Democracy@internet.org Revisited: analysing the socio-political impact of the internet and new social media in East Asia

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the socio-political impact of the internet and new social media in East Asia. In particular it explores whether the new tools and platforms associated with the latter are having a democratising effect on the region's authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes by opening up a permissive online public sphere in which traditional hierarchies of power are challenged.