Stark contradictions mark Asia’s news and information landscape.  Citizens have gained unprecedented ability to express and inform themselves through media.  Yet the internet, once thought of as a great liberator and equalizer, has been harnessed by powerful interests.  Social media platforms, even as they facilitate collective action, have deepened divisions, circulated hate, and undermined public-interest journalism.  What are the political and other effects of this combination of abundant informative discourse and divisive manipulative bias?  A media scholar and a media practitioner with professional experience in both Southeast Asia and Hong Kong will reflect on these contrary trends and their implications.

Cherian George, a media professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, is a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Department of Communication. His books include Red Lines: Political Cartoons and the Struggle Against Censorship, a double finalist for the American Association of Publishers PROSE award for scholarly books (2021); Media and Power in Southeast Asia (2019); and Hate Spin: The Manufacture of Religious Offense and its Threat to Democracy (2016).

Zuraidah Ibrahim is executive managing editor at Hong Kong’s English language daily, South China Morning Post, where her responsibilities include overseeing Hong Kong and international coverage. She was previously deputy editor and political editor of Singapore’s Straits Times. Her books include Rebel City: Hong Kong’s Year of Water and Fire (2020); Singapore Chronicles: Opposition (2017); and Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going (2011).