'Outsourcing Surveillance: Online Public Opinion Management in China'
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
- Venue
- SOAS Main Building
- Room
- R201
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
Professor Lynette Ong will talk about her latest co-authored book Outsourcing Surveillance.
The digital age has afforded autocrats new technologies of control, allowing it to co-opt, pre-empt and repress dissent. But, what if they lack the technical capacity to access digital tools of control? In what ways have digital technologies altered the way autocratic states conduct statecraft?
Based on an analysis of more than 3,000 public procurement documents, and a dozen elite interviews with various stakeholders, Professor Lynette Ong and her co-authors found that the Chinese state has outsourced various functions of online surveillance to private and for-profit arms of state-owned corporations. They found that outsourcing surveillance is intended to augment state technical capacity to moderate and fine-tune the conduct of digital repression.
Outsourcing digital repression opens up a Pandora's box of state-business collaborations in autocratic settings. This element contributes to the literature on outsourcing repression, state-business relations, and conduct of digital statecraft.
Registration
This event is open to the public and free to attend; however, registration is required. This seminar is taking place on campus and will not be recorded or live-streamed.
Organiser
This event has been organised by the SOAS China Institute.
Image credit: Lianhao Qu on Unsplash
About the speaker
Lynette Ong is Distinguished Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Toronto and director of the China Governance Lab at the Munk School. A leading scholar of Chinese politics and political economy, she is the author of three books, including Outsourcing Repression, which has won seven best book awards. Her research has received numerous honours, including the SSHRC Insight Award and the American Sociological Association's Distinguished Contribution to Political Sociology. She has testified before the US Congress and Canadian House of Commons, and her work has been covered by the New York Times, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, and the Wall Street Journal.
Chair
This event will be chaired by Professor Steve Tsang (Director, SOAS China Institute).
Contact
Email: sci@soas.ac.uk
Book cover
