KELCEY LORENZO WRITES – K-Pop boy band Infinite became the first Korean music group to chart No. 1 on Billboard’s Twitter Emerging Artists chart for the week of Sept. 20, 2014 with their song “Last Romeo,” the promotional track off of their second full album entitled Season 2. According to the…
MICHELLE VARINATA WRITES – In the eyes of international media, Indonesia is well-known for receiving a barrage of bad rap for its flawed handling of environmental issues. Recently, however, the Indonesian authorities have taken this criticism to heart and have decided to tackle the problem of illegal manta ray trading. The…
ALEX QUEJADO WRITES — Where do we look for new media information, and what medium do we use to find it? Have traditional media outlets—newspapers, radio, and television—lost their prominence? With the rise of mobile devices, this seems to be the case in Southeast Asia, and most notably in Vietnam.…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – Last week the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced the inception of the ‘Arab Social Media Award’ in the Gulf region to promote proper and acceptable social media use and to encourage awareness of the concerns associated with social media. Due to the UAE’s growing population of…
BRIAN CANAVE WRITES – It appears that Taiwanese students learned a thing or two from the movements of their American and French counterparts in the 1960s. Instead of simple protest demonstrations at Cal Berkley, students in Taiwan had a larger stage in mind: the Legislative Yuan and Executive Yuan of the Republic…
LEXIE TUCKER WRITES – Through the wonders of social media, communicating with loved ones (and even not-so-loved ones) is now just a few clicks away. But with this power comes great responsibility. Through the ages, parents have warned children not to talk to strangers. But how effective is such advice…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES: The Abbott government spent $4.3 million in social media research to measure public opinion concerning its immigration strategies, according to Fairfax Media. Further, the government has doled out over $65,000 to monitor the public’s thoughts regarding the “no boat, no visa” movement that aims at keeping asylum seekers at…
YVONNE EPPS WRITES- Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, they just did. Vietnam’s war on peaceful protest has reached guerrilla warfare of the monetary kind. Hey, Uy’s atrocities were unforgivable, so why not take the rest of the Internet down, right? Two decrees have been posed against social…
BRIAN CANAVE WRITES – Taiwanese people and media are outraged by the murder of a Taiwanese national and kidnapping of the victim’s wife in the Malaysian island of Pom Pom. Throughout late November, Taiwanese and Malaysian media covered the incident from all sides, ranging from international paper press, television news coverage…
YVONNE EPPS WRITES — The results are in and, what do you know? Vietnam isn’t stepping forward to receive the award for Most Hypocritical Media Censorship! I’m sorry Mama Dinh; we really tried our best. Blogger activist, Dinh Nhat Uy, was given a 15-month suspended sentence and home arrest along…
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – Abu Dhabi University’s status was updated to “feeling social” last week after Facebook data revealed that the institution accounts for 80% of all social media involvement among other universities in the surrounding area. In respect to this extensive usage, the 2013 Arab Social Media Report recognized Arabic as social…
BRIAN CANAVE WRITES — Taiwanese netizens are obsessed with social media and social media giants, Facebook and Twitter, do not fail to recognize this. This is in lieu to Facebook and Twitters announcements to further tap into the potential of Taiwanese markets. But why are these companies so eager to have…
VITTO BANEZ WRITES – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Vine are all social apps used to connect with friends, but Afghanistan says they’re more than that. The country aimed to promote these sites as democratizing tools through a recent summit. “Paiwand,” which translated to English means “connection,” was held on September…
AUSTIN SZABO WRITES – If you live in India, expect a “friend request” from your local representative. The upcoming 2014 election will see an explosion of social media campaigning, according to The Times of India. India’s Bharatiya Janata and Congress parties are scrambling to woo internet users. From local politicians getting in touch directly…
ALEXANDRE GUIRAUD-CONTREAU WRITES – It was less than a year ago that Myanmar was celebrating the return of print media, but is seems that social media has already made these sources obsolete. With an increase in freedom and an opening of the trade market, the population in Myanmar has been…
LAUREN CHEN WRITES – Gone are the days of handing out flyers or haranguing your friends on the phone to support a worthy cause. Now all it takes to turn out a mega-march is a juicy scandal and populist call to arms on Facebook and Twitter. Filipinos gathered August 26…
