Mobilising dissent in a digital age: The curious case of Amos Yee

• Main Author: WOODS, Orlando
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Dissent; digital media; geopolitical arbitrage; movement; Singapore; Asian Studies; Social Influence and Political Communication; Social Media
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2842; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4099/viewcontent/Mobilising_Dissent_in_a_Digital_Age_The_Curious_Case_of_Amos_Yee.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Political containers frame opinions. They play a formative role in establishing the terms ofinterpretation, in distinguishing between assent and dissent, and in determining the extent towhich dissent is publicly tolerated. Whilst it is by now widely acknowledged that the powerand influence of political containers has been relativised by interconnection, the effects ofmoving within and between containers – and thus mediating between different framings ofopinion – is undertheorised. Also, the enabling role of digital media in disseminating dissent,and in bringing about disproportionate reach and impact, remains understudied. Addressingthese lacunae, this paper explores the ways in which dissent can be reproduced, reframed, andthus mobilised in a digital age. It advances the concept of geopolitical arbitrage to explainhow movement can lead to the reframing of the political containers of origin and destination,and of the object that moved. By drawing on the case of Amos Yee – a young Singaporeanblogger who was imprisoned for engaging in anti-religious “hate speech” – I demonstratehow digital media enabled the mobilisation of dissent by giving his voice undue attention,and how his movement from Singapore to the US on the grounds of asylum enabled areframing of himself, and of the political containers that he moved between.