The failed construction of fake news as a security threat in Malaysia

Neo, Ric

doi:10.1080/13569775.2021.1884397

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Åtland & Ven Bruusgaard (2009), who study the non-escalation of the Elektron security incident between Russia and Norway, stress the importance of a securitizing actor’s social capital. Neo (2021) meanwhile, examines why fake news, although broadly recognized as a threat, was not successfully securitized in Malaysia. He attributes this to the audience’s lack of trust in the lead securitizing actor, who became the subject of a major corruption scandal during the time.…”

Section: The Conditions That Facilitate Securitization: Bringing the ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Overall, while successful instances of securitization are often explained with respect to the range of facilitating conditions hitherto described, unsuccessful securitization attempts are frequently explained by their absence – such as the speaker’s social capital and whether a discourse contains fear-eliciting elements (Åtland and Ven Bruusgaard, 2009; Neo, 2021; Van Rythoven, 2015). That said, why certain securitizing moves are actively resisted and how these unfold in reality remain understudied.…”

Section: The Conditions That Facilitate Securitization: Bringing the ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Audience agency in a curious instance of failed securitization: Public resistance to the Singapore government’s eugenics program

Krishnan

2024

Security Dialogue

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Securitization theory posits that security threats are socially constructed. Yet, how audiences influence the failure and success of securitization attempts is still not well understood. In this article, I argue that audiences bring their normative perspectives to bear upon the interpretation of securitization attempts. This theoretical addendum, I hold, permits a fuller appreciation of how audiences express their agency when receiving securitization attempts. I examine the Singaporean context, where the discursive backdrop favours the construction of security threats. While the Singaporean government has successfully securitized many issues, Lee Kuan Yew’s attempt to securitize the country’s declining birth rates failed dramatically. This occurred, I contend, as the Singaporean public was deeply offended by the normative premises of Lee’s eugenicist argument, thus refusing to engage with the issue on the government’s terms. These objections were only fuelled by the eugenics programme the government later introduced, ultimately causing the government to discontinue its pronatalist policies and significantly revise its rhetoric. This article develops the understanding of how securitization unfolds by expanding on the conceptualization of audience behaviour. By examining Singapore, which has failed to inspire many analyses of securitization, it also diversifies securitization theory’s empirical reach, highlighting its intelligibility within non-democratic contexts.

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Section: The Conditions That Facilitate Securitization: Bringing the ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Conditions That Facilitate Securitization: Bringing the ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Audience agency in a curious instance of failed securitization: Public resistance to the Singapore government’s eugenics program

Krishnan

2024

Security Dialogue

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“…A statement issued by the Taiwanese government in October 2018 described the proliferation of fake news as ‘a national security crisis’ with the potential to compromise national elections forthcoming in 2020 (Drillsma, 2018). Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak claimed that fake news amounted to a ‘security threat’ and that the government would not allow it to ‘compromise Malaysia's sovereignty’ (Neo, 2021; Yunus, 2018). And in Singapore, a Parliamentary Select Committee convened to examine fake news concluded that it presents a ‘very grave phenomenon of an unprecedented scale’ for the country as it can ‘damage the social fabric of the nation and exploit religious fault‐lines’ (Kwang, 2018).…”

Section: Fake News As a National Security Threatmentioning

confidence: 99%

The International Discourses and Governance of Fake News

Neo

2021

Global Policy

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Since the 2016 US presidential elections, fake news and misinformation have been recognised as a major problem of the modern, connected world. However, this increased salience has been accompanied by an expansion in voices articulating different approaches towards the issue. This article presents an examination of the range of societal discourses of fake news advanced by four types of hegemonic societal actors: international organisations, states, civil society and large business interests, focusing on the following. First, how do existing discourses conceive of the nature of fake news and the societal objects it threatens? Next, what are the solutions proposed? Through an analysis of policy interventions and texts, this article presents a taxonomy of the current most salient understandings of fake news, showing that present conceptualisations of the issue can be categorised into three competing discourses: discourses constructing fake news as an existential threat, a political problem or a minor issue. The analysis highlights important variations in how different regimes conceptualise fake news, revealing how authoritarian governments have sought to construct fake news as a security threat in order to justify constraints on free speech. On the flipside, leaving fake news completely unregulated leads to conflict‐of‐interest issues and an accountability gulf implicating ‘Big Tech’. This article calls for more analytical focus on the discourses of fake news, which constitutes a significant but under‐examined factor in comprehending the long‐term consequences of the problem of fake news.

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‘The cure cannot be worse than the problem’: securitising the securitisation of COVID-19 in the USA

Kirk

2022

Contemporary Politics

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The failed construction of fake news as a security threat in Malaysia

Cited by 4 publications

References 32 publications

Audience agency in a curious instance of failed securitization: Public resistance to the Singapore government’s eugenics program

Audience agency in a curious instance of failed securitization: Public resistance to the Singapore government’s eugenics program

The International Discourses and Governance of Fake News

‘The cure cannot be worse than the problem’: securitising the securitisation of COVID-19 in the USA

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