Dear list members, The peer-reviewed academic journal Asiascape: Digital Asia (DIAS)<https://brill.com/view/journals/dias/dias-overview.xml> is now inviting contributions for its 2026 themed issue on ‘Networked Agitprop in Asia’, edited by special issue editors Milan Ismangil and Florian Schneider. Agitative propaganda, or agitprop, has long been a powerful tool for shaping public opinion, mobilizing movements, and cultivating ideological narratives. Originally describing the Soviet Union's methods of distributing propaganda to fuel revolutionary fervour, the term agitprop has recently resurfaced in popular usage. For instance, influential political streamer Hasan Abi titled his short-lived show “Agitprop,” aiming to “amplify the anti-capitalist message.” Today, agitprop has evolved beyond its traditional confines of propagating Communism, finding new energy and purpose within digital networks and grassroots activism. The rise of digital technologies in Asia has revolutionized the form and function of agitprop, transforming it from a centralized form of propaganda into a dynamic phenomenon driven by an anonymous mass whose solidarity stems from digital networks (see Jodice 2022, Lee & Chan 2018).Movements such as the 2015 Sunflower Protests in Taiwan, the 2020 white paper protests in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), or the 2025 protests against Martial Law in Korea and the Taiwanese movement the same year that aimed to recall unwanted politicians are all prominent examples. We can further consider everyday examples such as Morton (2023) who discusses aJapanese online agitprop poetry community. The role of the internet in social movements is not new; already 2011’s Arab Spring was hailed by some as the ‘Twitter Revolution’. Since then, the evolution of the internet and growing digital expertise amongst the population, not to mention the recentinfluence of generative AI, has led to different forms of integration of the digital with the offline. Two recent examples from the 2019 Hong Kong social movement are pertinent: 1. The proliferation of networked agitprop as discussed by Ismangil and Schneider (2023), wherein protesters create a visual commons online, which is then disseminated in offline protest spaces. The advent of generative AI has made this process even easier, as even non-artist can now contribute. 2. The use of protest-specific apps, wherein protesting becomes a part of everyday life through selective buy/boycotting applications on smartphones (Poon and Tse 2024). Social media platforms and internet-based communication have become pivotal in disseminating visual propaganda, mobilizing protests, and shaping ideological narratives. For this purpose, this call for papers considers both top down and bottom-up efforts at agitprop. We invite interdisciplinary contributions that examine the intersection of agitprop, social media, and protests in Asia. Topics may include: • the role of visual and textual propaganda in grassroots movements, • the influence of digital networks on ideology formation, • comparative analyses of internet-driven agitprop techniques, • government use of (networked) agitprop to stir up nationalist sentiment, for example in India and the PRC. • the emergence of new actors in the agitprop space, for instance influencers. This special issue aims to explore the ways agitprop adapts and thrives in the digital age, within the context of Asia. We hope agitprop can prove a fruitful concept for understanding a range of contemporary phenomena: efforts by established actors such as governments to formulate their own agitprop internally (consider China's 'Learning from Xi' app); bottom-up efforts at formulating counter ideologies; communicative interventions that are then categorized as election interference and social media manipulation; new influencer propaganda (Xu) and its role in commercial platform economies; and more. Framing these dynamics through the concept of agitprop promises to expand our understanding of digital strategic communication while tying these contemporary efforts at propaganda and ideological framing into a longer historical and regional context. Submission Interested contributors should first send their title, abstract (150 words), and short biography via email to the special issue editor, Milan Ismangil<https://www.uu.nl/staff/MSIsmangil>, by 15 July 2025. The editorial team will select contributions in August, and successful contributors should then prepare articles of 8,000 words, including notes and references, to be submitted through the journal’s editorial management system<http://www.editorialmanager.com/dias/default.aspx> by 1 October 2025. All papers will be fully peer-reviewed, and authors will receive the review decision by December 2025, for potential publication in the early summer 2026. Please see the instructions for authors<http://www.brill.com/files/brill.nl/specific/authors_instructions/DIAS.pdf> for further information on the in-house style requirements. For further questions, and to submit abstracts, please contact the special issue editor at milanismangil@proton.me<mailto:milanismangil@proton.me>. References Ismangil, Milan & Schneider, Florian (2023), 'Hong Kong's Networked Agitprop: Popular Nationalism in the Wake of the 2019 Anti-Extradition Protests'. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 52(3), 488-517. Jodice, Noah (2022), 'The Precarity of Images: Sci-fi Worldbuilding and Its Uses in Agitprop'. MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture 4. Retrieved 13 May 2025 from https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/mfa_illustration/4/ Lee, Francis L. F. & Chan, Joseph M. (2018), Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era: The Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. Oxford University Press. Morton, Leith (2023), 'Contemporary Japanese Poetry and Politics: An Overview'. Internationale Zeitschrift für Kulturkomparatistik, 10, 83-109. Poon, H. & Tse, T. (2024), 'Enacting Cross-Platform (Buy/Boy) cotts: Yellow Economic Circle and the New Citizen-Consumer Politics in Hong Kong'. New Media & Society, 26(5), 2971-2991<tel:2971-2991>. Xu, Jian & Yang, Ling (2025), 'Celebrity Public Relations in China: Power, Politics and Pop Propaganda'. The China Quarterly, online first.