ABSTRACT

This article seeks to advance understanding of how the new logics of an expanding digital media system can be mobilized in the service of authoritarianism, by tracing how an online news platform support the legal and discursive production of hegemonic authoritarianism in Cambodia. A state crackdown on independent media has been accompanied by the rise of private digital news outlet Fresh News, which has played a singular role in enabling, legitimizing, and seeking to craft support for Cambodia’s recent shift from competitive to hegemonic authoritarianism. Fresh News represents an authoritarian innovation which can be broken down into three main components: articulating a government-aligned definition of democracy which celebrates strongman rule and rejects liberal democracy; supporting an ongoing judicialization of Cambodian mega-politics; and disseminating a “fake news” discourse which seeks to achieve an epistemic shift. The ambiguous status of Fresh News as a private though overtly state-sanctioned enterprise is a key aspect of these authoritarian innovations, as it popularizes Cambodia’s authoritarian turn from the vantage point of an elusive distance from the state.

抽象的

本文旨在通过跟踪在线新闻平台如何支持柬埔寨霸权专制的合法性和话语性，来加深对扩展的数字媒体系统的新逻辑如何能够动员威权主义的理解。国家对独立媒体的镇压伴随着私人数字新闻媒体Fresh News的兴起，后者在促进，合法化和寻求支持柬埔寨最近从竞争专制向霸权专制的转变中发挥了独特作用。新鲜新闻代表着一种威权主义的创新，可以分为三个主要部分：阐明政府对民主的定义，以庆祝强人统治而拒绝自由民主；支持正在进行的柬埔寨大政治司法化；并传播旨在实现认知转变的“假新闻”话语。新鲜新闻作为私有但受国家官方批准的企业的模棱两可的地位是这些威权主义创新的关键方面，因为它从与国家的距离难以捉摸的角度推广柬埔寨的威权主义转向。