Elvin Ong, 24, SMU Business Undergraduate

Elvin is your typical over-achieving undergraduate student at SMU undertaking his final semester of studies. This means that he is looking for a job. In his job search, he is your stereotypical picky and impatient fresh graduate snooping around the job market to find the best deal for himself. Call him a smart shopper.

While his primary degree is business, his heart is firmly devoted to political science. He considers himself a slightly above-average student with a slightly above-average interest in politics in Singapore. To most of his friends, that means a lot. Never one to settle for the status quo, he believes in thinking at the margins, transcending established boundaries and genuinely shocking his friends with the next thing he will do. Which includes this speech. Inscribed on the back of his Ipod Touch is his mantra, “What man is a man who does not make the world better?”

Making Sense of Virtual Reality – Agenda, Audience, Action

To what extent can online media in the virtual world motivate people to take action, in particular, political action, in the physical world? That is one of the core questions that should be asked when seeking to evaluate the impact of the advent of online media. There may be no absolute correct or right answer to such a question, but it must nevertheless be considered and reflected upon to allow us to understand the emerging dynamics of interaction between the online world and politics in general.

I propose to approach this question by looking at the overlaps between the concepts of agenda, audience and action. If there is a specific online media website, the subsequent questions would be: What is the specific agenda that it has? What is the audience that it is trying to reach out to? How does it motivate its audience to take part in any form of political action? A careful consideration of these questions can give us greater insights to the power and constraints of the influence of online media in the near future.

Terence Lee, 23, NTU Communications Undergraduate & News Editor of The Online Citizen

Terence Lee is a third-year journalism student at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information in Nanyang Technological University. He is involved in the new media scene since 2008, and currently serves as the news editor of The Online Citizen. He writes frequently on politics, media affairs, and religion.

Fighting in the Trenches: The New Media Jungle

Experience is the greatest teacher a person can have. This certainly is true of Terence Lee in his involvement with The Online Citizen as a writer, reporter, and editor. Having fought in the trenches of the new media jungle, he has lived to tell the tale. In this penetrating reflection, Terence will share several insights he has learnt so far in his short dip into the public sphere, some which he picked up the hard way. For anyone with a desire to join the fray, don’t be too frightened by the dangerous-sounding imagery — there’s nothing quite like taking the plunge.

Sangeetha Yogendran, 23, NUS Law Undergraduate

Sangeetha is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s in Law from the National University of Singapore and is expected to graduate in early 2010. She will be sitting for the Singapore Bar over the course of the next year and has a keen interest in international law and human rights.

Having taken a semester off school, she spent the first seven months of the past year interning in Cambodia at the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials, and also working with Access to Justice LLP, a non-profit that is dedicated to working with survivors of mass crimes in Asia, enabling them to tell their stories through their own voices in the legal and social spheres.

An active volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, Sangeetha has travelled around the region, to places such as Thailand, Cambodia, China and India to aid in the construction of homes for the less fortunate. She has volunteered in several faculty-initiated community work programs and was an active member of her university’s pro bono programme.

Her interest in human rights law, transitional justice and developmental work has led her to previous internships with Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and an internship stint at the Interpol Headquarters in Lyon, France. She hopes to continue engaging in pro bono public interest work.

Implications of Singapore Law on Online Media

Sangeetha will be speaking from her experiences as a law student on the issues of law and online media. She will be examining the rights one has regarding online media, focusing on censorship and defamation laws. She will also examine the potential implications of the cooling-off day and talk about whether the current laws should be changed in this new online era.