The media, along with the arts and academia, are crucial to the outcome of the battle for hearts and minds waged in the struggle with extremism and terrorism. Even in peacetime, the media deeply influence, on an hourly or daily basis, public perceptions of threats and danger, safety and security. The arts are another form of communication that conveys to people busy with their everyday lives a sense of their place in the scheme of things. Academia offers intellectuals and teachers an opportunity to flesh out this larger picture, one in which we all have to find our places and seek our roles.

It is important, therefore, for the Singapore media to understand the importance of the CEP, and to be mindful of its purpose in their coverage and programming. Fortunately, the local media in Singapore are a part of the solution. Together with members of the Arts and Media Cluster from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA), many journalists play an essential role in communicating with the Singapore public and helping to maintain racial and religious harmony.

When Marshall McLuhan coined the expression “the medium is the message”, he meant that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message and creates the basis on which the message is received and perceived. In this sense, the content of a message depends greatly on its form. This realization is important for the work of the CEP, particularly if Singapore were to come under sustained terrorist attack. With many forms of communication down, radio would play an essential role in telling citizens what is going on around them, what they should do, and what they should not do. And radio disc jockeys (DJs) would form the cutting edge of that role. Their accessible, conversational and trusted style would form the medium that would convey the message in a plausible way.