Events

CHAIRPERSON

Asst Prof Chaewon Ahn, Yale-NUS College

ABSTRACT

The earlier debates about internet technology largely focused on the diminishing control of sovereign states on information flows. Scholars celebrated the widespread diffusion and use of the internet as a march of globalization, which signified a shift in power from the state and the corporates to the citizens. However, the events in the later half of the 2010s have shown how the states have regained control of Internet infrastructure, which has far-reaching consequences for political freedom. Internet shutdowns or intentional disruption of the internet and other means of electronic communication have been used even by democratic governments to limit citizens’ right to access internet technologies. By imposing internet shutdowns for a prolonged period, the state is able to communicate that it has acquired the power to punish citizens in a way that will jeopardize their basic existence and deprive them of their very dignity. Drawing upon my fieldwork in India and several data sources, I examine the different aspects of internet shutdowns and study the phenomenon both at the macro and micro levels. In doing so, I offer a new theoretical framework to conceptualize the phenomenon of internet shutdowns: how technology can be used as “digital barbed wire” to control, discipline and subjugate citizens. I also present a typology of digital barbed wire to show how internet technologies have been weaponized by the government and tech giants to curtail citizens’ rights and the future of democratic politics in India.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Taberez Ahmed Neyazi is Assistant Professor of Political Communication and New Media in the Department of Communications and New Media and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Trusted Internet and Community at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Taberez’s research focuses on political communication and public opinion; computational social science; digital, mobile and social media; communication theory; political Islam; and public policy with a focus on India, Indonesia and South Asia. He has authored Political Communication and Mobilisation: The Hindi Media in India (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and co-edited Democratic Transformation and the Vernacular Public Arena in India (Routledge, 2014).

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this hybrid event has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to aritm@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the talk.