ABSTRACT
Cyberspace offers both formal and informal avenues for political participation. The growth of social media in Vietnam has been a major thrust in the expansion of political space for public participation in recent years. This chapter examines the use of social media in two important aspects, as a political resource and as a political arena. A case study of a campaign for trees in metropolitan Hanoi in March 2015 manifests the implications of social media for political participation, followed by an analysis of the response of the state to the increased use of social media. The case study manifests how the use of social media has affected different aspects of contentious politics in the country. The chapter provides a discussion of the limits of social media for civil society activism in the political life of contemporary Vietnam. The party-state has been deploying various mechanisms to control and police social media via both formal channels and informal avenues.
