Citizen Paparazzi on Stomp

Citizen paparazzi is not a new concept to this modern world of ours. In Singapore, we now have Stomp, a citizen journalism platform created by Singapore Press Holdings, possibly with the hope of getting more Singaporeans to get more involved in Singapore’s current affairs.

However, it seemed that it has deviated from its original aim. One look on the webpages of Stomp, you will notice they are full of colours and juicy news. Perhaps this is one way of getting more traffic into their website and generating more advertisement revenue while letting netizens to engage in some form of active journalism.

In my view, getting more citizens to get involved in current affairs of our nation is not the same as allowing a platform for more paparazzi style of journalism where day-in-day-out, you see people uploading photos of interesting happenings in Singapore, describing crime scenes in great details, or maybe talking about girls. Can this really help the society to progress? I think not.

Instead, Stomp should really consider taking up an active role in getting more netizens to voice their views and perhaps organise real-time online debates on real social issues such as poverty, increasing income-gap, human rights etc.

Why should Stomp take the initiative then? The blogosphere we have now is too ‘scattered’ and certainly does not have a huge financial backing like SPH. Writing letters to Straits Times can sometimes be too much of a hassle, too formal and might put off the younger generations who might only be interested in short, more adhoc form of discussions.

Let’s put a stop to the apathetic nature of Singaporeans towards current affairs. Proper civic engagement can really make a vital impact on Singapore.