Randolph Kluver

Political Hyperlinking in South Korea: Technical Indicators of Ideology and Content

As the Internet has become a more important source of information for citizens and consumers, politicians in a number of nations have employed the Web as a tool to facilitate contact with constituents and supporters. One of the least understood phenomena in the new ecology of political communication, however, is the use of hyperlinks to build public recognition, to demarcate ideological spaces and to reflect political alliances. The purpose of this paper is to examine the political hyperlinks established by the National Assembly members in South Korea, in order to ascertain their functions. This paper examines the communicative agendas of politicians as represented by their (out)linking practices. Hyperlink data obtained from the homepages of South Koreas National Assembly members during June of 2003 was collected. A hyperlink network analysis revealed that outlinks to political parties were the most common type of link. The next most preferred target websites were those maintained by the National Assembly, local governments such as city hall, and central government bodies, including Ministries. Websites rarely hyperlinked to civic and advocacy groups compared to other categories. In summary, there were more navigational outlinks for informative content than ideological affiliations. The results are discussed from the perspective of Asian values underlying political communication as well as online culture. Finally, this study performs an important role in contributing to the small but growing literature on how the Internet is affecting the practices of nations outside of the established democracies of the West.

The Internet in China: A Meta-Review of Research

To understand the ultimate status of Internet studies, it is necessary to observe from both a holistic and a particularistic perspective. This article examines one small area of research, the Internet in China, to use that case study as a lens with which to discern the development of Internet studies. By comparing this micro view of the parameters, agendas, and research foci of Chinese Internet research to the larger body of Internet research, it draws insights into the present and future of Internet studies more generally.

Political Culture and Information Technology in the 2001 Singapore General Election

Within the political configuration of advanced Western democracies, analysts agree that technology is a significant empowering force for organization and mobilization of political parties. However, it is clear that information technology is deployed and employed within a larger political culture, and therefore it is reasonable to expect that political culture has a mediating effect on the role of information technology and political practice. This essay presents a case study from the Republic of Singapore, a nation that has a vastly different political culture from the Western nations, to examine the ways in which assumptions about technology affected both the deployment and regulation of the Internet as a political force during the 2001 general election. Contrary to assumptions and arguments that the Internet has similar qualitative impacts across national boundaries, this essay argues that political culture, including regulation, plays a significant role in contextualizing and limiting the effects of new media on political practice. The results demonstrate significant national differences in the ways in which the Internet is used in campaigns, in soliciting feedback and discussion, and in establishing a political profile.

Asia.com: Asia encounters the internet

1. Asia Encounters the Internet Part 1 Perspectives and Critical Orientations 2. The State of Internet Use in Asia 3. Catching Up and Falling Behind: Inequality, IT and the Asian diaspora 4. Cyberspace, Surveillance and Social Control: The hidden face of the Internet in Asia 5. Global Technology Meets Local Environment: State attempts to control Internet content 6. Piracy, Open Source and International Intellectual Property Law Part 2 Issues and Impacts: Case studies 7. From Real to Virtual (and back again): Civil society, public sphere, and the Internet In Indonesia 8. MalaysiaKini.com and its Impact on Journalism and Politics in Malaysia 9. Who is Setting the Chinese Agenda? The Impact of Online Chatrooms on Party Presses in China 10. Clicking for Votes: Assessing Japanese political campaigns on the web 11. The Tamil Diaspora, Tamil Militancy and the Internet 12. Construction and Performance of Virtual Identity in the Chinese Internet 13. Opening a Pandoras Box: The cyber-activism of Japanese women 14. Support and Spewing: Everyday activities of Hindu online groups 15. Communication and Relationships in Online and Offline Worlds: A study of Singapore youths

The Internet and Online Political Communities in Singapore

The emergence and the widespread adoption of the Internet have brought about many dramatic changes on different levels. Due to its inherent characteristics, the Internet has become an engine of political mobilization and participation, and has led to the proliferation of online communities. Few studies examine how political groups use the Internet to build communities and forge alliances in cyberspace, and this study attempts to bridge this gap. Registered political parties and political expression groups in Singapore were selected for this study. Through hyperlink analysis, the study shows that reciprocity and similarity, two main characteristics observed in online communities, were found in the groupings formed by these political groups. Interestingly, most of the online affiliations that exist among these groups reflect those offline.

The Internet in nine Asian nations

In recent years, a number of analysts have argued that the Internet demonstrates an inexorable pull towards democratization of public life. The overwhelming majority of analysis conducted to understand the democratic potential of the Internet has taken place in Western Europe and North America, where democratic traditions are firmly established, and there is widespread acceptance of the liberal democratic norms arising from three hundred years of a set of religious and philosophical traditions. To date, research on the democratizing impact of the Internet outside these traditions has been sparse and incidental, rather than comprehensive and sustained. In Asia, however, recent events have threatened the vision of the democratizing power of the Internet, as politically oriented websites have suffered from dwindling economies and governmental pressure, as well as hackers.  This paper will survey the state of the Internet and democracy in Asia, drawing from data compiled as part of two recent research projects, the most systematic and sustained efforts yet to take place to examine these questions. The paper will present data from nine nations across Asia, including China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, and others, and identify the critical variables that are most directly affecting the ability of new political participants to effectively deploy the Internet for mobilization. This analysis will demonstrate the ways in which the reality of politics in Asia significantly modifies the findings of researchers examining the political impact of the Internet within the established democratic nations of North America and Western Europe.

Patriotism and the limits of globalization: Renegotiating citizenship in Singapore

Singapore, as one of the worlds most globalized nations, has undergone a series of tumultuous political and economic crises that has forced the nations leaders to adopt a very proactive stance to the formation of national identity. To create an imagined nation that would secure economic growth and harmonious ethnic ties, the leaders of the nation chose to define Singapore as a global city, which has had a long-term effect of lessening citizen loyalty to the Republic as the effects of globalization are realized. This article examines the role of globalization in forming and weakening national identity, and hence patriotism in Singapore, and explores the ways in which civic discourse is employed by the citizens and governmental leaders of Singapore to renegotiate national identity and patriotism.

US and Chinese Policy Expectations of the Internet

Since embarking upon the processes of modernization and globalization in the late 1970s, China’s policy toward technology has been geared toward building the nation’s economic and political strength, and ultimately reinforcing and proving China’s superiority as a socialist nation. Ironically, US policy toward China has promoted technology transfer and technological transformation based upon a deep-seated mythology of technology, which assumes that technology will fundamentally alter China’s socialist economic and political system. This article examines the conflicting expectations of the two governments about the likely impact of the internet and the steps each nation has attempted to ensure that certain outcomes do occur. Finally, the article discusses the actual impact of the internet on governance and political change in China.

Introduction: Political Communication in Asia

The genesis of this special issue goes back to a graduate course during the fall semester of 2002 in Singapore. In an attempt to introduce these students to the subdiscipline of political communication, I found it very difficult to find quality scholarship examining political communication in the Asian context, in either communication or political science journals. There are, of course, a number of notable exceptions, especially book-length monographs examining political communication in a particular nation, but by and large, in Asia, the work that has been accomplished has so far been largely fragmentary and a-theoretical, and any research on political communication arising from Asian contexts is largely irrelevant to the international networks of scholars examining these issues (Willnat & Aw, 2004). In a world in which geographical and political boundaries are weakened by the processes of globalization, it becomes even more imperative to grasp the ways in which communication is used to build political identities and to support political action. It is no longer possible for the citizens of one nation to ignore the processes and content of political communication in other nations, as to do so is to imperil the fragile global political order as it now exists. And yet, although there is an extensive, and perhaps even overwhelming, literature on intercultural and international communication, focusing especially on the commercial and interpersonal aspects, and an equally impressive body of research on comparative politics, and especially the politics of Asian nations, there is little substantive analysis of the role of communication in the political processes of nations outside of the developed West. As a result, there is at this point in time only a cursory understanding of the patterns and processes of Asian political communication within the international community of scholars. By and large, the drivers and mechanisms of political communication in Asian nations are poorly understood. Political communication as it is studied in the West often assumes certain philosophical stances that arise from the political traditions of the West, such as the inherent value of self-expressive speech, and the inviolate legal status of all humans. Thus, analysts in the West rarely

Information Society and Privacy in the People's Republic of China

Abstract This essay looks at the development of the “information society” in the Peoples Republic of China to attempt to discern the future of a social consensus regarding personal privacy. In particular, the essay examines the intersection of technological diffusion of Chinese society to determine the consequences of informatization on the formation of personal privacy. Although China lacks historical foundations for privacy recognition and protection, and there is still no meaningful privacy regime, the essay draws upon Lawrence Lessigs fourfold “modalities for control” to argue how these social factors (the law, market, social norms, and the architecture) interact to create new pressures and imperatives for privacy recognition and protection.