Stevens, Hallam (2023) Teleview and the aspirations of the infrastructural state in Singapore. In: Hirsh, Max, and Mostowlansky, Till, (eds.) Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, HI, USA, pp. 134-154.

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Abstract

[Extract] In 1988, Singapore rolled out a pi lot for a homegrown digital computer network. Teleview, as it was called, was a videotex system that used the public telephone network to connect paid subscribers to a central computer via a modem. Users could gain access to information about a variety of topics, including weather, stock market prices, and travel. They could also use online banking, business communication, ticket reservation, and educational services, as well as electronic directories, games, and magazines (Keong 1990). Despite significant government promotion of the project, the rate of uptake was slow. Although the cost was low—equivalent to about USD 5.50 per month, plus three cents per message and thirty-five cents per hour of connection time (Sandfort 1993)—only 5 percent of Singaporean house holds ever subscribed to Teleview (Wong 1997). The system was eventually modified to become a portal through which users could connect to the global internet.

Given this brief account, it is tempting to understand Teleview as a kind of failure—something that was not widely adopted and was quickly displaced once the real thing (namely, the World Wide Web) came along. As a corollary, it is also tempting to read Teleview as some sort of desperate (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt by an authoritarian government to curtail the democratizing forces that the internet promised to bring with it. Indeed, Cherian George (2012, 216), one of Singapore’s foremost media critics, quickly dismissed Singapore’s native network: “The Internet’s big bang in the mid-1990s turned the likes of Teleview into white elephants and relegated what were grand national projects to mere footnotes in the history of the online revolution.”

Item ID:	78070
Item Type:	Book Chapter (Research - B1)
ISBN:	9780824892920
Related URLs:	Author
Copyright Information:	© 2022 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved. The Open Access edition of this book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means that digital editions of the work may be freely downloaded and shared for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. Commercial uses and the publication of any derivative works require permission from the publisher. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The Creative Commons license described above does not apply to any material that is separately copyrighted.
Funders:	Hong Kong Research Grants Council (HKRGC)
Projects and Grants:	Making Modernity in East Asia (MMEA)
Date Deposited:	12 Jun 2023 07:18
FoR Codes:	43 HISTORY, HERITAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 4303 Historical studies > 430301 Asian history @ 100%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1307 Understanding past societies > 130702 Understanding Asia’s past @ 100%
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