Rights versus morality : online debate about decriminalization of gay sex in Singapore

This paper 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...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Detenber, Benjamin H., Cenite, Mark, Zhou, Shuhua, Neo, Rachel L., Malik, Shelly
Other Authors: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/104387
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/20164
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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Summary:This paper 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 also reveal similarities to how Western cultures have framed the debate.