Hype or hubris? The political impact of the Internet and social networking in Southeast Asia

Since Facebook was founded in 2004, and Twitter in 2006, social media usage has grown at an almost exponential rate. What was once the plaything of students at elite liberal colleges in the United States has become a truly global phenomenon with over 1.2 billion users worldwide (Ross, 2014). Driven by the parallel explosion of cellphone usage worldwide, digital media is now available without the necessity of a personal computer (PC), laptop, or landline. Today the Internet is accessible almost anywhere, by anyone. The ramifications of this are transforming social, economic, and political life. Enthusiasts of the new technologies and new media proclaim their transformative effects. Among the most trumpeted of these are the democratization of access to information; the democratization of the production of media; and the liberalization of collaboration, cooperation, and organization. The effects, we are told, are either a revolution in communication and organization or the increased banality of information accompanied by the slacktivism of well-meaning individuals who are prepared to do little more than ‘like’ a group they share an affinity with. For those engaged in the study of comparative politics in regions of the world where authoritarian regimes and various forms of illiberal democracies survive, the impact of new online social media is of particular interest. Whether implicitly or explicitly normative in their analysis, scholars are increasingly examining whether such new tools and technologies are spreading democratic norms, empowering opposition, and/or undermining the various apparatuses of status quo rule.