Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia

World Association for Triple Helix and Future Strategy Studies (세계트리플헬릭스미래전략학회)
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Editorial: Entangled Futures - Governance, Resistance, and Publics in Digital Transformations

  • Dechun Zhang (Center for Tracking and Society in the Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen) ;
  • Justin Chun-ting Ho (National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU))
  • Published : 2025.12.31
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Abstract

Digital technologies now constitute the infrastructures through which political authority, public identity, and cultural meaning are produced in East Asia, creating a digital order that is at once enabling and constraining. Platforms and data systems accelerate information flows and diversify modes of expression, yet also rationalize surveillance, concentrate power, and amplify affective manipulation. East Asian cases show that digital governance is not rigid in authoritarian contexts nor fragmented in democratic ones, but adaptive across regime types: authoritarian states mobilize privacy discourses and infrastructural design to consolidate authority, while democratic actors recalibrate persuasion and trust within "low-attention" media environments. Cultural industries further demonstrate how digital spaces embed nationalism, branding, and soft power into transnational entertainment. This special issue develops theoretical concepts such as authoritarian privacy, low-attention media, digital nationalism, and virtual nation branding, positioning East Asia as central to rethinking digital politics. In doing so, it underscores that digital infrastructures are not neutral tools but evolving arenas where authority, legitimacy, and participation are continuously negotiated through technological, legal, and cultural forms.

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