Myanmar’s anti-coup resistance: Dynamics and dilemmas in the digital age (Wednesday, 13 October 2021)

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SYNOPSIS

A military coup against Myanmar’s popularly elected government in early 2021 threatens to reverse years of the country’s political liberalization and return it to hard-lined dictatorship. In response, various cross-cutting efforts of anti-coup resistance have emerged nationwide. In this latest episode of Myanmar’s pro-democracy struggle, both the military (aka. Tatmadaw) and anti-coup resistance have relied on conventional and digital strategies to discredit their opponents and gain domestic and international support for their actions.

In this talk, by juxtaposing the most viral Facebook contents since the 2021 coup with eye-witness accounts of pre-2010 pro-democracy protests, I will reflect upon adaptations in the military’s and opposition’s tactics in the digital age and their implications for contentious dynamics in Myanmar. As social media platforms’ generally participatory nature promotes a variety of voices from non-state actors who can debunk disinformation, I expect that social media users are more likely to dismiss than to trust state propaganda. Moreover, as dissidents and ordinary social media users can capture, broadcast, and condemn scenes of state repression online, this might also heighten popular grievances and lead more people to support anti-regime activism. Hence, state repression is more likely to backfire in the digital age. However, via social media, autocrats might also be able to infiltrate, monitor, and arrest opposition activists in a more effective manner.


ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Van Tran is an independent researcher whose research interests lie in authoritarian politics, social movements, and digital cultures in Southeast Asia, with a focus on Myanmar. She completed her Ph.D. at the Department of Government, Cornell University in 2020 with a dissertation examining variation in the resilience of public activism under repression, leveraging historical case studies from Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement during military rule. She has also worked with policy research institutes and tech organizations in Myanmar to deliver insights and policy recommendations on various topics concerning local governance, digital literacy, and online disinformation. Her recent analysis and commentaries on Burmese politics appeared on The Washington Post, Brookings Institution, Al Jazeera, AP, etc.

 

 

Date
Wednesday, 13 October 2021

Time
3.00pm to 4.30pm via Zoom (Singapore Time)

Venue
via Zoom