[Recording] Social Media and Politics in Southeast Asia | Merlyna Lim

Recorded 02.24.2025

This lecture by Merlyna Lim explores the complex role of social media in Southeast Asian politics, emphasizing its dual potential for both democratic mobilization and authoritarian control. She highlights how algorithms prioritize emotional content, fostering "algorithmic enclaves" where users unite around shared identities and emotions, often amplifying polarization and misinformation. While social media empowers grassroots activism and youth-led movements, it is also exploited by authoritarian regimes and political elites to manipulate public opinion and spread disinformation, as seen in the rebranding of figures like Bongbong Marcos and Prabowo Subianto. Lim argues that social media’s market-driven, affect-based nature often reduces politics to sensationalized, binary narratives. Despite the dominance of platform capitalism and authoritarianism, she notes that collective agency and strategic use of social media by activists can still challenge these forces, particularly in the face of crises like climate change and digital repression. Ultimately, Lim calls for a deeper understanding of how affect, algorithms, and power dynamics shape political engagement in the digital age.

This event was moderated by NYSEAN Co-Founder John Gershman and was hosted by NYSEAN.