Siao Yuong Fong
BRIEF BIO
Dr Fong Siao Yuong worked as a practitioner in the media and theatre industries in Singapore prior to 2010. After completing her Masters in Film Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies and her PhD in Media and Cultural Studies at Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL), she lectured at RHUL and the Council of International Education Exchange Global Institute London.
In 2018, she moved back to Singapore for a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She is now a Research Associate there. Her research interests include anthropological approaches to media, Production Studies and Cultural Studies in Asia.
Apart from her written articles on media, power and censorship in Singapore, she co-edited a special issue on Singapore cinema at the journal Asian Cinema together with Dr Ng How Wee from the University of Westminster in the UK. More of her work can be found on her personal webpage.
CURRENT AND FUTURE PROJECTS
Dr Fong Siao Yuong is working on a book on the types of production practices that perpetuate authoritarian resilience in the media. This is based on her doctoral dissertation that she is redrafting into a monograph titled ‘Performing fear: Television production in an illiberal democracy’, which is an ethnographic investigation into the roles imagined audiences play in perpetuating authoritarian resilience in the media.
In terms of film projects, she is doing some work on emerging inter-Asian co-productions sparked by grants and funding made available in Asia in recent years. Traditionally, Asian filmmakers and producers have looked to the West for co-production and funding, and that has shaped the way we make films. Grants that are meant to encourage film co-productions within Asia have created a potential shift towards inter-Asian co-productions in recent years, which raises interesting questions about how that affects production practices and cultures.
RECENT REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS
1. Fong, S. Y. (forthcoming). Drama production and audiences as ‘affective superaddressee’ in an illiberal democracy. European Journal of Cultural Studies.
2. Fong, S. Y. & Ng, H. W., 2020. Unpacking the ‘Singapore New Wave’. In Asian Cinema, 31:1, 3-15.
3. Fong, S. Y. 2020. Imagining Film Censorship in Singapore: The case of Sex. Violence. Family Values. In Asian Cinema, 31:1, 77-98.
4. Fong, S. Y., 2018. Rethinking Censorship – A case study of Singaporean media. In Javnost – The Public, 25:4, 410-425, DOI: 10.1080/13183222.2018.1463350.