The Power of Free as a Catalyst for Political Revolution

Dennis W. K. Khong () and P. C. Lim
Additional contact information
Dennis W. K. Khong: Multimedia University
P. C. Lim: Yokohama National University

A chapter in Law and Economics in Europe and the U.S, 2016, pp 89-107 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This paper makes the case that the free and open source software (FOSS) together with free online communication platforms played an important catalytic role in the rise of this modern form of political revolution. We show that the two aspects of ‘free’, both in terms of freedom to reuse computer codes and free as in zero price, together with positive network effect social media systems, played a not insignificant role in the rise of recent political events such as the Arab Spring of 2011 and other subsequent similar events in Hong Kong and Taiwan by making heavy use of the Internet, social media websites and mobile apps as a means of communications and mass dissemination of message. The culmination of these forces is a set of evolving information technology tools to support the expansion of the voice of the citizenry and the growth of political revolutions.

Keywords: Social Medium; Open Source Software; Java Programming Language; Open Source License; Social Network Platform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:euhchp:978-3-319-47471-7_6

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319474717

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-47471-7_6

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in The European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().