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This paper discusses the challenges and tensions in the relationship between the university as a social institution and the world of digital technologies in which it finds itself, from the perspective of an early-career academic in her late 20s. It argues that problems abound in the university's tendency to adopt non-educational digital technologies for educational purposes in the name of student engagement, and that this approach should be avoided. It also argues that, faced with an uncertain future of job automation and gig economy, universities should move away from the ‘work-ready’ graduate model. Instead, it should empower its students with the capacity to flexibly reprogram their skillsets for the changing nature of work, and play an active role in envisioning new (non)work realities by engaging students in the transformation of their education.

Although social media platforms have garnered much attention in recent years for their putative role in dramatic social and political movements around the world, scholars such as Clay Shirky and Ethan Zuckerman have suggested that the real potential of such tools for change exists in the way they empower citizens to publicly articulate and debate an array of conflicting views throughout society. In this view, social media matters most not in the streets and squares but in the social commons that Jürgen Habermas termed the public sphere. New image-based social media platforms and creative practices in Vietnam appear to be emerging as powerful tools in this regard, offering a voice to a citizenry who, since 1975, have lived under an authoritarian, and not clearly delineated, legal order restricting the opinions and views eligible for public expression.In 2013, Vietnamese netizens turned to the digital techniques of remix and memetic culture to indirectly express and debate sentiment on issues of often sensitive social and political relevance. Using two recent case studies, we argue that this widespread practice constitutes a culturally-specific form of civic and political engagement that appears to be exerting a subtle but real influence upon the state in this rapidly developing Southeast Asian nation.