© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/ ���4�3� �- � �340065 Asiascape: Digital Asia 4 (�0 �7) 5-� � brill.com/dias Digital Disruption in Asia Power, Technology, and Society Jacqueline Hicks Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), Leiden hicks@kitlv.nl Abstract This introduction to the fourth special issue of Asiascape: Digital Asia discusses the complex interactions between technology and society in the context of ‘digital Asia’. The special issue is drawn from contributions to a conference held in May 2016 titled ‘Digital Disruption in Asia: Methods and Issues’. Inspired by the idea that the use of digital technologies is shaking up some major political and economic institutions, the conference aimed to see whether some of the same processes were playing out across Asia. But while the wording of its title focused on the impact of digital technologies in Asian societies, what emerged were much more complex stories detailing the differ- ent ways the technologies are used in their offline contexts. This introduction traces these stories, identifying some common elements of digitality that range from con- stant connectivity, to mobility, speed, and the potential to break down social and even disciplinary boundaries. Keywords area studies – China – digital media – digital methods – digital politics – Indonesia – social shaping of technology – technological affordances It may seem far-fetched to say that technologies can be infused with power, as if whizzing and humming down their very wires and tubes. Surely they are mere instruments, devoid of intrinsic values, sitting mute and available to be bent to the user’s intention? On the contrary, the idea that certain technologies can be predisposed to producing particular social or political configurations has a long history. Even a scholar like Karl Marx, who epitomizes the idea that