Digital content promotion in South East Asia: government strategies for a new economic sector

ABSTRACT

Digital content production – the production of ideas, words, images, videos, animation or other commercially valuable information for distribution through digital means – has emerged in recent years as a major economic sector. The content industry, however, does not fit easily with either national industrial policies or national innovation strategies, the two means governments use to promote economic development. Content policy is often equated with cultural production and so is aligned with heritage and culture programmes. This article examines the strategies of course jurisdictions – Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Hong Kong – and reviews their efforts to build the digital content economy.

KEYWORDS:

• Asian policy
• digital content
• national innovation
• political economy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For a list of the larger firms, see “The Top 100 Companies in the Digital Content Industry: The 2016-2017 EContent 100,” E-Content, 1 November 2016, (http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/The-Top-100-Companies-in-the-Digital-Content-Industry-The-2016-2017-EContent-100-114156.htm).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [895-2013-1008].

Notes on contributors

Carin Holroyd

Carin Holroyd is President of the Japan Studies Association of Canada and Associate Professor of Political Studies, University of Saskatchewan.  She has published extensively on Japan's innovation and science and technology policies.  Her most recent book is Green Japan: Environmental Technologies, Innovation Policies and the Pursuit of Green Growth, published by the University of Toronto Press in 2018.