Networked Authoritarianism at the Edge: The Digital and Political Transitions of Cambodian Village Officials
Networked Authoritarianism at the Edge: The Digital and Political Transitions of Cambodian Village Officials
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边缘的网络威权主义：柬埔寨村官的数字化和政治转型
DOI：
10.1145/3449124
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发表时间：
2021
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Dell, Nicola
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jack, Margaret C.;Chann, Sopheak;Jackson, Steven J.;Dell, Nicola
本文描述了对互联网相对陌生的村级官员如何使用智能手机上流行的数字平台来补充和扩展柬埔寨农村长期存在的信息控制和威权模式。他们利用这些工具监督地方事务，向中央政府报告，并推动地方政府的活动，这些做法恐吓村民，鼓励他们退出政治和自我审查。本文对网络权威主义与乡村治理的相关文献做出了三点贡献。首先，柬埔寨农村官僚机构目前正在进行的技术变革反映了一代人的过渡，因为长期任职的官员难以轻松有效地使用新媒体，导致这些传统权力持有者产生新的焦虑和崩溃。其次，这些村庄的官僚信息实践依赖于从纸张、面对面会议和扬声器到Facebook和智能手机等新工具的物质实践--这突出了官僚权力和控制机制的重要连续性。第三，网络化的独裁做法为村民带来了信息控制与暴力之间的历史联系，而这些策略对令人不寒而栗的言论的有效性往往植根于村民的恐惧记忆。
This paper describes how village-level officials, relatively new to the Internet, use popular digital platforms on smartphones to supplement and extend long-standing patterns of information control and authoritarian power in rural Cambodia. They use these tools to monitor local affairs, report to the central government, and promote local government activities, practices which intimidate villagers and encourage their political withdrawal and self-censorship. This paper makes three contributions to the literature on networked authoritarianism and rural governance. First, technological changes currently underway in the Cambodian rural bureaucracy reflect a generational transition, as long-standing officials struggle to use new media easily or effectively, leading to new anxieties and breakdowns for these traditional holders of power. Second, bureaucratic information practices in these villages rely on material practices ranging from paper, face to face meetings, and loudspeakers, to new tools such as Facebook and smartphones - underlining significant continuities in mechanisms of bureaucratic power and control. Third, networked authoritarian practices conjure for villagers the historical links between information control and violence, and the effectiveness of these tactics on chilling speech is often rooted in villagers' memories of fear.