| Summary: | Since its inception, television has constantly been used by the Singapore
government in facilitating its nation-building efforts. Television dramas, in
particular, Chinese drama serials, have been the most popular form of locally
produced entertainment in Singapore and are able to reach out to a wide national
audience. Set in the period between the 1980s and 1990s, where these Chinese
dramas were at the peak of its popularity, the government, at the same time, also
became increasingly involved in the culture and identity of the Chinese
community in Singapore. Therefore, this paper seeks to make use of two popular
Chinese period dramas, The Awakening and Stepping Out, to understand how
the history of the Singaporean-Chinese was represented, and how it was also
subjected to multiple re-interpretations, in order to fit into the change in the
government’s agenda and approach towards “Chineseness”.
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