Abstract

Chapter One examines the myths that formulate the Singaporean state's construction of its social imaginary(s) – broadly capitalism and multiculturalism with all their antagonisms. Through this chapter, I argue two points. First, fear is the key discursive tool and affective logic through which state and popular discourse make sense of social order. Second, the multiple functions of fear center around struggles over the overdetermined social. I discuss how the population as antagonism result in structural and practical consequences for how media producers can imagine and access audiences. Having set the structural and contextual scene, the remaining four chapters explore ethnographically the cultural politics of fear as manifested in production practices of different genres of television.

Keywords: Fear; Social Imaginary; Multiculturalism; Singapore; Capitalism; Meritocracy

The real fragility of the remarkable society that has been created in this tiny island state […] is not its ethnic and cultural complexity per se. It is rather in the artificiality of the attempts to prune it into a precarious order, and to resist rather than accept and welcome forces of change (Clammer 1998: 26).

If we want ratings, we have to reflect life […] Policy affects our everyday lives but anything that puts our policies under examination will be deemed sensitive […] Things that are close to real life may evoke huge audience emotions […] so we cannot even do programmes that are close to the heart of the people (interview with Producer A, 2013).

Yes, good ratings are important. But it is only perfect if we get good ratings without negative comments (interview with Producer B, 2019).