Abstract

This paper discusses the Internet’s role in promoting civic engagement in Asian countries. China and Singapore were selected because they have similar ethnic groups and cultural backgrounds. This paper concludes that the Internet has a limited role in promoting civic engagement due to Internet censorship and people’s political attitudes, which are deeply rooted for Confucian cultural reasons. Moreover the Internet censorship does not bother people in China and Singapore. The argument presented in this paper differs from previous studies that focused only on the Internet censorship system and ignored the cultural and socio-historical dimensions. The paper argues that the cultural and socio-historical dimensions should be considered when studying censorship.