Mobile Media, Political Participation, and Civic Activism in Asia ― Private Chat to Public Communication

This book explores how personalized content and the inherent networked nature of the mobile phone could and do lead to positive externalities in social progress in Asian societies. Empirical studies that examine uses of the mobile phone (voice mailing, SMS, mobile social media, mobile Weibo, mobile Wechat, etc.) are featured as a response to calls for theorization of the mobile phone'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 phone and political communication in a variety of communities of leading Asian countries. From the country-specific studies, broad themes and enduring concepts emerge.

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.