Research

The 2011 Singapore election survey

Stephan Ortmann - City University of Hong Kong - stephan.ortmann@cityu.edu.hk

As promised, I am publishing the results of my online election survey. Altogether, an amazing 1338 people participated in this pre-election survey. As the data shows, there are a number of biases: an overwhelming majority of the participants were male (73%) and a majority was also under 30. The survey was distributed through Facebook and Twitter as well as a few message boards.

        The result has the Workers' Party winning with a large majority (65% if voters could vote for any party and 34% wanted to vote for the WP), which is perhaps not surprising considering their good showing in the general election. The second most popular party among the respondents is the Singapore Democratic Party. This may show that the youth tends to favor these parties but it may also be due to the way the survey way was distributed. I have, however, tried to push it on the Facebook pages of the ruling People's Action Party and their youth wing, the Young PAP. Perhaps surprising is the lack of interest among the pro-opposition leaning respondents, for the Singapore Democratic Alliance. This may be due to the relatively small online presence of the group.

        The result on the media, which is the rest of the survey, is not very surprising. Trust in online media is highest, while the traditional media scores poorly. Especially the New Paper, which published unfounded allegations about a planned protest at a Singapore Democratic Party rally, received poor marks. Among the traditional media, Today was the most respected while on the internet The Online Citizen was regarded as more credible than the Temasek Review.

        The data should be helpful in writing an article and I will analyze the data further. Please share any comments that you have with me.