Browsing by Subject "Protest Movements"

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The New Media Playbook: The Weaponization of the Internet in Non-Democracies
(2023-05) Jacoby, Aidan
The New Media Playbook: The Weaponization of the Internet in Non-Democracies seeks to provide a framework by which people can make sense of the internet’s role in political upheaval in the most contentious autocracies globally. An answer to the simultaneous proliferation of the internet and widespread political turmoil witnessed in autocratic regimes, the playbook represents a specific means by which scholars, policymakers, and businesspeople can discuss how new media platforms are used when rolled out to underdeveloped, or politically fraught regions of the world. In the form of nine “plays” – mechanisms for using the internet to advance a regime or non-state actor’s political goals – the playbook captures the nuanced ways in which new media is deployed by players in non-democracies to advance their political ambitions and jockey for power. Using Iran and Myanmar as primary case studies, The New Media Playbook shows the complex interaction between the internet’s function as a coordination good for citizens and device for restriction by incumbent autocracies. This thesis is meant to illustrate these interactions and deconstruct instances of the internet’s weaponization into a workable framework of “plays” that allow for easier discourse surrounding the role of technology in global polities.