On 7th November, SEAC hosted a Southeast Asia Discussion Series seminar chaired by SEAC Director Prof. Hyun Bang Shin with main speaker Dr Merlyna Lim (Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Digital Media and Global Network Society, Carleton University, and LSE SEAC Visiting Senior Fellow) who spoke on the topic of social media and politics in Southeast Asia.

Summary of Dr Lim’s talk: Social media platforms and mobile devices have increasingly played a critical role in facilitating and mobilizing collective actions, activism, and social movements all over the world, including Southeast Asia, for both progressive and regressive causes. Simultaneously, the very same technologies have also been utilized by states and public authorities for their own benefits, including to control public opinions and repress dissents. Moving away from assessing the presumed democratic potentials of social media, I explore the complex and contradictory relationships between social media and politics to help understand how state and society relations, power, and politics are contested and exercised on, with, and through social media. Drawing on diverse case studies from the region, particularly from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, the project offers insights across a broad spectrum of social media based engagements and  examines their varied implications on politics, in discourses and practices.

This event relates to SEAC's #governance theme.

Listen to and watch the presentation