02/05/2025
By Myat The Thitsar
The UMass Lowell community is invited to attend the dissertation defense of Myat The Thitsar, a Ph.D. candidate in Global Studies.
Title: Dictatorship and Digital Battlescapes: Social Media, Corporate Accountability and Civil Society in Post-Coup Myanmar
Date: Thursday, February 27, 2025
Time: 3:30 - 5 p.m.
Location: Dugan Hall, Room 204, UMass Lowell South Campus
Committee:
Advisor: Ardeth M. Thawnghmung, Ph.D., Professor, Political Science, UMass Lowell.
Committee Members: Jenifer Whitten-Wooding, Ph.D., Dean of the Honors College; Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass Lowell; Mona Kleinberg, Ph.D. Department of Political Science, City University of New York.
Abstract:
This dissertation uses post-coup Myanmar as a case study to explore how Facebook’s evolving policies and practices intersect with authoritarian resilience and civil society’s resistance. By situating the Myanmar case within the broader discourse on digital governance and corporate accountability, this dissertation addresses critical gaps in existing literature. Much of the existing research focuses on social media’s impact in Western democracies or examines corporate practices in contexts with robust legal and institutional policy safeguards. However, little attention has been paid to the role of social media in authoritarian or conflict-affected contexts where state repression, digital manipulation, and civil society’s constrained agency complicate governance and democratic resistance. This dissertation attempts to close these gaps by offering a nuanced analysis of how social media platforms, particularly Facebook, interact with political polarization, authoritarian strategies, and civil society’s initiatives in Myanmar’s post-coup environment. This research also offers valuable lessons for understanding the potential and limitations of digital activism and governance in contested political landscapes.
Faculty members, students, and researchers with interests in digital politics, media studies, Southeast Asian studies, human rights and corporate accountability are encouraged to attend.