajia & BigBro, n.d.). In this respect, this appeal of “fun and laughter” is likely to be attractive to advertisers, and it probably accounts for the numerous recent partnerships that are clearly observed in Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s video productions. Of the most recent 60 video uploads in Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show, about 35% bear some forms of endorsement (e.g., cause, corporate, event, product), which are scripted within the storylines of the videos. Overall, given that the massive success of the brand associated with Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show is based on the rhetoric of “ordinary folks who overcome challenges with laughter;” it does signal, to a certain extent, the intention to leverage on the notion of comicality as a tool to invert social hierarchies. Yet, when Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s productions are scrutinized, there appears to be a lack of substantive works that consistently aim at social critique. Finally, in light of the inward laughter that is generated at the text level of the second video, it does appear that the production constitutes as an aesthetization of innocence that is centered on Dr. Jiajia’s packaged appeal as an adorable child actor. What ends does the appeal of Dr. Jiajia serve? Given that the plethora of productions focused on the procurement of laughter for the purpose of entertainment and for market rationality (endorsements for products and services), it is plausible that the aesthetization of innocence is in the service of the neoliberal project. Given the above, on the level of the text, it can be inferred that the instrumentality of innocence has been enabled through the actor, Dr. Jiajia, to aestheticize the hegemonic construction of assault as unproblematic. After all, what is observed on screen can be constructed as harmless child play in light of the comedic feel of the performance. Also, what seems to be communicated is that physical retaliation is possibly justified if other measures to rein in wayward behaviors have failed, or if the conditions of bullying have worsened. In other words, it can be considered as self-defense. In this video, these mitigating measures include Taxi Driver’s repeated warnings at most parts of the video (“It’s really a bad idea” at 1:01), and when Casey’s bullying antics become more personal (“Towel. Gloves. Retard” at 2:13)

7.6  A Synthesis: Kim Huat, Casey, and Taxi Driver as (Pseudo) Carnivalesque…

143

and physical (flicking Taxi Driver’s towel (2:11), pinching his right cheek (2:18) and rubbing his head (2:22). In sum, power is evidenced in this video as physical assault, which is positioned as justified.

7.6  A  Synthesis: Kim Huat, Casey, and Taxi Driver as (Pseudo) Carnivalesque Performance In this final section for this chapter, I juxtapose the analyses from the two videos (in Chapters 6 and 7) in terms of their carnivalesque quality.

7.6.1  C  arnivalesque Form: Manipulating Semiotic Resources, Grotesque Realism, and Others In the analyses of both video data, we observe a coherent effort in the use of a wide repertoire of semiotic cues to construct the social identities of both protagonists and antagonists. Each of the semiotic resources deployed appears to have been purposefully deliberated upon and executed to ensure cohesiveness with other semiotic cues. In the following few paragraphs, I compare the use of each semiotic cue in both videos in constructing the personae of the characters in the two videos. Both videos make use of the monologue genre in their narration. In the first video, mrbrown uses this format entirely, while in the second video, it is used only in the first part of the production. The use of a monologue format is similar to the conventional vlog format that is popular in vernacular online video productions. In the first video, this genre consideration privileges Kim Huat in caricaturing all social groups: Kim Huat and ordinary Singaporeans and Casey and the social group of rich England banker. In the second video, it serves to underscore Taxi Driver’s role as chorus in signaling the gravity of Casey’s impending actions (posting comments on social media). It also enables the actor, BigBro, to perform the character of Casey. In the use of naming convention, two aspects stand out in particular. First, in both videos, one social group is genericized. In the first video, Anton Casey is associated with the social group of “rich England banker expats,” while the protagonist is ­represented occupationally as Taxi Driver in the second video. In the former, this naming convention foregrounds the social group (and not Casey) in Kim Huat’s carnivalesque efforts. In the second video, the name choice for Taxi Driver underscores how social groups in lower socioeconomic status are often marked by the work they perform. Additionally, the name choices of both Kim Huat and Taxi Driver embody subcultural ideologies that resonate with heartland Singaporean audiences, who are implicitly Chinese-educated working class (Poon, 2013). In the case of Kim Huat, it represents the aspirations of a typical Singapore Chinese family

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for one’s son, while in the case of Taxi Driver, he represents the persona of the modern-day Robin Hood that the target audience looks toward to settle a score with Casey. In sum, the choices of names are deliberate to co-opt Singaporeans among its audiences as insider in the respective performances. As for the settings in both videos, both productions appear to have used private residential spaces for the performances. While the choice of the setting appears to be intentional in the case of mrbrown’s production, the same level of intentionality cannot be said for the second video. In the first video, the cluttered background complements the personification of Kim Huat as a heartland hero. However, the home setting in Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s video does not appear to serve significant theatrical purpose. In other words, staging appears to be key consideration for mrbrown and not for BigDad. In addition to the semiotic resources discussed so far, the deployment of others such as grooming, kinesics, language use, and verbal mode is equally necessary to co-construct the social identities of the characters. At the same time, these semiotic resources are salient indicators of the carnivalesque form as well. In the next few paragraphs, I comment on the efficacy of these semiotic resources in not only constructing the personae of the characters but also in shaping contemporary carnivalesque form. First, in the aspects of grooming and kinesics, all three on-screen characters are overdone caricature of their social classes. In terms of grooming, Kim Huat and Taxi Driver are performed as being partial to functional rationality, while Casey in the second video is caricatured to be aesthetically conscious. What appears similar in both is the employment of caricaturizing to underscore the lack of “good taste” or refinement for all social groups. In other words, no social groups are spared in the carnivalization of social relations. Second, in terms of language use, both productions focus on the vernacular forms (i.e., Singlish, Hokkien, and Malay) to perform the subcultural identities of Kim Huat and Taxi Driver as heartland Singaporeans. The association of these two characters with colloquial language use corresponds to another key aspect of Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque form: marketplace language use. In Bakhtin’s carnivalesque, marketplace language refers to curses, colloquialism, and coarse language that are used to portray the lower class in medieval carnivals. In the context of both videos, the use of Singaporean vernacular forms serves a similar purpose as that of Bakhtinian marketplace language in indexing one’s membership in the lower social class. In the case of the first video, the use of marketplace language also constitutes a subtle critique of heart landers as well. This is in keeping with the essence of carnivalesque, which spares no one in an effort to carnivalize social relations. Third, the speech or verbal mode is yet another aspect that signals one’s social place in society. In Bakhtin’s postulation of carnivalesque, this aspect is associated with the use of sarcasm, wit, irony, imagery, and other rhetorical tropes to augment the comedic factor to represent the characters visually (i.e., grooming and kinesics) and verbally (i.e., vernacular forms). In mrbrown’s video, the creative use of wit especially in the second part of the video to objectivate Casey and the social group of “rich England banker expats” is evident. However, the same cannot be said about

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the verbal mode in second video by Dr. Jiajia & BigBro. In fact, as iterated earlier, the lack of literary devices in the second video is the strongest indicator of its pseudo-carnivalesque status. Next, the element of grotesque realism as a core feature of Bakhtin’s carnivalesque form is observed in specific instances in both video data. In both videos, references to the grotesque are evident in the last frames. In the first video, Kim Huat objectivated Casey as toilet paper for the purpose of cleaning one’s rear. In the second video, Taxi Driver made an implicit threat to Casey using a famed Hokkien idiom that is loosely made in reference to the consumption of fecal matter. As explicated in the analyses earlier, the rather tamed reference to the grotesque could be due to the video-sharing guidelines of YouTube for its users when distributing mediatized contents. Based on the above analysis, it is clear that both videos have features of the carnivalesque form, albeit, to different extent. Three categories – visual representation (i.e., classified as grooming and kinesics), language use, and the element of grotesque realism  – are mainly responsible for achieving semblance of the carnivalesque form in the two videos. However, in the case of the first video, the aspect of verbal mode also plays a significant role in adhering to the carnivalesque format. At this juncture, it is necessary to foreground the significance of music in both productions as a potential indicator of contemporary carnivalesque form. In both videos, the inclusion of the musical effect is associated with the protagonists’ success in caricaturing the character of Casey. While the element of music is not a tenet in Bakhtin’s carnivalesque literature, it appears to have a unique role in fostering the carnivalesque ambience that is consistent with the carnivalesque form. In the final analysis, given the overall sophistication in mrbrown’s manipulation of all semiotic resources and that of grotesque realism in carnivalizing both the social group of rich England banker expats through Anton Casey, and that of heart landers, I conclude that it is a more consistent exemplification of contemporary carnivalesque performativity as compared to that of Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s production. An interesting point to note is that the different socio-political and regulatory conditions as presented in today’s digital times may have presented newer considerations in a contemporary articulation of the carnivalesque form. For instance, the role of music in affecting the carnivalesque mood may be considered an important carnivalesque feature. Also, the aspect of grotesque realism may be a somewhat constrained feature given distribution guidelines that curtail the promotion of mediatized contents that may be deemed “offensive” to the general public.

7.6.2  Interrogating Carnivalesque Function While the carnivalesque form may have been observed, it is clear that the form alone is insufficient to differentiate authentic and pseudo-carnivalesque performances. To establish authenticity of carnivalesque performativity, an examination of the carnivalesque function is thus necessary.

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Evidently, both carnivalesque acts are performing social critique. In this regard, the inversion of social hierarchies as a tool of critique is also observed. The potentiality of carnivalesque as resistance is only clarified when one examines the quality of laughter that is generated from both videos. Video 1 euphemizes resistance through the use of ambivalent laughter, while video 2 seeks to equalize power relations physically, and therefore the associative laughter is somewhat reduced. Accordingly, video 1 appears to be an authentic carnivalesque performance, and video 2 aestheticizes the innocence of childhood (i.e., the appeal of Dr. Jiajia) to promote entertainment and self-defense. This judgment is corroborated from analyses done at the macro levels to characterize mrbrown and Dr. Jiajia & BigBro as social media producers. Although from video 1 it does appear that an authentic carnivalesque performance is synonymous with social critique and that the inversion of social hierarchies does appear to be a necessary condition, the same can be said about pseudo-carnivalesque performances. This is evident in video 2 since the two conditions (i.e., social critique and the inversion of social hierarchies) are also met. In light of this, it can be argued that the key signifier of an authentic carnivalesque performance is the presence of ambivalent laughter. While both mediatized acts exploit the notion of comicality theatrically, they are dissimilar in the way power relations are framed. The first video evidences resistive power as emancipative for Kim Huat and the heartland Singaporeans that he represents. Against Casey’s affront, Kim Huat advocates laughter as a response to mock the antics of rich England Banker expats and as self-critique for one’s frailty. In contrast to the first video, the second video offers coercion as a response. This form of power is encased within a class-based rhetoric of “getting even.” In the final analysis, given the discursively unified structure of Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque as well as its inherent nature as resistive, liminal and theatrical, the theory offers significant potentials as a critical analytic tool to unpack the rich layering of socio-emotional-political messages that are often embedded in comedic acts. This is particularly significant as we exist in a transitional moment that witnesses a plethora of comedic mediatized acts in social media (e.g., Internet memes, Instagram stories, YouTube videos) that we can no longer dismiss as merely banal or frivolous. As such, a robust analytic tool as afforded in Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque enables the interrogation of such comedies for their deeper meanings.

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Glossary The table below captures Singlish and Hokkien phrases that are used in video 2 Anton Casey’s Mistake (Singlish 55). The list is arranged chronologically. Case Study 2 Singlish Goondu/lah Horrigible

Standard English Stupid/exclamation An expression that combines “horrible” and “terrible” Peh ki peh lok hai Airplanes fly into the sea

Transcription (0:01) [CASEY] Hello everyone, my name is Anton Casey. I’m a British wealth manager working here in Singapore. I love the Little Red Dot here. It provides me with a nice and safe environment. And I make a lot of money here. And guess what? I have a very pretty wife who used to be a Singapore beauty pageant. I also drive a Porsche. You want to guess what color it is? (Screen divides into two; on the left is a boy who is thinking about the answer to Casey’s question and on the right, Casey himself.) (0:31) [TAXI DRIVER] Let me think…silver? (Scene switches back to Anton Casey) (0:33) [CASEY] That’s right. Silver color Porsche. Now, I’m really bored. What should I do? (Scene switches to Taxi Driver.) (0:43) [TAXI DRIVER] How ‘bout play ping-pong and badminton? (Scene switches back to Anton Casey) (0:45) [CASEY] Oh I know. How ‘bout make an FB post. (Scene switches to Taxi Driver.) (0:50) [TAXI DRIVER] Bad idea. (Scene switches back to Anton Casey.) (0:52) [CASEY] What should I post? I know. Let’s talk about the recent public transport trip I’d with my son. Sounds cool. (Scene switches to Taxi Driver.) (1:01) [TAXI DRIVER] It’s really a bad idea. (Scene switches back to Anton Casey) (1:03) [CASEY] Daddy, where’s your car and who’re all these poor people? There we go. Should I post it?

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(Scene switches to Taxi Driver.) (1:10) [TAXI DRIVER] Don’t be a goondu lah. Don’t post it. (Scene switches back to Anton Casey.) (1:15) [CASEY] Post. (Screen splits into two; on the left is the Taxi Driver saying “No!” and on the right is Anton Casey saying “Yay!”) (Scene switches to Anton Casey.) (1:20) [CASEY] Now what should I do next? Oh I know. How ‘bout making another FB post? (Screen splits into two; on the left is Taxi Driver saying “Oh oh!” and on the right is Anton Casey smiling.) (Scene switches to Anton Casey.) (1:29) [CASEY] You know what? I’m gonna brag about my car. Reunited with my baby. Normal service can resume. (Scene switches to Taxi Driver.) (1:40) [TAXI DRIVER] Don’t do it. You’re going to regret. (Scene switches to Anton Casey.) (1:43) [CASEY] You know what? Let me add another sentence. Once I wash the stench of public transport off me. Now that’s so much better yes? (Scene switches to Taxi Driver.) (1:53) [TAXI DRIVER] This is horrigible. Don’t post it. You’re going to regret. Big time! (Scene switches to Anton Casey.) (2:00) [CASEY] Post! Yay! (Scene with Anton Casey and Taxi Driver) (2:02) [TAXI DRIVER] No, don’t post. Don’t post. (2:07) [CASEY] Who are you? (2:09) [TAXI DRIVER] I’m a taxi driver. (2:12) [CASEY] Towel. Gloves. Retard. (2:16) [TAXI DRIVER] Hey why you so insulting? (2:19) [CASEY] Poor people. (2:22) [TAXI DRIVER] I warn you. (2:26) [CASEY] Haha, great. Now I need to wash the stench off me. (Taxi Driver punches Anton Casey.) (Scene of Taxi Driver raining more punches on Anton Casey.) (Scene with Casey and Taxi Driver with Casey apparently unconscious.) (2:37) [TAXI DRIVER] You’re fired. Peh ki peh lok hai. AngMo, you think about the rest. (TAXI DRIVER exits the scene, leaving Anton Casey slumped on the couch.)

References

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References Bakhtin, M. (1965). Rabelais and his world (H.  Iswolsky, Trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Chua, M. H., & Chang, R. (2015, March 24). Did Mr. Lee Kuan Yew create a Singapore in his own image? The Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ did-mr-lee-kuan-yew-create-a-singapore-in-his-own-image Dr Jiajia & BigBro’s Show (Producer/Director). (2014, January 26). Anton Casey’s mistake (Singlish 55) [Online video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=FpAoVdweENc Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s Show (Producer/Director). (n.d.). YouTube. Retrieved from https://www. youtube.com/user/liangjiasun/about Lollipop. (2013, January 1). 11 years later, Mark Lee and Gurmit Singh still get along fabulously. Retrieved from http://www.lollipop.sg/ content/11-years-later-mark-lee-and-gurmit-singh-still-get-along-fabulously-0 mrbrown (Producer/Director). (2014, January 23). The mrbrown show: Who say we smelly? [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYl3Ov4Hhpg Poon, A. (2013). Common ground, multiple claims: Representing and constructing Singapore’s “heartland”. Asian Studies Review, 37(4), 559–576. Seow, J., & Zhuo, T. (2015, July 20). Highly trained, middle-aged and out of work. The Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ highly-trained-middle-aged-and-out-of-work Singapore Taxi Driver. (2013, May 27). Top 8 hawker food centres taxi drivers patronise. Yahoo News. Retrieved from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/taxi-talk/top-8-hawker-food-centrestaxi-drivers-patronise-080155128.html Soh, E. (2012, June, 22). Dr. Jiajia’s YouTube sensation, child inspiration, and…movie star? Yahoo Lifestyle. Retrieved from https://sg.style.yahoo.com/blogs/singapore-showbiz/dr-jiajia-youtube-sensation-child-inspiration-movie-star-081925785.html Toh, Y.  C. (2014, December 1). Tales of a taxi Uncle: ST manpower correspondent Toh Yong Chuan steps into the shoes of a Singapore taxi driver. The Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ tales-of-a-taxi-uncle-st-manpower-correspondent-toh-yong-chuan-steps-into-the-shoes-of-a Weiner, A. (1980). The function of the tragic Greek chorus. Theatre Journal, 32(2), 205–212.

Chapter 8

Power As Constantly Reconstituting and the Prospects of Carnivalesque Politics

Abstract  In this chapter, I return to the key theorizations of power that I discussed in the earlier part of this book. I begin broadly by examining the usefulness of Foucauldian governmentality as a theory of power in explicating the modus operandi of Singapore’s PAP government in curbing free speech in the country’s media space. I then move on to examine the limitations of Foucauldian governmentality and Bourdieusian cultural perspective specifically in the area of artistic and literary performance. Next, I theorize contemporary power relations in vernacular digital discourses by foregrounding two important aspects: the emergence of information brokers and the affective dimension in power relations. In the final section, I theorize on the potentials of carnivalesque as subpolitics and as well as tool of social critique in the context of Singapore.

8.1  Introduction Throughout this book, it is established that the discussion on social conditions and power relations in the twenty-first-century vernacular discourse cannot be adequately expounded singularly from any specific scholarly domain. For instance, while Foucauldian governmentality is clearly relevant in explicating the ways of governing mediatized spaces in the case of Singapore’s PAP government, its framing of power as top-down and absolute does not provide a realistic backdrop to aid readers unpack the dynamism of power in digital times. Similarly, while a Bourdieusian cultural perspective does index the notion of power expression in artistic performances, which somewhat aligns with the ideation of performance-­ driven expressions in digital space, key differences such as the scale and reach in digital mediatized performances and aestheticism of digital producers exist. Clearly, the above signals the centrality of power as reconstituted along the lines of access and hegemony of informationalism as new social conditions that are peculiar only to the digital epoch. Undergirded by these newer social realities, we witness not only the rise in a new breed of power holders who are accepted information brokers (e.g., select social influencers and social media personalities) and a dominance in emotionality in performing power in the digital vernacular discourse. Given the rise of new information brokers and the expression of power at the affective level, Bakhtinian carnivalesque thus acts as a sharp tool to interrogate deeper meanings © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 H.-Y. K. Kan, Digital Carnivalesque, Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education 10, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2051-8_8

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hidden in the plethora of comedic performances that are distributed throughout social media. This is because of the nature of carnivalesque as liminal, resistive, and theatrical. While this appears promising, key questions continue to surround the viability of carnivalesque humor as a tool of social critique in more conservative states: Do audiences process carnivalesque humor the way the producers intend them to be? What then need to be done to improve the prospects of carnivalesque as subpolitics in these cultures? Accordingly, the last chapter of the book is organized in three parts. In the first, building on the classical theorizations of power covered in chapter two, I offer a nuanced and holistic articulation of power dynamics in the twenty-first-century vernacular discourse. In the second, the prospects of Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque as subpolitics, in particular, its instrumentality in conservative states, are explored. In the last, I offer my concluding thoughts regarding the nature of digital times in this transitory moment in history and its impact on a world order that is increasingly authoritarian.

8.2  F  oucauldian Governmentality in Governing Singapore Media Landscape Governmentality (Foucault, 1991; Foucault, 2000) is primarily a theorization that is born out of the fundamental concern with the practice of governing. In Foucault (2007), this concern is described as the “problem of government” (p. 88). The questions associated with the “problem of government” are framed in terms of questions such as “how to govern oneself, how to be governed, by whom should we accept to be governed, how to be the best possible governor?” (p. 88). These questions underscore the interwoven nature of governmentality as embodying both the “art of government” (Foucault, 2000, p. 207) and the rationality in explicating the process by which the state machinery becomes “governmentalized” (Foucault, 2007, p. 108). Quintessentially, undergirding the art form in government is the motivation of governments to cultivate “a certain mind-set and habitus conducive in guiding the conduct of human beings” (Koh, 2007, p. 183). In this regard, several scholars have sought to interrogate Singapore’s way of government through the lens of governmentality (Koh, 2007; Lee, 2014). In particular, Koh (2007) drew extensively from the Foucauldian perspective of “multiform tactics” (Koh, 2007, p. 183) to expound on the use of calculated measures by the Singapore government to shape a “Singaporean habitus” (p. 181) that is vigilant to shifts in “geo-politico-cultural-economic realities” (p. 179). The repertoire of tactics as examined in select empirical contexts (namely, economic policies, public policies, language campaigns, disciplining of Singapore youths as Generation M and in the framing of civic nationalism) points toward two salient features that characterize governmental tactics. Firstly, the adoption of a “rhetoricist position” (Koh, 2007, p. 180) in a “programmatic” manner (p. 187) to simultaneously work

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with and against the forces of globalization. This form of tactic is specific and focused in shaping the mind-set of the populace over time through the appeal of shared ethos (such as innovation and adaptability in responding to changing times) and can be observed prominently from policy papers and political speeches and in propagandist messages (e.g., campaigns) (Koh, 2007). Secondly, the tactics involve the (re)assemblage of measures (e.g., creation of trade incentives to attract select foreign talents or industries) that are crafted in response to new or sudden shifts in the geopolitical, cultural, or economic landscapes. In this aspect, such tactics can be described as swift in assemblage, targeted in responding to specific “threats,” and presented as necessary interventions in a problem-solution discourse. While such tactics could have been mitigative in the first instance, they also present opportunities to create “new subjectivities” (Koh, 2007, p. 181) that fit the state’s rationalities of pragmatism and survival. Implicit in these ideologies is the hegemonic instrumentality of shared ethos (as exemplified earlier) that the populace should cultivate. Accordingly, this explicates why the tactics rolled out by the state government are not only amenable to the populace due to the appeal of hegemonic values; they (in various formulations) also act to reify the underlying ideologies of pragmatism and survival. This in turn fosters a greater degree of acquiescence among fractions of Singaporeans who may find ideological coherence in the PAP’s rhetoric less disconcerting in the face of seismic geopolitical shifts that take place on the global stage. To a significant extent, the use of tactics as outlined above is similarly observed in the way the Singapore government regulates various mediatized spaces (i.e., print, artistic performances, and cyberspace). The rhetoricist position as iterated earlier is evident in the robust legislative stance that the state government has taken toward cultivating a populace that is compliant and politically conservative. In this regard, the state rhetoric is that of self-censorship as a “moral good” for the betterment of the collective society. To this end, the institution of comprehensive legislative frameworks (e.g., NPPA, Films Act, Internet Code of Practice, POFMA) to quiet dissident voices is coupled with the tactic of litigious actions, more so in the earlier decades of nationhood, in handling transgressive activities (e.g., International Herald Tribune 1994/2000, Far East Economic Review 1988/2006). While the rhetoric of self-censorship as virtue continues to be an indispensable hegemonic tool of the government, its limitation becomes clear in the Internet age. In the face of the popularity of social media as a dynamic communicative platform as observed in GE2006, the state government was cognizant of the need to “update and adapt to the digital age or risk political ossification” (Lee, 2014, p.  33). Consequently, the assemblage of newer tactics can be observed to not only mitigate against imminent threats but also to proactively create opportunities to make sense of “new subjectivities” (Koh, 2007, p. 184) for the populace through the lens of the state ideologies of pragmatism and that of survival. A case in point is the introduction of a citizen journalism platform, STOMP (i.e., Straits Times Online Mobile Print) by the state newspapers after GE2006. Thereafter, political figures seem to have also openly embraced SNS as a platform to reach out to the populace (Lee, 2014). Separately, these activities appear independent from each other, but given the systematicity in the way these actions were timed for implementation, it also speaks

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about the “programmatic” (Koh, 2007, p.  167) approach in responding to socio-­ political shifts tactically. Evidently, Foucauldian perspective of governmentality affords a stable framework to interrogate both the “art” and rationalities of governments in shaping the habitus of the populaces conducive for the practice of governing. In the case of Singapore, we observe how tactics in the form of robust legislative frameworks (e.g., NPPA, Films Act, Internet Code of Practice) ring fence rhetoricist-oriented tactical actions (e.g., campaigns, political speeches) to reify state discourses of pragmatism and that of survival. While it may be clear how state machineries have exercised power institutionally through the deployment of tactics, it is less clear how the people have chosen to respond to institutional actions to be shaped (read: consent, acquiesce, or resist). In other words, the consideration of human agency to pushback against structural domination is completely silent in this perspective of power theory. This is where Foucauldian governmentality falls short as a tenable framework to examine power relations comprehensively from both the perspectives of the populace and that of the government. To begin with, Foucault’s conceptualization of power is framed primarily through the lens of critical discourse scholarship where power is theorized to circulate primarily in a top-down manner among the ranks of the powerful, the elites, and the rulers. As articulated in Chap. 2, this partial and dichotomized perspective of power ignores and, as a result, passivates those without power in marginalized discourses and regards their agentic potentials to act against transgressive behaviors as possibly feeble and inconsequential. The inadequacy of such a neo-Marxist view of power (as proposed in the first scholarly strand in Chap. 2) is especially stark in today’s post-capitalist age where the hegemony of informationalism has reordered access to knowledge (a significant source of power in Foucauldian perspective) and communicative spaces in drastically different ways as compared to the social conditions that endured in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To ignore this social reality (i.e., that power does not radiate solely in a top-­ down formulation) in the examination of contemporary power relations is to relegate the enterprise of understanding human behaviors in social sciences research as secondary to the discipline of theorization. Even as a research tool to uncover the rationalities of government, Foucauldian governmentality is problematic in its broad brushstrokes approach in outlining key maneuvers in the “art” of cultivating mind-sets of the populace. For instance, the notion of governmentality does not help us make sense of the rather ambiguous standards that the Singapore government seems to adopt when handling regulatory transgressions from those in the artistic circles and those in the journalistic circles. Some specific instances involve the classifications and investigations of politically motivated films and the withdrawal of funding for various artistic projects (Lee, 2014). In these instances, to explicate bureaucratic actions as simply tactical detracts one from asking pertinent questions regarding the social forces that shape the nature of power. For instance, what are the forces that are at play that differentiate the way artistic acts and journalistic works attract or escape the attention of state apparatuses? In this sense, Foucauldian governmentality and the notion of tactic are ­limited

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as research tools to investigate the intricacies of social forces that exert control in the domain of artistic and literary performances. Without this knowledge, it is difficult to theorize with precision about power relations in vernacular digital discourses since much of contemporary digital expressions stem from the motivations to perform one’s social identities online (boyd & Ellison, 2008). Since a Foucauldian construction of power relations proffers a necessary yet limited perspective in the theorization of power, I turn to Bourdieu’s (1993) concepts of field and habitus for a culturally oriented view in order to understand the internal logics in the artistic and literary domain.

8.3  B  ourdieusian Cultural Perspective in Understanding Artistic Performances According to Bourdieu (1993), the artistic and literary world is “so ordered that those who enter it have an interest in disinterestedness” (p. 40). This sense of “disinterestedness” refers to an ambivalent disposition that members in the artistic circles often take toward the framing of economic rationality. Accordingly, from this position of economic disinterest, artists are invariably drawn to the ideation of art as both authenticity and aestheticism. Evidently, this posture lends itself to the conceptualization of artistic work as primarily self-representational. Since, according to Bourdieu, the performance of art is not grounded in market rationality per se, it may therefore be deemed as “incongruous” (p. 31) from the lens of dominant thought. At the same time, the artistic and literary domain is simultaneously a “field of forces” as well as “a field of struggles” (p. 30). In this space, social agents jostle for more prominent positions by creatively manipulating various aspects of the stage and performative tropes within the field. While this enterprise of “position-taking” (p.  30) may not differ from other fields of cultural production (including that of journalism), what is significant is that the outcomes of performances in the artistic and literary fields are “unremarked” (p. 31). This is because of the inherent difficulties to reconstruct the “original possibles” (p. 31) that are unique in any particular performance space. As such, artistic and literary performances are often interpretive, and the claim to artistic or literary legitimacy within the field falls under the monopoly of “consecrated” (p. 42) social agents who have established their authority, through the process of having their works consecrated by others, to endorse or critique the works of artists. While these social agents are predominantly fellow artists, they often include critics and patrons of the arts. Cumulatively, these social agents form the arts community, or the “bourgeois audience” (p. 31), who possess the necessary cultural capital to consecrate artistic works within the community. Given the nature of works in the artistic and literary field as unremarked or nontransparent, they are therefore subject to interpretation. Accordingly, the legitimation of artistic works is not contingent upon the construction of normative standards of evaluation. Without an objective set of standards that is transparent, it clarifies

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how the regulation of artistic and literary works is subjectively informed. On a separate note, this perhaps also describes the “tipping point” where cultural capital is simultaneously transformed as a form of symbolic capital of the elites and a source of symbolic violence for the poor since the latter has no objective standards to emulate the elites (Bourdieu, 1977). Since many vernacular mediatized discourses are acts that foreground the performativity of one’s multiple online identities, a Bourdieusian perspective on cultural production adds an important perspective on the nature of power in performances (including vernacular digital discourses) as nuanced, fleeting, and circuitous. In this domain of power as performance, the appeal of the affective dimension takes prominence over that of rationality as a central trope. Invariably, this contradicts the way dominant thoughts are constructed in political discourses, both in western and oriental spheres, since ancient antiquity. This is also the political ethos as espoused by the PAP government: The ruling party holds firm to the philosophy that political debate is serious business and has to be carried out rationally and calmly in the absence of emotional rhetoric. Those who take part must have integrity, honesty and credibility, in order to maintain the integrity of the electoral process and perpetuate a clean political system. (Hang, 2014, p. 157)

In the above claim, the notion of rationality is associated with a wide range of qualities that indexes a political participant as worthy. In the same vein, political expressions that appeal to the affective dimension in sense making are framed as frivolous and lack the positive characteristics (i.e., integrity, honesty, “seriousness,” and credibility) in contributing to meaningful political conversations in a “clean political system” (Hang, 2014, p. 157). Similarly, the intolerance for irrational texts can be observed in the qualifications of a political film, Sections 2(3) of the Films Act, which clearly specifies the use of animation and dramatic elements, and the performative genre of reality types of programs to be apolitical in nature. A clear demonstration of the government’s position was evident after GE2006 when the government remonstrated against a satirical piece written by Lee Kin Mun, or mrbrown, in the mainstream tabloid Today regarding his unhappiness about the rising cost of living in Singapore (Lee, 2006). The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) responded to the incident with the following statement: mr brown (sic) is entitled to his views. But opinions which are widely circulated in a regular column in a serious newspaper should meet higher standards…he should come out from behind his pseudonym to defend his views openly. (Bhavani, 2006)

As examined in this book, social commentator Lee Kin Mun performs social critique through a variety of mediatized platforms. While he understands the power of stage as a tool of social critique, and he has performed numerous satirical mediatized works, Lee Kin Mun has also employed rational discourse in his other works. Evidently, his adoption of various stage identities in a hybridity of discourses in other contexts might have contributed to the ire from bureaucrats who have been schooled in the strict traditions of rational discourse.

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In sum, in the age of digital mediatized discourses where the performance of self takes center stage, I theorize power as a form of performance. In this aspect, the coalescence of classical theories of power, chiefly critical and cultural, grounds the orientation of power as one that is both top-down and bottom-up. Power is evident simultaneously in the visible actions of state apparatuses as well as the invisible moral resistance of those who appear to acquiesce to dominant thoughts. Further, in this domain, power can be characterized as nuanced, fleeting and tacit, and, its movement, circuitous. The elusive character of power in this framing (power as performance) is attributed to the centrality of affect as a key dimension in which power is manifested. However, given the different social conditions that existed between the formulations of classical perspectives of power in the eighteenth/nineteenth centuries and the contemporary world, classical power theories are limited to account for the emergent forces that have shaped the notion of power in the twenty-first century. Take, for instance, Bourdieu’s (1993) postulation of “disinterest” (p. 40) among artists toward economic rationality. Clearly, this view of the arts and creative industries as being immune to profit considerations in Singapore and also in many parts of the world is not tenable. In fact, in modern Singapore, cultural policies (including digital media and arts) have been promoted and harnessed for their economic potential as tourist dollars since the 1980s (Kong, 2012). In recent decades, the hegemonic instrumentality of the arts has engendered the state to reposition arts as cultural products in its policy direction to achieve Singapore’s ambitious plan to rival global cities (London, Paris, and New York) to be the global cultural and creative hub. As exemplified here, there is therefore a need to look toward contemporary theories in communications and new media scholarship to uncover emergent power holders and understand the newer forces that have come to define the digital epoch.

8.4  S  hifting Power Dynamics in Vernacular Digital Discourses With the emergence of network publics, the source of power resides with “those who control the limited resources of attention” (boyd, 2010, p. 30). On the surface level, we can easily identify tech giants as the ones who have the ultimate control over users’ attention. Through possession of media platforms, corporations have the power to manipulate the packaging of information for their users. Take, for example, the Internet marketing strategy of search engine optimization (SEO) that controls the visibility of websites when one uses the web search engine of a browser. Website owners who pay for the service of browser would have their site listed earlier in the search results page. This perspective of power as economic rationality reflects the age-old class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Those with resources have the capacity to control and manipulate digital tools; and in doing so, they have the power to filter information and shape the reception of

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­ ediatized contents that users encounter. Given the prominence of informationalm ism (or the instrumentality of technology in the areas of knowledge, information, and communication) in today’s digital economy, hegemonic rationality framed in the name of automaticity in streamlining information for the benefit of users’ experience appears to be the “new natural” in the digital economy. While this framing of power evidences the neo-Marxist view of historical class conflict between the rulers and the ruled, the democratic potentials associated with the participatory culture of the Internet have given rise to two emerging phenomena: a new breed of power holders and an expression of power that operates at an affective level (boyd, 2010). boyd describes this breed of emergent power holders as “information brokers” (p. 34). Information brokers are privileged individuals who attract followers based on their expert status in niche domains. As opposed to proprietors of contents, information brokers solicit mediatized contents and reassemble creative contents for redistribution. Bloggers are one social group of information brokers. As argued by Gwynne (2013) in his examination of online bodily self-­ representation in young women’s fashion blogs across Singapore and Malaysia, the performance of multiple identities for bloggers is a carefully choreographed venture where individuals seek to manipulate their online personae according to the shifting cultural norms as shaped by neoliberal discourses. In the context of this book, social media personalities, mrbrown and Dr. Jiajia & BigBro, are prominent information brokers in Singapore given their sizeable loyal fan bases. Both these social media personalities exude significant influence in popular discourse (e.g., Mr. Brown Index), and their respective expert statures are meticulously cultivated over the years through the management of their respective “brand” identities in public discourses. Another phenomenon associated with the age of new media is the exercise of power along the affective dimension. In the context of post-humanitarian communication, Chouliaraki (2013) described the performativity of solidarity in western media as “new emotionality.” From the advocacy of Angelina Jolie to the appeal of Live 8 humanitarian concerts (and many others), Chouliaraki argued that the dimension of “feeling good” when extending charity to the poor in third-world countries is a necessary consideration for potential donors in the west. This new sentimentality is similarly described by boyd (2010) in the way social media users are selective toward responding to competing information that jostle for their attention. In particular, mediatized content that “anger, excite, energize, entertain, or otherwise create emotional response[s]” (p. 30) are likely to be more successful in attracting the attention of online users. The need to attend to this new sentimentality is likewise evident in the empirical context of this book. In both videos, we see the level of attentiveness by the producers, especially mrbrown, to not only choreograph the use of semiotic resources at the level of the texts but also master public relations skills to curate believable and likeable public personae so as to procure loyal fan bases to serve the respective agendas of both producers. In this regard, the instrumentality of humor as a dominant impression management tool is evident for political-economic reasons.

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In sum, in the political economy of new media, power is reconstituted along the lines of access and hegemony of informationalism as a form of performance. In this context, information brokers as new power holders appropriate mediatized contents in a fashion that appeals to the sentimentality of the niche markets that they serve. Since economic rationality is a foremost consideration in this regard for information brokers, the management of their public identities (including making decisions on the types of endorsement deals that they accept and styles that trademark them from other information brokers, and ensuring narrative coherence across their various mediatized works) becomes a crucial aspect in this performativity of power. What is the role and form of politics in the performativity of power then?

8.5  B  akhtinian Carnivalesque as Subpolitics and Tool of Social Critique 8.5.1  Carnivalesque as Subpolitics Carnivalization of social relations is an old western conception that dates back to the times of Aristotle, Socrates, and Aristophanes (Dmitriev, 2006). From the traditions of sending “mocking” comic Valentine’s cards in Victorian Britain (Pollen, 2014) to the engagement in carnivalesque politics in Lithuania’s 2008 parliamentary elections (Klumbyte, 2014), the “licence to deride” (p. 127) enduring social norms and to “speak truth to power” (Gray, Jones, & Thompson, 2009, p. 6) has shadowed the presence of dominant macrostructures in western civilization. In Bakhtin’s (1965) definition, carnivalesque is a sanctioned space for the disenfranchised to enjoy a respite from the dominance of the established world order. In this public space, alternatives of “its own world” (p. 88) are imagined. In enacting these alternatives, discursive traits of a carnivalesque performance include laughter, grotesque realism (bodily excess/scatological humor), billingsgate, and the inversions of social hierarchies. The concept of carnivalesque has often been misunderstood. First, carnivalesque as a potential “critical” enterprise is often subsumed under the genre of comedy given the common discursive features that mark both discourse types. As such, the carnivalesque discourse is often reduced by media producers to achieve the banal purpose in “ridiculing personal behavior rather than the people who run things” (Marc, 2009, p. x). Also, while Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque engenders the aspect of social critique, the agentic qualities that the concept envisions do not fit perfectly with the tradition of critical scholarship. In other words, both critical and carnivalesque scholarships operationalize the concept of agency in different ways. Critical enterprise orients toward a more permanent rebalancing in power relations between rulers and the ruled, and liberation is a utopian end goal. Accordingly, agency in critical scholarship embodies the lofty ideal of dismantling social hierarchies. On the other hand, carnivalesque enterprise seeks temporary liberating

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moments as markers in the ongoing process of renewal (Rumelili, 2012). In this state of existential struggle, agency is a performative ritual that seeks to temporarily disrupt hegemonic discourses (de Certeau, 1984; Scott, 1990). In this regard, carnivalesque humor signals the celebration of one’s triumph over hegemonic instrumentality in everyday life (Bakhtin, 1965). Given its rather elusive embodiment, carnivalesque scholars have associated carnivalesque with the liminal in politics: Liminals are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between; in other words they elude or slip through the network of classifications. (Rumelili, 2012, p. 503)

In today’s post-network digital economy, this conceptualization of Bakhtin’s (1965) carnivalesque as liminal provides a good place for us to understand the shifting form and function of contemporary carnivalesque in the twenty-first century. As reviewed in an earlier chapter, a central theme that undergirds one’s expressions in cyberspace is the performance of self. In this performance of self, the notion of self takes into consideration the multiplicity of online identities that Internet users assume across various SNS. In fact, the subjective representation of one’s corporeal selves reflects the convergent nature of the digital economy as one that is shifting and temporal (Jenkins, 2006). In short, the aspect of self-representation undergirds digital participatory practices, and this includes the use of carnivalesque discourse for a gamut of reasons. At the extremes, the carnivalesque discourse is employed as a tool for socio-political critique or to aestheticize hegemonic ideologies (Cherrington, 2014; Goh, 2011, 2013; Ungureanu, 2015). While the centrality of carnivalesque politics remains grounded in the use of performative tropes to ridicule social relations, its posturing may have also shifted from one of resistance to one that is oppositional (Klumbyte, 2014) in a mediatized culture that celebrates the representation of self. Klumbyte investigated Lithuania’s 2008 electoral carnivalesque and theorized contemporary carnivalesque politics as a “politics of becoming”: In introducing the concept of “politics of becoming,” I invite thinking about carnivalesque politics as a form of political opposition, a future-oriented ongoing process of change instigated by citizens’ hopes and desires emerging from their moral and affective worlds. (p. 474)

In framing carnivalesque politics as oppositional and not necessarily resistive, Klumbyte foregrounds the transformative potentials of carnivalesque to reimagine alternatives for the status quo. Accordingly, carnivalesque politics ceases to be framed as “temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from the established order” (Bakhtin, 1965, p. 10) but one that encapsulates “an open-ended process of change and becoming” (Klumbyte, 2014, p. 486). While the author concedes that this is a departure from classical Bakhtinian framing of carnivalesque as resistance, I think this interpretation of carnivalesque politics is, in fact, in keeping with the essence of Bakhtin’s (1965) conceptualization of carnivalesque as potentially emancipative. Further, this framing of carnivalesque as open-ended aligns with the agenda of self-representation by Internet users since it lends itself to the production of mediatized contents that focuses on the promotion of one’s articulations of possibilities.

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Given the plethora of carnivalesque mediatized contents that include more critical works among frivolous productions, the core tenet of carnivalesque politics – ambivalent or liberating laughter – requires closer examination. As explicated in the earlier chapters, I have attempted to differentiate carnivalesque par excellence from pseudo-carnivalesque by first characterizing laughter conceptually as emancipative (laughing with) and mocking (laughing at) and, second, to describe the quality of generative laughter as evidenced in the videos. I have also asserted that a binary approach in categorizing laughter empirically in this manner is not useful given that the simultaneous logics of economic interest, affect, and (sub)political potential in digital vernacular productions defy a dichotomous categorization. In extant literature, carnivalesque scholars have associated carnivalesque laughter as an emergent, innovative, and powerful political tool in the twenty-first century (Badarneh, 2011; Klumbyte, 2014). In this regard, laughter is simultaneously framed as a cathartic tool (Marc, 2009) and a critical response for ordinary folks in the face of hegemonic repression (Gray et al., 2009; Thompson, 2009). Further, Klumbyte (2014) describes laughter as “a form of affective and moral participation in politics” (p. 476). In sum, the embodiment of carnivalesque politics as liminal, oppositional, and comedic explicates its rampant appropriation in the digital economy both for the enterprise of moral participation and for banal entertainment pursuits. In both cases, the concept of digital carnivalesque sits well with the theme of self-representation, which undergirds the participatory nature of vernacular online culture.

8.5.2  C  arnivalesque Humor as Tool of Social Critique in Singapore (Says Who?) How can we make sense of carnivalesque humor and that of liberating laughter in the context of Singapore’s self-censored vernacular mediatized discourse? While the theorization of carnivalesque may be posited to be oppositional, do viewers of such socio-political mediatized contents in the local context consume them with similar criticality? To respond to these questions, I discuss this from the perspective of the audiences (of both videos). It must be emphasized that my comments below come from a cursory review and analysis of the comments, as a full-fledged examination is beyond the scope of this book. Nevertheless, even such curtailed exploration has produced important preliminary insights that have implications for the findings of this study. Looking at usage statistics, it appears that neither video is among the most popular works of the two social media personalities in terms of viewership, viewers’ ratings (likes vs dislikes), and viewers’ participation in providing comments. In the case of mrbrown’s video (mrbrown, 2014), the video garnered a total of 75,208 views, 461 likes, 23 dislikes, and 43 comments (as of April 22, 2018). It is ranked 46th (of 450 videos uploaded by the creator) in terms of viewership, and it is not 1 of the “50 highest rated” videos in mrbrown’s channel (SocialBlade, 2018). As for

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the aspect of viewers’ comments, the number of comments (i.e., 43) appears meagre in comparison with the average number of comments (i.e., 132) that the 50 most viewed videos generated. As for Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s video (Dr. Jiajia & BigBro, , 2014), it has 48,512 views, 336 likes, 56 dislikes, and 58 comments (as of April 22, 2018). The video is neither one of Dr. Jiajia & BigBro’s 50 most viewed nor 50 highest rated videos (SocialBlade, 2018). The number of comments that the video generated (i.e., 58) pales in comparison with the average number of comments (i.e., 243) generated by the 50 most viewed videos in the same channel. While the videos were not particularly popular with fans of both social media personalities, the statistics alone do not reveal the nature of viewers’ engagement with these works as performances of social critique or more aesthetically as entertainment. In this regard, and to a certain extent, the examination of the comments made in reference to both videos did proffer two plausible themes that were insightful. The first major theme appears to reflect a rather banal disposition among viewers. Comments in this category include fan-based posts (e.g., mrbrown’s video, “thanks for the funny video”; Dr. Jiajia’s video, “Jiajia where you live. Condo?”), posts relating to aesthetics of the productions (e.g., mrbrown’s video, “love the jingle”; Dr. Jiajia’s video, “wear wig”), and the use of urban slangs and interjections as verbal responses (e.g., mrbrown’s video, “lol”; Dr. Jiajia’s video, “haha”). In particular, there was a sprinkling of comments from Dr. Jiajia’s viewers with regard to the authenticity of the character Anton Casey as played by Big Bro (e.g., “Who’s Anton Casey?”, “Anton Casey not real”). The second theme, on the other hand, includes derogatory passing remarks against Anton Casey (e.g., mrbrown’s video, “ang mo kua ki”; Dr. Jiajia’s video, “chao papaya” which means rotten papaya). Judging from the viewers’ comments, it seems that the dimension of carnivalesque humor as social critique appears to be lost on the audience or at least on those who take the time to post a comment. This further corroborates with the lukewarm reception (based on usage statistics) that viewers had of both video contents. Given the magnitude of the public outcry that was generated from the Casey episode in January 2014, the apparent lack of critical engagement from the audiences is disconcerting. This begs the question: Are Singaporeans politically apathetic? Before I interrogate the prospect of carnivalesque (or liberating) humor in the context of Singapore further, it is perhaps fair to surmise, based on the impressions gathered from viewers’ reception, that the humor under consideration here is not carnivalesque humor and the quality of laughter lacks the aspect of liberation. The construction of humor in this context is quintessentially a social, aesthetic, and playful experience (Morreall, 2005). As postulated by Morreall (2005), this is humor as a form of social activity that exists “for its own sake rather than to reach a goal” (p. 70). What then is the prospect of political humor as a tool of social critique in Singapore if humor exists merely in its simplistic form as a form of social engagement? What are some sociocultural considerations that could aid us in understanding the apparent limitations in framing humor and laughter more critically? In this regard, perhaps it makes sense to be reminded that the notion of political humor or laughter as social critique is fundamentally a western construction, which is widely accepted in matured democracies. These societies are accustomed to a

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theatrical culture that has gone as far back as Greek drama (Freedman, 2012). In many western countries such as the USA, Canada, the UK, and Germany, carnivalesque practices in the form of satirical programs are routinely televised by major broadcasting systems (Marc, 2009). Political humor, as employed in satirical television programs, is viewed as a democratic right of the people (Ziv, 1984), and it serves to “caricature rather than destroy power” (Badarneh, 2011, p. 307) in these societies. Humor, framed in this light, is a critical enterprise that seeks to mock seriousness (Pickering & Lockyer, 2005). To achieve this ideal, humor is manifested through the deployment of performativity tropes in a form of staged playfulness. While this conception of humor as seriousness is a constitutive element of western thought, it is a somewhat strange and problematic construct among countries, such as Singapore, that have adopted a neo-Confucian system of governance for decades (Badarneh, 2011; Freedman, 2012). In fact, the use of political humor in these countries could be framed as an underhanded attack that seeks to destabilize macrostructures (Ziv, 1984). A case in point was the response of the Singapore government toward Lee Kin Mun’s article in Today’s newspaper in 2006 discussed earlier (Lee, 2006 July 3). What appears at stake for the incumbent government was the public questioning of its legitimacy in governing the country (Badarneh, 2011). When this is understood in Foucault’s theory of governmentality, political humor or laughter is a threat to the aspect of “sovereignty” in the three-pronged model of government (i.e., sovereignty, discipline, and government) (Gordon, 1991). Having said that, the PAP government is also cognizant of the need to temper its strong-­ handed ways in today’s globalized economy where trading relationship with western nations is contingent upon human rights’ records of trading partners. This means that the incumbent government has learned to tolerate political humor in public discourse up to such a point when perceived threats to the country’s sovereignty outweigh socioeconomic benefits that it stands to reap. What about the conception of political humor among ordinary citizens? While the notion of humor as seriousness possibly resonates with western-educated critical thinkers in Singapore, it remains an alien conceptualization even for western-educated populace who engage mainly with Hollywood entertainment fare. For now, it can be assumed that humor for most Singaporean consumers possibly exists for the purpose of social entertainment. Another major factor that explicates the sense of unfamiliarity with political humor among the general public could lie in the fundamental difference in the internal organization of consciousness between authoritative texts and carnivalesque texts (Sullivan, 2010). Carnivalesque texts require a “sophisticated and reflective knowing” (p. 363) and a high-order or expert knowledge processing that involves the “sensing [of one]self within consciousness” (p.  362) as opposed to a logical analysis of arguments that is imbued in authoritative texts. This sophistication that is associated with carnivalesque text is closely associated with the genres of parody and satire. In these literary works, the play with language through the use of literary and rhetorical devices (e.g., wit, sarcasm, pun, or trope) unlocks the imaginative potentials of language as a way to connect with rationality. In this way, those who

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have been socialized to frame language as instrumentalism (Wee, 2008) lack linguistic sensitivity to process “irrational” carnivalesque texts as rational. Paradoxically, while this lack of transparency that is embodied in carnivalesque texts (and, more loosely, political humor) renders it more difficult for the state to detect carnivalesque politics as potentially subversive, it bodes well for social commentators such as mrbrown to leverage on the clever use of language (under the disguise of humor) as necessary cover to stay under the radar of government sanctions. Unfortunately, this same lack of transparency will continue to hinder the abilities of ordinary citizens to appreciate humor at a more critical level. In sum, carnivalesque politics as a performance of power is about the manipulation of the stage as a way to perform politics. In this theatricalization of politics in online discourse, it is interesting to question the political potentials as embodied in a performance. To put it in another way, what are the conditions that are necessary to activate (Austin, 1963) the potentials of performance? In the context of the case studies examined in this book, it seems fair to suggest, judging impressionistically from the responses to both videos against the backdrop of Casey’s public backlash, that an interplay of three conditions is necessary to potentially activate the performativity within a performance: firstly, the participation of influential information brokers as “actors”; secondly, the co-optation of carnivalesque tropes that operate at the affective level; and thirdly, the thematic selection of hot-bottom social issues that rile audiences. When these conditions are aligned, the transformative potentials of the performances are realized as possible realities (Austin, 1963). With that, the agentive potentials of the performative and the emancipative ideals of Bakhtinian carnivalesque could be simultaneously realized as well. Yet, as can be observed from the audience analysis in this section, the context of an Asian democracy may well paint a less promising reality given the simultaneous lack of appreciation in associating humor as a serious endeavor and awareness in accessing “irrational” texts as rational.

8.6  Concluding Remarks In closing, how do we make sense of this particular transitionary moment in the digital epoch and its impact on the agency of ordinary citizens in a world that is characterized by an increasing sense of authoritarianism? As iterated in this book, the overall technologization of life since the start of the technological milieu has augmented the corporeal reality with an online dimension that is quintessentially unique. Its distinctiveness is attributed to the nature of the Internet that has often been described as participatory, convergent, embodied, and networked. Undergirded by these attributes, we have witnessed the emergence of another aspect of digital culture. It is one that is simultaneously performance and performative in nature. While the distinction between performance and performative is hard to demarcate given the embodied nature of the Internet, what it has given shape to is the agentic opportunity for ordinary citizens to express power as a form of performance. As put

References

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forth in the section before, when the transformative potentials of the performance align, power as performance is then reconstituted as a performative. What then is the implication of this social phenomenon in a world order that is increasingly authoritarian in its form of governance? To put it simply, it makes authoritarian regimes uneasy. With greater access to information by ordinary citizens to enact voice as a way of performance, authoritarian and autocratic governments alike are increasingly shifting from the use of soft or hegemonic power (e.g., consultative sessions with the people) favored in “peaceful times” to the enforcement of more hardline approaches as a way to reify powerbases in “uncertain times” (e.g., legislative moves). This is due to the liminal and theatrical nature of performance, which makes it hard for technocrats to grasp due to its “irrational” script structure. As such, the adoption of hardline approaches systematicizes the way of governance and restores a semblance of order from the perspective of the government(s). This brings us back to the neo-Marxist perspective of class conflict as perennial in the history of humankind, which was iterated in Chap. 2. When power is tipped in favor of the rulers, the ruled will continue to find newer expressions to rebalance power relations. For now, a dominant expression of digital power in vernacular discourse appears to be the use of performance as a form of agency.

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