Southeast Asia’s Internet users are far more diverse than usually reported. They range from the urban youth with laptops and highspeed Wi-Fi, to the older generation semi-rural and rural users with affordable mobile phones for Facebook and WhatsApp. Southeast Asians generally trust social media platforms more than in Western societies. This trust in social media reflects a lack of trust in local mainstream media and official sources of information. What campaign information (and disinformation) is being spread and which ones are most successful are essential for understanding how voters in Southeast Asia use and trust social media. Social media platforms and Southeast Asia’s “app industry” need clearer and enforced regulation on their use of data and the extent to which they can sell data to advertisers. These advertisers include, but are not limited to, politicians and political parties. Since the future of social media usage will likely lie in closed groups, the role of big data analyses that have dominated research on social media over the past ten years, is likely to regress. Instead, ethnographic scholars who can access these groups and engage with their particular interests and identities are more likely to be useful in understanding the digital sphere in the future.

Southeast Asia's Internet users are far more diverse than usually reported. They range from the urban youth with laptops and highspeed Wi-Fi, to the older generation semi-rural and rural users with affordable mobile phones for Facebook and WhatsApp.

"By examining the political discourse and social interactions that occur within six different political communities in Malaysia, this volume sheds light on how theories of political communication and social media play out on a granular level. Malaysia, with its interesting amalgam of democratic politics and intractable racial and religious divides, is ripe for a study of how online communication within different political and social groups actually works. With chapters on Malay, Islamic, Chinese, Indian, and Christian online communities, along with those of Sabah and Sarawak, this volume will be of interest to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of how political interaction and digital discourse function on the ground in this important country in Southeast Asia." -- Janet Steele, Professor of Media and Public Affairs and International Affairs, George Washington University "Social media has emerged as a definitive tool for the production and dissemination of sociopolitical narratives that engender sweeping tides of change and transformation in our world today. This expertly and ably curated collection of essays helps us better understand this phenomenon as it has unfolded in Malaysia, where politics has undergone a sea change in recent years, and it is essential reading for those of us who are interested in the trajectory of Malaysian society and politics." -- Joseph Chinyong Liow, Tan Kah Kee Chair in Comparative and International Politics, Nanyang Technological University "This book is relevant not only for readers interested in Malaysian politics. The midsized Southeast Asian country offers a compelling case study for anyone thinking about online spaces and political participation in electoral democracies. Among regimes with autocratic tendencies, the Malaysian state was among the earliest adopters of an open internet—which for two decades seemed to do nothing to weaken the hegemony of its ruling party. More recently, in an age marked by democratic backsliding around the world, the country has shown potential to buck the trend. The backdrop of these developments is one of the world’s most culturally plural environments. This welcome volume looks at how various ethnic communities, communicating in each of the country’s major languages, have turned online spaces into the dominant arena for political contestation." -- Cherian George, author, Contentious Journalism and the Internet: Towards Democratic Discourse in Malaysia and Singapore (2006)

This book reflects on the role of social media in the past two decades in Southeast Asia. It traces the emergence of social media discourse in Southeast Asia, and its potential as a “liberation technology” in both democratizing and authoritarian states. It explains the growing decline in internet freedom and increasingly repressive and manipulative use of social media tools by governments, and argues that social media is now an essential platform for control. The contributors detail the increasing role of “disinformation” and “fake news” production in Southeast Asia, and how national governments are creating laws which attempt to address this trend, but which often exacerbate the situation of state control. From Grassroots Activism to Disinformation explores three main questions: How did social media begin as a vibrant space for grassroots activism to becoming a tool for disinformation? Who were the main actors in this transition: governments, citizens or the platforms themselves? Can reformists “reclaim” the digital public sphere? And if so, how?

How the World Changed Social Media is the first book in Why We Post, a book series that investigates the findings of anthropologists who each spent 15 months living in communities across the world. This book offers a comparative analysis summarising the results of the research and explores the impact of social media on politics and gender, education and commerce. What is the result of the increased emphasis on visual communication? Are we becoming more individual or more social? Why is public social media so conservative? Why does equality online fail to shift inequality offline? How did memes become the moral police of the internet? Supported by an introduction to the project’s academic framework and theoretical terms that help to account for the findings, the book argues that the only way to appreciate and understand something as intimate and ubiquitous as social media is to be immersed in the lives of the people who post. Only then can we discover how people all around the world have already transformed social media in such unexpected ways and assess the consequences

Responding to evolving challenges toward achieving gender equality and social inclusion. 30-31 August 2021, Indonesia. This event, organized by Pusat Studi Gender, Anak, dan Keluarga (PPGAK) ‘The Center of Gender, Children, and Family Studies’ Universitas Andalas aims to promote new insights and discussion about the current global perspectives, considering the differences in academic and subject fields’ approaches across time, countries, and economic sectors, with its implications and to improve and share the scientific knowledge on gender research. Is meant to open our horizon that the issue of gender and social inclusion may be viewed from various disciplines and perspectives. This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 1st International Conference in Gender, Culture and Society, held online from Padang, Indonesia, August 30-31, 2021. The 85 revised full papers were carefully selected from 124 submissions. The papers are organized thematically in gender, culture and society. The papers present a wide range of insights and discussion about the current global perspectives on gender research.

This study of Southeast Asian media and politics explores issues of global relevance pertaining to journalism's relationship with political power. It argues that the development of free, independent, and plural media has been complicated by trends towards commercialisation, digital platforms, and identity-based politics. These forces interact with state power in complex ways, opening up political space and pluralising discourse, but without necessarily producing structural change. The Element has sections on the democratic transitions of Indonesia, Myanmar and Malaysia; authoritarian resilience in Singapore; media ownership patterns in non-communist Southeast Asia; intolerance in Indonesia and Myanmar; and digital disruptions in Vietnam and Malaysia.