Hi there, I'm Kai!

I'm a journalist, researcher and storyteller.

I like to say that I cover the “oddball beat” for The Straits Times because my reporting focuses on emerging trends, unusual subcultures and under-represented perspectives. My academic research is concerned with the relationship between technology, governance, and knowledge production.

Beyond ST, some of my past work include roles in journalism (Business Insider, Yahoo Singapore) and working with non-profits and think tanks (International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict).

I studied sociology and political science: graduating at the top of my class from the University of Cambridge as a postgraduate Chevening Scholar, and completing my undergraduate studies at Leiden University.

For work-related queries, please contact me at kaixiang@sph.com.sg.

Alternatively, contact me at kaixiang.01 on Signal.

You can find me on: LinkedIn, Signal and Bluesky

Journalism

I think of my journalistic writing as falling under three main categories:

The invisible trends reshaping our cities - urban patterns of renewal and destruction, late-night transport and the nighttime economy, "colour democracy", vanishing nightlife districts, when a mall grows old, and why millennial homes look like that.

Fringe subcultures and 'taboo' topics - being a target of 'revenge porn' (video interview here), incel communities, furries, asexuality and aromanticism, crypto bros, and TikTok aunties.

How we imagine the past and construct the future - Singapore without Singaporeans, what might Singapore look like for those born today, nostalgic video games making a comeback, the rise and fall of Singapore's animation industry, digital legacies, and an early history of public awareness campaigns.

Research

My academic research is concerned with how technology governance influences knowledge production: how do the rules and affordances that structure the data and information technologies defining our everyday life shape our understanding of the world?

Awards and prizes:

Chevening and Cambridge Trust Scholarship (which fully funded my master's degree)
MPhil Sociology Polity Prize (for achieving the top mark within my University of Cambridge cohort of around 60 sociology students)
Hart-Marshall Arts and Humanities Prize (from Clare Hall, in recognition of promising early-career research)

Peer-reviewed publications:

Civil Society Responses to Singapore’s Online “Fake News” Law, International Journal of Communication.
Data Governance and Civil Society in Singapore, International Journal of Communication (accepted for publication).

Conferences and panels:

Building Awareness of Online Sexual Harms (panelist), Online Sexual Harms in Singapore, 2026, National University of Singapore.
Social Media and Online Spaces (panelist), Young Singaporeans Conference, 2022, Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore.
Civil Society and Data Justice in Singapore (conference presentation), Chevening Conference, 2022, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London.
Comparing Legal and Non-Legal Anti-Misinformation Mechanisms in Singapore (conference presentation), 3rd Multidisciplinary International Symposium on Disinformation in Open Online Media, 2021, Oxford Internet Institute.

Datasets:

POFMA'ed Dataset (2019-2022): A dataset of every use of Singapore's law against online "fake news", which has been cited by Freedom House, the International Commission of Jurists, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights and many others in their analyses of this law's impact on political discourse.

Multimedia

Untitled Train Story, my first ever published short story and one of 11 winners of the 2022 Storytel Epigram Horror Prize.

Paper Trails, a satirical pen and paper game published in the fourth issue of Mynah Magazine.

How a Reddit Post Sparked a National Conversation on Trans Rights, an article in my newsletter on Singapore's media and politics.

We, the City, a pen-and-paper game about belonging outside belonging, where players define the soul of a city.

Google Sites

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