The Straits Times won five awards at the 2013 Asian Digital Media Awards (Adma) on Wednesday evening, including a gold in the Best in Social Media category for its ST Communities site.
The one-year-old Communities microsite allows readers, journalists, artistes and community partners to get published alongside one another to share their views on entertainment happenings.
Mr Ernest Luis, editor of stcommunities.sg, said: "Not many newspaper-owned websites allow readers to get published next to the journalists they follow. I'm glad the judges recognise the social media-influenced design of ST Communities. We hope to put out more shareable material and promote more of our readers' works."
It shared the gold with Thailand's Nation Group, a multimedia company.
The Straits Times' citizen journalism website Stomp won gold in the Best in Online Media (Newspaper Website) category.
The newspaper's website - straitstimes.com - which had won a gold in that category last year, won a bronze this year, sharing it with Malaysia's The Star Online and Japan's Asahi Shimbun. Silver went to the New Zealand Herald.
The Straits Times also won a silver in Best in Cross Media for its coverage on the haze in June this year, which saw pollution readings hit record highs in the country because of fires in Indonesia. The newspaper had covered the event across its print and digital platforms. The gold in this category went to Australia's Seven West Media for its coverage on Syrian refugees, and the bronze to India's The Hindu.
Finally, the ST photo desk got a bronze for Best in Online Video for its 48 Singaporean Seconds, an audio-visual tribute to Singaporeans tied to this year's 48th National Day. Singapore's Ministry of Defence and West Australian Newspapers received the gold and silver awards respectively.
The project featured 25 Singaporeans in videos that were each 48 seconds long.
Ms Stephanie Yeow, editor of ST's picture desk, said: "We are extremely proud of Desmond Lim and Neo Xiaobin for producing such a fine body of work in 48 Singaporean Seconds. Both took great pains to find a varied crop of Singaporeans across the entire spectrum of society, spanning age, race, religion, gender. I'm extremely happy that their good work has resonated with the judges."
The awards, run by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, attracted 149 entries from 16 countries. It was held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. This was the biggest haul by The Straits Times since the awards were launched in 2010.
Entries from Singapore Press Holdings, which publishes The Straits Times, also swept prizes.
Herworldplus won silver in the Best in Online Media (Magazine Website) category; Tiger Beer's Have You Been Good? won gold in the Best in Cross Media Advertising category while ST Classifieds and STCars both won bronze in the same category; ST Property won bronze for the Best in Mobile Media category; and the Wanbao ipad app and omy.sg won gold in the Best in Tablet Publishing category.
