www.donau-uni.ac.at/cedem

1. Youth, ICTs and Political
Engagement in Asia
A project supported by
Ideacorp / IDRC

2. Southeast Asia Manila, Philippines KL, Malaysia Singapore
South Asia Dhaka, Bangladesh Colombo, Sri Lanka Delhi, India
• To examine the types of ICTs (e.g., short
message service) youth is using for engaging in
the political process and to what effect;
• To understand the role of ICTs in changing
relationships between young citizens and the
political institutions (e.g., the government,
NGOs, etc);
• To examine how the usage of ICTs is
transforming the nature of young citizen’s
political engagement.

3. The Final Team
• Dr. Weiyu Zhang, National Univ. of Singapore
• Dr. Clarissa David, UP Diliman, Philippines
• Dr. Joanne Lim Bee Yin, University of
Nottingham Malaysia Campus
• Dr. P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan, India Institute of
Technology, Delhi
• Dr. Sahid Ullah, Chittagong University,
Bangladesh

4. The Design
• Six-country comparative study
– 20-30 in-depth interviews with young activists
– 5-10 focus groups with average youth
Malaysia Philippines Singapore Bangladesh India Sri Lanka
Interviewees 26 29 24 23 26 15
FGDs 8 8 12 7 6 N.A.

5. Bypassing the political institutions
TRENDS (DECLINING)

6. Media
• ICTs as alternative channels, for both acquiring
and disseminating information
– Lack of access to mass channels (Singapore and
Malaysia)
– Two-step activism (Bangladesh, India and
Philippines)

7. Parties
• The demise of party politics?
– Weak partisanship, built upon social cleavages and
ideological differences (Singapore and Malaysia)
• Oppose for the sake of opposing?
– Corrupt and closed party systems (Bangladesh,
India and Philippines)
• Increasingly cynical about party activities

8. Networked individualism
TRENDS (RISING)

9. Community
• A break away from state-dominated
development and participation
– Making up for the ineffectiveness of government
(India and Philippines)
– Opening up spaces for political activism
(Singapore and Malaysia)
• Online communities
– a generation whose social capital exists in visible
networks of“friends of friends of friends”

10. Issues
• Issue-based politics vs. party-based politics
– Young connected people are increasingly exposed
to issues that their peers care about through
social network sites
• Issues come to the attention of the young even without
coverage from the traditional press
• Youth turned away from mechanisms of engagement
provided for by the State
• The glocalization of issues

11. Thank you!
cnmzw@nus.edu.sg
Twitter: weiyuz
www.weiyuzhang.net