This nuanced work draws on social movement studies to challenge current understandings of the relationship between media and the internet. The book's lively style will make it relevant for anyone interested in politics and media in Malaysia and Singapore.

The growth of the internet has been spectacular. There are now more than 3 billion internet users across the globe, some 40 per cent of the world’s population. The internet’s meteoric rise is a phenomenon of enormous significance for the economic, political and social life of contemporary societies. However, much popular and academic writing about the internet continues to take a celebratory view, assuming that the internet’s potential will be realised in essentially positive and transformative ways. This was especially true in the euphoric moment of the mid-1990s, when many commentators wrote about the internet with awe and wonderment. While this moment may be over, its underlying technocentrism – the belief that technology determines outcomes – lingers on and, with it, a failure to understand the internet in its social, economic and political contexts. Misunderstanding the Internet is a short introduction, encompassing the history, sociology, politics and economics of the internet and its impact on society. This expanded and updated second edition is a polemical, sociologically and historically informed guide to the key claims that have been made about the online world. It aims to challenge both popular myths and existing academic orthodoxies that surround the internet.

Edward Snowden's release of classified NSA documents exposed the widespread government practice of mass surveillance in a democratic society. The publication of these documents, facilitated by three journalists, as well as efforts to criminalize the act of being a whistleblower or source, signaled a new era in the coverage of national security reporting. The contributors to Journalism After Snowden analyze the implications of the Snowden affair for journalism and the future role of the profession as a watchdog for the public good. Integrating discussions of media, law, surveillance, technology, and national security, the book offers a timely and much-needed assessment of the promises and perils for journalism in the digital age. Journalism After Snowden is essential reading for citizens, journalists, and academics in search of perspective on the need for and threats to investigative journalism in an age of heightened surveillance. The book features contributions from key players involved in the reporting of leaks of classified information by Edward Snowden, including Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of The Guardian; ex-New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson; legal scholar and journalist Glenn Greenwald; and Snowden himself. Other contributors include dean of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Steve Coll, Internet and society scholar Clay Shirky, legal scholar Cass Sunstein, and journalist Julia Angwin. Topics discussed include protecting sources, digital security practices, the legal rights of journalists, access to classified data, interpreting journalistic privilege in the digital age, and understanding the impact of the Internet and telecommunications policy on journalism. The anthology's interdisciplinary nature provides a comprehensive overview and understanding of how society can protect the press and ensure the free flow of information.

Using interviews, newspaper articles, online texts, official documents, and national surveys, Lei shows that the development of the public sphere in China has provided an unprecedented forum for citizens to organize, influence the public agenda, and demand accountability from the government.

A Companion to New Media Dynamics presents a state-of-the-art collection of multidisciplinary readings that examine the origins, evolution, and cultural underpinnings of the media of the digital age in terms of dynamic change Presents a state-of-the-art collection of original readings relating to new media in terms of dynamic change Features interdisciplinary contributions encompassing the sciences, social sciences, humanities and creative arts Addresses a wide range of issues from the ownership and regulation of new media to their form and cultural uses Provides readers with a glimpse of new media dynamics at three levels of scale: the 'macro' or system level; the 'meso' or institutional level; and 'micro' or agency level

For several decades, the city-state of Singapore has been an international anomaly, combining an advanced, open economy with restrictions on civil liberties and press freedom. Freedom from the Pressanalyses the republic's media system, showing how it has been structured - like the rest of the political framework - to provide maximun freedom of manoeuvre for the People's Action Party (PAP) government. Cherian George assessed why the PAP's "freedom from the press" model has lasted longer than many other authoritarian systems. He suggests that one key factor has been the PAP's recognition that market forces could be harnessed as a way to tame journalism. Another counter-intuitive strategy is its self-restraint in the use of force, progressively turning to subtler means of control that are less prone to backfire. The PAP has also remained open to internal reform, even as it tries to insulate itself from political competition. Thus, although increasingly challenged by dissenting views disseminated through the internet, the PAP has so far managed to consolidate its soft-authoritarian, hegemonic form of electoral democracy. Given Singapore's unique place on the world map of press freedom and democracy, this book not only provides a constructive engagement with ongoing debates about the city-state but also makes a significant contribution to the comparative study of journalism and politics.

The Global Journalist in the 21st Century systematically assesses the demographics, education, socialization, professional attitudes and working conditions of journalists in various countries around the world. This book updates the original Global Journalist (1998) volume with new data, adding more than a dozen countries, and provides material on comparative research about journalists that will be useful to those interested in doing their own studies. The editors put together this collection working under the assumption that journalists’ backgrounds, working conditions and ideas are related to what is reported (and how it is covered) in the various news media round the world, in spite of societal and organizational constraints, and that this news coverage matters in terms of world public opinion and policies. Outstanding features include: Coverage of 33 nations located around the globe, based on recent surveys conducted among representative samples of local journalists Comprehensive analyses by well-known media scholars from each country A section on comparative studies of journalists An appendix with a collection of survey questions used in various nations to question journalists As the most comprehensive and reliable source on journalists around the world, The Global Journalist will serve as the primary source for evaluating the state of journalism. As such, it promises to become a standard reference among journalism, media, and communication students and researchers around the world.

Based on extensive interviews and archival material, The First Wave tells the story of the opposition in Singapore in its critical first thirty years in Parliament. Democratisation has been described to occur in waves. The first wave of a democratic awakening in post-independence Singapore began with J. B. Jeyaretnam’s victory in the Anson by-election of 1981. That built up to the 1984 general election, the first of many to be called a “watershed”, in which Chiam See Tong was also elected in Potong Pasir. After their successes in 1991, the opposition began dreaming of forming the government. But their euphoria was short-lived. Serious fault lines in the leading Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) rose to the surface almost immediately after the opposition victories of 1991, and the party was wiped out of Parliament by 1997. The opposition spent the next decade experimenting with coalition arrangements, to work their way back to victory.

Social media are now widely used for political protests, campaigns, and communication in developed and developing nations, but available research has not yet paid sufficient attention to experiences beyond the US and UK. This collection tackles this imbalance head-on, compiling cutting-edge research across six continents to provide a comprehensive, global, up-to-date review of recent political uses of social media. Drawing together empirical analyses of the use of social media by political movements and in national and regional elections and referenda, The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics presents studies ranging from Anonymous and the Arab Spring to the Greek Aganaktismenoi, and from South Korean presidential elections to the Scottish independence referendum. The book is framed by a selection of keystone theoretical contributions, evaluating and updating existing frameworks for the social media age.