Mobile Civil Society in Asia

Abstract

From a historical and critical perspective, this paper examines the use of mobile phones in civil society movements in Asia, as evidenced in the People Power II movement in the Philippines and the Nosamo movement in South Korea. A comparative framework is proposed concerning (1) the temporal and spatial characteristics of the two incidents, (2) the distinct organisational forms of the movements that were shaped by unique contextual and structural factors as well as the common historical and institutional conditions they shared, and (3) the relationship between mobile communication and other media forms including traditional mass media and the Internet. The evidence being analyzed includes journalistic accounts, statistical sources, and a combination of secondary and primary research. A few tentative conclusions emerge, including: (1) mobile communication can be a key catalyst to civil society formation at times of emergency; (2) mobile phones work with the Internet and other media in creating an enlarged communication ecology, but to succeed, this has to be based on existing political struggles; (3) the rapidity and scalability of mobile civil society movements pose challenges to the political process. The overall argument is that, by analyzing an entire array of issues being glossed over in popular accounts of these two events, we can gain a much deeper and contextualised understanding about the socio-political aspects of political communication through the mobile phone. Pending issues for future research are also addressed.