The Effect of Digital Development on Church and Society in Southeast Asia: A Survey

 Religion and Social Communication 17, No. 1 (2019): 1-29

Abstract

Southeast Asia is a region of tremendous diversity in its religious, social, cultural, economic and political makeup. With a total population of over 657 million, it is the third most populous geographical region in the world, only behind South and East Asia. Technological development in the region is also as varied as all the other dimensions of Southeast Asian life. Despite the fact that urbanization across the region still falls short of the half-way mark by less than a percentage point, Internet penetration has already reached nearly 60 percent with double-digit growth in most segments and most countries of the region. With over half of Southeast Asians being monthly active users, the region presents itself as the third-largest market globally, and the Internet economy is expected to reach $200 billion by 2025.

Other statistics on Southeast Asian digital state are equally interesting. Southeast Asians top the world in terms of time spent on the Internet per day, overwhelmingly by way of the smartphone. According to GlobalWebIndex, users in Thailand spend more time on the Internet each day than any other country in the world, 9h38min. Philippines, another SEA country is only slightly behind with 9h29m. Indonesia and Malaysia rank 4th and 6th, respectively. Though slightly lower, Singapore and Vietnam, another one of SEA’s most populous countries, also make the top 15. As we can see, the majority of the SEA countries are listed in the top 15 list of time spent per day online.

No doubt a significant amount of online time is spent on social media, in which SEA has a 55 percent penetration. Brunei not only leads the region in Internet penetration, but also leads in social media penetration at 81 percent. Meanwhile, more than three quarters of Singaporeans are active monthly social media users. SE Asians use a variety of social media platforms depending on the country. While Facebook still maintains the lead in all 11 countries at the platform level, SE Asians also like to use mobile messengers. LINE is particularly popular in Thailand and Indonesia. Home-grown Zalo is widely used in Vietnam; and Viber was once so popular in the Philippines that Manila’s transport authorities used it for their contact hotlines. Although Facebook Messenger has taken the lead in countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines, other platforms with considerable use in the region include BBM (mostly in Indonesia), Whatsapp and WeChat. In Malaysia and Singapore, WhatsApp is still the most popular mobile messenger on the market.

Digital development is not even throughout the region. Although Brunei and Singapore enjoy high digital connectivity, less than one-third of the people in the three countries of Myanmar, Laos and Timor-Leste have Internet access. Likewise, only about a quarter of the people in Myanmar and Laos are social media users. The whole story, however, is that digital growth is rapid in all these countries. Laos, for example, saw an impressive 83 percent growth in users from January 2016 to January 2017. When the ban on Facebook was lifted in Myanmar, Internet users flocked to sign up for the platform. By 2016, there were nearly 10 million Facebook users in the country. Today, the number has grown to over 14 million.

The highly complex picture of the digital landscape of Southeast Asia makes the study on the effect of the Internet on life in Southeast Asia not a simple task. Although certain broad strokes can be drawn about the region, closer examination reveals that the impact of Internet development on each country is unique to its particular context. This survey attempts to provide an overall picture of the effect of the Internet on Southeast Asian society with the caveat that observations made cannot be applied to each of the 11 countries in the region wholesale.

Keywords: Southeast Asia, Digital Development, Church, Society, Internet

Download full article: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3643837

Catholic Church Communication in the Post-Truth Era: Intra-Religious and Inter-Religious Dimensions

February 16, 2019. Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3335641
Abstract

The digital era has presented the world with many things, among them fake news and a post-truth mindset. The tendency to disregard truth and the uncontrolled propagation of fake news about religion hold serious ramifications for the Catholic Church and the Church’s relationship with other religions. This essay explores the nature of the post-truth mindset and the negative impact that fake news present to the Church and interreligious relationship. It proposes that the way for the Church to respond to the present social milieu is by taking a proactive approach in its communication strategies. On the ad intra front, the Church needs to counter the post-truth mindset by upholding the authoritative and trustworthy position of the Church through the proclamation of Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. More than proclaiming with words, however, the Church must also reflect Jesus in these regards in the day-to-day life and activities of the Church. On the ad extra front, the Church must redouble its effort at interreligious dialogue, which in view of the modern context, must be seen as the way of being Church. Without this two-pronged communication approach, the Church risks having its voice being drowned out by the great plethora of voices both inside and outside of the Church, many of which aim to disrupt unity within the Church as well as with other religions.

Keyword: Post-truth, fake news, Catholic Church, interreligious dialogue

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https://drive.google.com/open?id=1V1ZuJ1acznLCjvir8upB79ArGMDc-E-C

The Way, the Truth and the Life: Asian Religious Communication in the Post-Truth Climate

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iE6WF4MUTJzsY5otTDmxyip6a4keUvkb

Religion and Social Communication. Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018, 19-40.

Abstract

The term “post-truth” has in recent years been widely applied to the state of Western society, especially in Europe and the United States. Post-truth is an adjective describing circumstances where emotions and personal beliefs rather than objective facts play the dominant role in shaping public opinion. A consequence of this disregard for objective facts is the dissemination of misinformation and untruths in order to influence public perceptions, especially in political matters. Although the focus has been primarily on the United States and Europe, the reality of a globalized, hyper-interconnected world means that Asian society is also susceptible to post-truth dynamics. Because Asia is extremely diverse in terms of cultural and religious landscape, the post-truth mentality and practices can potentially bring great harm to interreligious relationships in the region. This paper proposes that Asian religions can address the challenges of the post-truth mindset by resorting to powerful images within their traditions to communicate within and across traditions in order to promote religious unity and harmony. It asserts that the images employed by Jesus to refer to himself, namely, the Way, the Truth, and the Life are images that hold not only rich spiritual significance for Christians but can also resonate deeply with the Asian religious and spiritual outlook. These images may be explored by religious traditions in their own particular contexts and communicated to adherents (intrareligious communication). These images can also serve as the foundation upon which Asian religions can enter into dialogue with one another to build mutual understanding and collaboration (interreligious communication). The thesis is when Asian religions are able to employ shared images to communicate within and across religious traditions, they are able to reaffirm the important role of religion/spirituality in the present social milieu, at the same time resist the negative impact brought about by trends of thought that seek to degrade and relativize religious and spiritual truths.

Keywords: Post-truth, interreligious dialogue, religious communication, Asian religions