This article reviews a decade of research, published in the journal Asiascape: Digital Asia (DIAS), that explored the question of how digital technologies and their usage have shaped – and have... Show moreThis article reviews a decade of research, published in the journal Asiascape: Digital Asia (DIAS), that explored the question of how digital technologies and their usage have shaped – and have been shaped by – societies, politics, and economies across the Asian region. It discusses the kind of scholarship that DIAS has published, and on which topics, before giving an overview of the contributions that form this anniversary issue. The article concludes by offering thoughts on the future of digital Asia research. Show less
This article explores what conflicts over information and meaning-making in digital Asia can tell us about politics in advanced networked societies, using examples from East Asia. It interprets the... Show moreThis article explores what conflicts over information and meaning-making in digital Asia can tell us about politics in advanced networked societies, using examples from East Asia. It interprets the construction and spread of unverified information as part of near-ubiquitous political practices that threaten to lead to a decoupling of realities. The article makes the case that digital Asia is a crucial site for researching such practices: Asian societies are characterized by a long-standing engagement with rumours, and they also maintain highly developed digital infrastructures across diverse socio-political and economic environments. To explore the relevance of rumours and conspiracy theories in such contexts, the article suggests a three-step research agenda that analyzes the anatomy of rumours, traces their genealogy across complex socio-technical systems, and assesses their pathology – that is, the way in which they are products of, and in turn produce, power in translocal networks. Show less
Promoting connectivity to very high capacity networks is one of the objectives of the new EU Telecom Code. The review of the Telecom Framework is one of the pillars of the EU Digital Single Market... Show morePromoting connectivity to very high capacity networks is one of the objectives of the new EU Telecom Code. The review of the Telecom Framework is one of the pillars of the EU Digital Single Market Strategy. The Telecom Code broadens the scope of regulation and introduces new forms of market regulation in order to pursue the EU connectivity objectives.This article explores the ex ante regulation in the Telecom Code as well as its changed context. The goals and scope of the Telecom Code as well as the main tools for regulation are discussed in the second section. The third section describes the system of ex ante regulation as it has been developed under the Telecom Framework and adjusted in the Telecom Code. The fourth section explains the conditions for imposing ex ante regulations, taking into account the connectivity goals of the Telecom Code. As the context of applying ex ante regulation has also changed due to new forms of market regulations, the fifth section explores what this will mean for the application of ex ante regulation. In the sixth section the proposals for ex ante regulation as a means to regulate other markets of the Digital Economy are evaluated from the perspective of the experience with ex ante regulation in the electronic communications sector. Show less
This introduction to the Asiascape: Digital Asia special issue on ‘smart communities’ discusses how new technologies have created a paradigm of ‘smartness’ that informs how innovators,... Show moreThis introduction to the Asiascape: Digital Asia special issue on ‘smart communities’ discusses how new technologies have created a paradigm of ‘smartness’ that informs how innovators, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and administrators imagine sociality in urban spaces. This is visible in plans for turning Singapore, Hong Kong, or Taipei into ‘smart cities’, and countries such as India, Japan, and South Korea are similarly rolling out initiatives that promise to revamp urban life across the region. Such ‘solutionist’ attempts to address the complexities of contemporary social life through technology cleverly fuse surveillance techniques, capitalist structures, free labour practices, and neoliberal governance to create urban utopias of safety, convenience, and community. We have asked the contributors to this special issue to explore what people do, through and with digital technologies, as they establish, claim, contest, and alter various social relations in the name of ‘smart community’, and this article introduces and discusses their results. Show less
