Critical Speech in Southeast Asian Grey Literature During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Published in the Human Rights Law Review, “Critical Speech in Southeast Asia Grey Literature During the COVID-19 Pandemic” attempts to partially address the gap in academic research on critical speech in Southeast Asia during the pandemic. The author, Stewart Manley uses SHAPE-SEA’s op-eds (identified as grey literature) as the basis for his empirical research and assigns a ‘criticalness score’ based on the “frequency of criticizing the government and the severity of the language used.” Noting the challenges of grey literature, the author uses the timeliness of the op-eds to analyze the human rights issue of critical speech. Results of his empirical research can be found at Human Rights Law Review website.