[spectre] Cyberasia Part 1: Asian Cyberpolitics Wednesday March 29

[Floor van Spaendonck]

ASiA, International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) and Waag  
Society organize, in cooperation with V2_Rotterdam

Cyberasia Part 1: Asian Cyberpolitics
Wednesday March 29   20.00 – 22.00 hrs
Livestream; http://connect.waag.org

Language: English
Waag Society
Nieuwmarkt 4
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Entrance: free

In Asian Cyberpolitics, Shanghai’s blogger and political activist  
Isaac Mao will join Indonesian academic Merlyna Lim to explore  
whether the Internet constitutes an emerging public sphere in which  
alternative voices can be raised and heard. How successful is the  
Chinese regime in silencing digital voices? Why was Isaac’s website  
<www.isaacmao.com> blocked so quickly? How does the Internet produce  
new forms of politics? Does the Indonesian cyberspace still  
facilitate critique on the political system the way it did before the  
downfall of the Soeharto-regime in 1998? Isaac Mao is one of China’s  
first and most prolific media activists using blogs as a grassroots  
technology. He leads the Creative Commons China team and is co- 
founder of the Social Brain Foundation. Merlyna Lim received her PhD  
on online activism in Indonesia and is currently affiliated to the  
Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern  
California where she is extending her studies to cyberactivism in  
Southeast Asia.

Cyberasia is a series of three seminars initiated by Peter Pels  
(Anthropology, Leiden University) that brings together Asian  
activists, academics and industry pioneers to reflect on contemporary  
political, religious and playful uses of new technologies. Together,  
they showcase the current state of Internet affairs in Asia, opening  
up a unique meeting ground beyond the “Western” world. The subsequent  
two seminars are on April 18 on Asian Cyberfundamentalism and May 10  
on Asian Cybergames.

For reservation: reserveren at waag.org
For more information: Dr. Jeroen de Kloet (moderator) b.j.dekloet at uva.nl
Livestream: http://connect.waag.org
More information on IIAS at http://www.iias.nl