Graduation Year

2017

Date of Submission

4-2017

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

International Relations

Reader 1

Jennifer Taw

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Rights Information

© 2017 Nora A Flaherty

Abstract

This paper examines the ineffective and unsustainable information management system employed by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The Vietnamese public faces an absence of information, due to strictly controlled state media and an unreliable unofficial media. Meanwhile, the current information management system does not allow the regime to meet its core interests of increasing government legitimacy and decreasing corruption. Increasing press freedom is also perceived as an existential threat, and so the government’s basic interests contradict each other. This paper examines the literature on information management in authoritarian and democratic regimes to determine the functions of the media in more free and less free contexts. It then examines the information systems of two successful case studies, China and Singapore, to locate applicable lessons for the Vietnam case. The paper finds that while Vietnam should adopt some elements of China’s media demobilization strategies, both the Vietnamese regime and the Vietnamese people are better served by moving towards a Singaporean-style social contract between the public and the regime.

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