Shelly Malik

Migrant mothering and mobile phones: Negotiations of transnational identity

Transnational mothers working in foreign countries face the challenges of providing “intensive” mothering to their children from a distance, and risk being subject to the “deviancy” discourse of mothering. This paper investigates the role of mobile phone usage, via voice, text messages, and social networking sites, in dealing with the tensions and ambivalence arising from transnational mothering as a dialectical process. We surveyed 42 Filipina and Indonesian foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Singapore using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. FDWs addressed tensions arising out of societal expectations of motherhood and their own anxieties about children’s well-being. The reluctant obsessive struggled to maintain a balance between an intensive nurturing style and a deviant mode of mothering that respected the growing independence of the children. The diverted professional had to balance the financial empowerment of being the primary breadwinner with the risk of surrogate motherhood for the employer’s children subsuming the care provided to her own. The remote-control parent shared mothering responsibilities with caregivers, usually relatives, who acted as a contradictory proxy presence for intensive mothering. The incomplete union of stressed marital parenting put further pressure on the romantic and sexual identities of migrant women. Transnational mothers utilized mobile phones actively as a tool to negotiate and redefine identities and relationships that created fissures in their sense of self. These included the management of third-party relationships, withholding of emotions or information, and engaging in counterintuitive phenomenon such as restricting, or actively dis-engaging from, mobile phone usage as a communication strategy. The paper calls for future research into the multiple, and interacting, social identities assumed and managed by transnational mothers, and the complex role played by mobile phones in the constant process of negotiation by agentic, self-relective and multifaceted women.

The Roles of Value Predispositions, Communication, and Third-Person Perception, on Public Support for Censorship of Films With Homosexual Content

This study aims to examine the roles of value predispositions, communication, and third person perception on public support for censorship of films with homosexual content in Singapore. Findings from a nationally representative telephone survey of adults showed that the majority of Singaporeans supported stricter censorship of films with homosexual characters. Conformity to norms, intrinsic religiosity, and Asian orientation were positively associated with public support for censorship. Media exposure and perceived negative media effects on self were negatively associated with public support for censorship. Our results supported the perceptual component but not the behavioral component of the third person effect.

Can exergames impart health messages? Game play, framing, and drivers of physical activity among children.

This study examines the effectiveness of incorporating exergaming into physical education lessons as a platform for imparting health education messages and influencing childrens beliefs about and attitudes toward physical activity. The authors launched a 6-week intervention program using Nintendo Wii games coupled with protection motivation theory–based health messaging among 5th-grade school children in Singapore. Results indicated that when children who were exposed to threat-framed messages played Wii exergames during physical education lessons, they reported more positive physical activity attitude, self-efficacy, and perceived behavioral control than did those who underwent regular physical education lessons and were exposed to the same message. In addition, among children playing Wii, the threat and coping frames had similar effects on the degree of message influence on physical activity attitudes and beliefs. The implications for schools, parents, and health policy are discussed.

Examining Education and Newsroom Work Experience as Predictors of Communication Students' Perceptions of Journalism Ethics.

This study examines education and work experience in newsrooms as predictors of ethical perceptions among communication undergraduates at a large Singaporean university (N = 826). Results indicate that education is associated with ethical ideologies, perceived importance of journalism ethics codes, justifiability of using contentious news gathering methods, and concern towards journalistic plagiarism and fabrication. However, in this context, education is not a significant predictor of agreement with ethical principles or support for sanctions against journalistic plagiarism and fabrication. Ethical ideologies (idealism and relativism) are associated with ethical principles and the degree to which using contentious news gathering methods is justifiable. Work experience in newsrooms is associated with perceived justifiability of using contentious news-gathering methods but not with ethical ideologies. The pattern of results was not entirely as predicted and may be a function of the way journalism is practiced and perceived in Singapore.

Intergenerational transfer of blood pressure knowledge and screening: a school-based hypertension awareness program in Singapore

Objective: This study aims to examine the efficacy of a hypertension awareness education program in Singapore in reaching out to a wider population of diverse racial and intergenerational cohorts by dispatching grade five children as information intermediaries to their immediate and extended family members. Method: After receiving structured instruction and training on blood pressure screening, students were requested to share knowledge gained in school with their family members at home and practice blood pressure measurement on family volunteers. We assessed pre- and post-program blood pressure knowledge change, attitude toward screening, and the diffusion of blood pressure information. One adult family member was also asked to complete a short survey at the program end. Results: A comparison of the students’ (final n = 3926) pre- and post-program survey data showed that knowledge and attitudes towards knowledge sharing improved after participating in the program. The post-program survey also revealed that students generally felt confident and displayed positive attitudes in performing blood pressure screening on family members. On average, each student practiced blood pressure measurement on 3.04 people. Female family members were more likely to be targeted for knowledge sharing and screening than male family members. The family members’ survey revealed positive attitudes towards screening, but family members were not confident about getting their measurements done regularly. Conclusion: The program met its objectives in raising the awareness of grade five children and provision of knowledge. It also met the larger objective of raising hypertension awareness in a wider population, especially those who otherwise might not directly receive health education and blood pressure screening.

The Use of Mobile Phone and Internet in Transnational Mothering Among Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore

The present study investigates the use of ICTs, particularly mobile phone and internet, among female migrant domestic workers in Singapore for transnational mothering. Through survey and interviews or focus group discussions to 11 Filipino and 11 Indonesian domestic workers, we found that ICTs played a critical role in their child rearing practices. Despite the distance, ICTs enabled them to be closely involved in their children’s routines, get updates about their studies, and even set rules and ensure that they are observed. ICTs were able to partially alleviate their worries about their children, build and maintain intimacies through jokes and frequent communication. While mobile phone was still most preferred for its convenience and voice function, new technologies, such as Facebook and video chat, played a complementary role to, rather than replacing, mobile phone. Facebook allowed them to check on their children’s friends, while video chat combined the benefits of simultaneously talking to and seeing their children. However, ICTs were no substitute to physical presence in which their limited abilities to bridge time and space was magnified when their children fell sick or felt sad. Barriers to the use of ICTs still exist, most commonly in the form of infrastructural barriers in their home countries and employers’ restrictions. Considering the importance of ICT use in connecting with their families and children, governments should push for greater access to ICTs for domestic workers, not only in providing mobile phone handsets, but more importantly, in ensuring the rights to contact their families regularly.

Rights Versus Morality: Online Debate About Decriminalization of Gay Sex in Singapore

This article presents a quantitative content analysis of 10,473 comments from two opposing online petitions related to the legal status of a section of the penal code in Singapore used to ban sex between men. Results indicate numerous significant differences in how the two sides discussed the law and its significance. In particular, they used different types of arguments to support their views and expressed different kinds of concerns over the potential impact of changing or maintaining the law. The patterns of language use seem to reflect distinctly different approaches to the debate and suggest the difficulty of finding common ground amid this contentious social issue, but they also reveal similarities to how Western cultures have framed the debate.

Disparities in the impact of community hypertension education programme across age, gender, race and housing type:

Objective: This study investigated the extent to which the efficacy of a hypertension awareness programme in Singapore may differ based on age, gender, race and housing type (as proxy for income). Method: Pre- and post-programme survey responses on blood pressure (BP) knowledge and beliefs from 9,960 grade 5 students were assessed. Post-programme responses from 5,361 adult family members were also evaluated. Results: Female students were more likely to show better BP knowledge and beliefs. As compared to Chinese students, Malay students had lower levels of BP knowledge and attitudes, while Indian students possessed stronger attitudes. Programme efficacy among students in the most affordable housing was the least favourable. In the adult family member sample, Malay and Indian adults had higher self-confidence and intention to measure their BP in the future than the Chinese. Adult respondents in the most affordable housing possessed the least favourable beliefs towards BP measurement. Older adults, men, Malays and residents in affordable housing types had higher odds of being found with hypertension when tested at home. Conclusion: Despite the same hypertension education programme being implemented, disparities in programme impact were apparent in both student and adult sample across race, housing type and, to a lesser extent, gender. Future interventions should consider these disparities when developing health education programmes.