This book explores how personalized content and the inherent networked nature of the mobile media could and do lead to positive externalities in social progress in Asian societies. Empirical studies that examine uses of the mobile phone and apps (voice mailing, SMS, mobile social media, mobile Weibo, mobile WeChat, etc.) are featured as a response to calls for theorization of the mobile media's efficacy as a tool for citizen engagement and participation in civic and political affairs, especially in the search for collective solutions to widespread social problems of food safety, pollution, government corruption, and public health risks. Considering the vast cultural diversity of Asian societies that are shaped by different levels of political, social, economic, and religious development, the book offers nuanced studies that provide in-depth analysis of the mobile media and political communication in a variety of communities of leading Asian countries. From the country-specific studies, broad themes and enduring concepts emerge.
Chapter 1: The Mobile Phone and Political Participation in
Asia: Theorizing the dynamics of personalized technologies and networked
externality.- Part I: Asian Mobile Communication Research in Global
Perspective.- Chapter 2: Mobile Media as a Political Institution in Asia:
Preliminary Evidence from Empirical Research 2000-2015.- Chapter 3:
Developing Political Associational Ties on Mobile Social Media: A
Cross-national Study of the Asia-Pacific region.- Part II: Mobile
Communication and Civic Engagement.- Chapter 4: Political conversations as
civic engagement: Examining patterns from mobile communication logs in
Japan.- Chapter 5: Public Discourse on Genetically Modified Foods in the
Mobile Sphere: Framing Risks, Opportunities, and Responsibilities in Chinas
Mobile Social Media.- Chapter 6: Examining the Role of Mobile Media in Public
Engagement with GMO Foods among Chinese Consumers.- Chapter 7: Civic
Engagement in Myanmar: The Promise and Threats of Mobile Communication and
the Internet.- Chapter 8: The impacts of mobile social media on collective
action: Two case studies from Singapore and Indonesia.- Part III Mobile
Communication and Political Activism.- Chapter 9: Social Media, Mobile
Communication, and the Elections: Examining the Independent Candidates Weibo
Use for Local Peoples Congress Election Campaigns in China.- Chapter 10 The
Effects of Social Media and Mobile Apps Use on Political Participation
in Taiwan.- Chapter 11: Exploring the potential for mobile communications to
engender an engaged citizenry - A comparative study of university students in
China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.- Chapter 12: Rethinking mobile media tactics in
protests: A comparative case study of Hong Kong and Malawi.
Ran Wei is the Gonzales Brothers Professor of Journalism in the School of Journalism & Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina, USA. He is also a Distinguished Honorary Professor of Communication University of China and Shanghai Jiaotong University, China. He earned his Ph.D. in mass communication from Indiana University in 1995. A former TV journalist, active media consultant, and Editor-in-Chief of Mass Communication & Society, his research focuses on media effects and communication technology. He is a pioneering scholar in mobile media research and has published extensively in the emerging field of mobile communication. Over his career, he has published 170 books, book chapters, journal articles, and conference presentations. He was identified as one of the top 5% most cited scholars in the field by the Council of Canadian Academies. Wei is a member of eight editorial boards, including the #1 ranked Communication Research. His recent work appears in internationally known texts such as Robert Footner and Mark Fackler (Eds.) International Handbook of Media and Mass Communication Theory, Hong Cheng (Ed.) Handbook of International Advertising Research, Gianpietro Mazzolen (Ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, and Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication.
