The Good Life in Asia’S Digital 21St Century
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The st Good Life in Asia’s Digital 21st Century DIGITAL ASIA H U B The Good Life in Asia’s Digital 21st Century DIGITAL ASIA H U B The statements in this publication are the views of the authors and do not necessarily refect the policies or views of the Digital Asia Hub or its collaborators. The suggested citation is: Digital Asia Hub. (2016). The Good Life in Asia’s Digital 21st Century. Hong Kong. All contents, except illustrations by Chen Dongfan, are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Digital Asia Hub www.digitalasiahub.org Email: [email protected] Contents Foreword vii About this Book ix About the Digital Asia Hub xi Acknowledgments xiii 1 CONNECTING THE UNCONNECTED Empowering the Marginalized: Tales of the Digital Good Life 2 Chinmayi Arun and Siddharth Manohar ICT4D: 8 Empowering Transformation in Asia – Reaching the Unreached Ritika Shekhar and Gaurav Shah Finally Plugged Into the Network: 14 Technology Tat Is Changing Lives in India’s Slums Abhimanyu Roy Securing Development For Everyone: 22 Increasing the Efciency of ICT4D Projects in India, Indonesia, and Malaysia Harsh Ghildiyal Fueling the Afordable Smartphone Revolution in India 28 Anubha Sinha 2 BEING ONLINE Public Face vs. Private Face: Can It Hold in the Internet Age? 38 K.S. Park Creating the Self in the Digital Age: 44 Young People and Mobile Social Media Toshie Takahashi Why K-Pop Will Continue toDominate Social Media: 51 Jenkin’s Convergence Culture in Action Raizel Liebler and Keidra Chaney Betting Across Borders: 58 Mobile Networks and the Future of Gambling Colin Agur iv THE GOOD LIFE IN ASIA’S DIGITAL 21ST CENTURY Understanding Where Journalism 64 Fits into the Smartphone Boom in India Hasit Shah #CokeDrones and the Good Life: 69 Migrant Workers in Singapore and the Politics of Recognition Renyi Hong 3 DIGITAL ECONOMY Te Seoul of the So-Called Sharing Economy 78 Emily Hong South Korea’s Approach to ‘Internet of Tings’ Technologies 84 Hemangi Gokhale Te Battlefeld and Hunting Ground of Online Marketing: 94 Te Ecology of Advertising and Copywriting in Weibo Wan Man Tsz Bitcoin, Blockchain & Banking: 99 Te Next Best Ting for Development in Southeast Asia Hauwa O. Otori Silicon Markets: Smart Hardware from Te Streets 106 Anna Greenspan, Silvia Lindtner, and David Li 4 GOVERNANCE, RIGHTS, AND POLICY Te Real Digital Divide in Southeast Asia 112 Pirongrong Ramasoota From Digital Divide to Language Divide: 116 Language Inclusion for Asia’s Next Billion An Xiao Mina Parenting the Parents: State Paternalism Goes Extreme Online 122 Kelly Kha Yeun Kim Digital Rights in Australia’s Asian Century: 128 A Good Neighbour? Angela Daly Digital Rights in the Court 137 Harris Chen THE GOOD LIFE IN ASIA’S DIGITAL 21ST CENTURY v 5 ONWARD Te Power of Observation: Making Research Visible, Accessible, 144 and Usable for the Asian Digital Economy Julian Tomas and Amanda Lawrence Improving Informed Voting: 150 Navigating Turbulent Hong Kong in the 21st Century Christy Pik Sum Hui Songdo: South Korea’s Connected City 156 Hyun Ju Park Little Digital Devices, Huge Recourses 161 Zhang Tianqi A Good Life in Asia with Robots? 165 Chihyung Jeon vi THE GOOD LIFE IN ASIA’S DIGITAL 21ST CENTURY Foreword It would be hard to overstate the importance of the contents of this book. The 21st century is rewriting the history of the future thanks to persistent bursts of technological innovation. What is so signifcant about this book, in particular, is that it captures a regional perspective on the benefts that may accrue from further progress in digital and electronic technology. Moreover, it helps us to understand the social, economic, and personal impact that these new technologies can have. We are often surprised by the emergent properties of new technology, especially those that afect our society in ways we might not be able to predict. People use new technology in ways the designers and inventors may not have intended or imagined. The impact of smartphones with video/still cameras and Internet communication capabilities has changed awareness of global events. The immediacy of information distributed through social media sharing sites has changed the meaning of news, but puts great demands on users looking for context to understand what they are seeing and hearing. I highly commend the formation of the Digital Asia Internet and Society Research Hub and its aim to allow researchers in the wider Asian region to learn from each other and build on each other’s work. We need trans- disciplinary and intercultural research that is informed by the expertise of all stakeholders - academics as well as experts from civil society, the private sector, and governments. I see the Digital Asia Hub well positioned to facilitate and form synergies between Asian researchers distilling insights about how to exploit and shape digital technologies to serve socio-economic progress on the individual, communal, national, and transnational level. Importantly the THE GOOD LIFE IN ASIA’S DIGITAL 21ST CENTURY vii products of the Digital Asia Hub must not only address academic audiences but should be refactored to inform the general public (i.e. media), industry, and policy makers. The papers in this publication reconfrm what we have known for all of history: there is no limit to human innovation and creative capacity. New technology begets new applications which, in turn, generate new ideas. The online environment is triggering a tidal wave of invention based on a sort of intellectual “jamming” as new users see what others have done and are inspired to explore further into unknown territory. Like explorers of old, these writers are taking us on a journey of discovery, giving us vicarious glimpses of the real and imagined future. Loosely organized into fve topic areas, the chapters ofer us fresh and refreshing glimpses into the ways in which our lives and societies are being redefned by the generation, analysis, and sharing of digital information. We can see the possibilities all the more clearly thanks to these word portraits from diverse perspectives. While we cannot know for sure where the future will take us, this book gives us insight into what has happened and what may be possible. Armed with this information, we will be better prepared to make choices and pursue objectives in the unfolding adventure we call the 21st Century. Vint Cerf Internet Pioneer viii THE GOOD LIFE IN ASIA’S DIGITAL 21ST CENTURY About this Book The Internet with its three billion users - and digital technology more broadly - have fundamentally changed the ways in which we as individuals communicate and collaborate with each other, how entrepreneurs and businesses operate and innovate, how young people express themselves and engage with the world’s knowledge, and how governments interact with their citizens. As we begin the 21st century, the digital ecosystem continues to change and evolve globally, regionally, and locally, as more and more people around the world become connected, next generation technologies and business models emerge, and the lines between the online and ofine increasingly blur. In many respects, Asia is at the forefront of the next wave of digital transformations, whether we look at the massive growth in connectivity, innovative use of digital technologies to build smart cities and infrastructures, or Asia’s cultural diversity as we reimagine and rebuild the future of education, commerce, or healthcare. With the imaginative power that comes from the wealth of diverse people and cultures, Asia is expected to signifcantly shape the future direction of digital technology and the evolution of society over the decades to come, not only regionally but also globally in today’s interconnected world. Against this backdrop and in order to inform decision-makers in the private and public sector about these transformations, a diverse group of academic, civil society, and private sector partners from Asia and beyond have come together to launch the Digital Asia Hub as an independent, non-proft Internet and Society research think tank based in Hong Kong (www.digitalasiahub.org). Initially incubated by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University with its regional partners, the Digital Asia Hub will serve as a non- partisan, open, and collaborative platform for research, knowledge sharing, and capacity building related to Internet and society issues with a focus on digital Asia. The Hub, led by an Executive Director, Management Board, and Steering Committee, also aims to strengthen efective multistakeholder discourse, with both local and regional activities, and will contribute to - and itself serve as a node of - a larger network of academic organizations: the Global Network of Internet & Society Centers (www.networkofcenters.net). The essays collected in this book are intended as an initial contribution by an emerging and open interdisciplinary research network consisting of students, researchers, entrepreneurs, and many other collaborators who share a deep interest in digital technologies and their role in improving life in Asia’s digital 21st century. Based on an open call for participation and to celebrate the launch of the Digital Asia Hub, this book brings together a series of refection pieces written for a broader audience in form of short essays that address some of the key research topics the Hub may explore in the future, including digital THE GOOD LIFE IN ASIA’S DIGITAL 21ST CENTURY ix rights, governance and infrastructure, innovation, open manufacturing, digital trade, trending technologies and technology spaces, mobile technology and its impact on access, education, entrepreneurship, and the use of ICT for development and civic engagement. The selected essays - written by twenty-six researchers (including student authors) and other stakeholders from across Asia - ofer kaleidoscopic refections on the guiding topic “The Digital Good Life in Asia’s 21st Century,” and are grouped into fve broad chapters: “Connecting the Unconnected,” “Being Online,” “Digital Economy,” “Governance, Rights, and Policy,” and future perspectives (“Onward”).