Digitally Mediated Political Activism: The Democratic Impacts of Internet Diffusion in the Asian Cultural Context

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session I
  In Interactive Paper Session: Global Communication and Social Change Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

This study argues that the Internet as a mobilizing agent of unconventional political participation transcends the effects of traditional norms that shape and influence protest activity in East and Southeast Asia. To assess whether culture moderates the democratic impacts of Internet diffusion, the influence of “Asian values” is measured not only by individual dispositions but also by collective orientations toward the primacy of collective harmony and respect for authority. The data came from the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS), waves of the mid-2000s and the early 2010s. The data show that political participation of Asian Internet users was independent of cultural norms that hindered the involvement of non-users in unconventional political action at both the individual and societal levels. The results suggest that the democratic influence of the Asian Internet is free from resistance of traditional value systems to political activism.

Author

• Shin Haeng Lee, U of Washington