Social Media, Culture and Politics in Asia

Lars Willnat (PhD, Indiana University) is Professor of Journalism at Indiana University. He is the author of more than 50 journal articles and book chapters and is a co-editor of The Global Journalist in the 21st Century (2012) and Political Communication in Asia (2009). He is a co-author of Empirical Political Analysis: Research Methods in Political Science (2008).Annette Aw (PhD, University of Oklahoma) is Professor at the University of Maryland University College. She is also a research consultant focusing on media-related studies for private businesses, trade associations and government agencies.

• Contents: Lars Willnat/Annette Aw: Social Media, Culture, and Politics in Asia – Jason Martin: Social Media and Political Participation: Review of the Literature – Lu Wei: Social Media and Political Participation in China – Francis Lee: Hong Kong: Social Media and Political Participation in a «Protest Society» – Tsung-Jen Shih: Social Media and Political Participation in Taiwan – Jihyang Choi/Jae Woong Shim: New Media and Participatory Politics: The Case of South Korea – Toshio Takeshita/Shinichi Saito/Tetsuro Inaba: Social Media and Political Participation in Japan – Ezhar Tamam/Md. Salleh Hassan/Zohair Sabaghpour Azarian: Social Media and Political Participation in Malaysia – Cherian George/Xiaoming Hao/Nainan Wen: Social Media and Political Participation in Singapore – Smith Boonchutima/Shuo Tang: Social Media and Political Participation in Thailand – Usha Raman/Roshni Verghese: India Youth and Social Media: Modes of Engagement? – Lars Willnat: Social Media and Political Participation in Nine Asian Nations.

«This collection brings a valuable cross-national view of online connectivity in Asia, the world’s most dynamic media environment. Both comparative and contextualized, the research confirms that social media have great potential to both circumvent state control and make a positive contribution to civic life, especially among their most avid users: tomorrow’s citizens.» (Stephen D. Reese, Jesse H. Jones Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Moody College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin)«‘Social Media, Culture and Politics in Asia’ successfully captures how social media relates to political participation in nine Asian countries, ranging from the democratic to the authoritarian. The editors should be lauded for making the country reports comparable by relying on a common analytical framework and using the same survey questionnaire in each nation. Conceptual, empirical and comparative in approach, this is a book not to be missed by anyone interested in comparative media studies in general and the impact of social media on political participation in particular.» (Joseph M. Chan, Professor of Journalism and Communication and Director of The Centre for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)