Fulcrum ends a busy year on a high. Our team will take a publishing hiatus between Christmas Day and New Years. The Fulcrum team would like to thank all our readers for your constant support this year.
Dear Fulcrum Readers,
Fulcrum will have a publication break between Christmas and New Years. We will resume publication on 2 January 2024.
2023 will be Fulcrum’s third full year of publishing commentaries and analyzes written by ISEAS researchers and external contributors on Southeast Asia and its wider context. Since the launch of the website in November 2020 we have experienced steady growth. In 2023, Fulcrum published more than 300 commentaries – roughly in the same ballpark as previous years. The website has seen a steady increase in the number of views from 220,000 in 2021 and 640,000 in 2022 to over 900,000 in 2023. During the year, ISEAS researchers and external contributors wrote their opinions on various related issues, including Malaysia. State elections, lingering disputes in the South China Sea, regional reactions to emerging minorities such as Quad and AUKUS, as well as the nuances of Indonesia’s domestic politics.
According to our data covering Southeast Asia and its wider ecosystem, Fulcrum’s readers in 2023 are from the same five countries as in 2022 (ranked in order of views): Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and the United States. We continued to see strong interest from countries such as Vietnam, Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan and Cambodia.
This year, we also incorporated new content created by our colleagues at the Center for ASEAN Studies. We started publishing ASEANFocus Plus content in May 2023. This series provides an in-depth study of the workings of ASEAN and its development as a regional organization.
New posts set up for our readers and new content created would not be possible without the constant interest of our loyal readers. The Fulcrum Group is encouraged by the appreciation and gratitude of officials, scholars and businessmen for the insights gained by reading the content on the website. Long-form writing is not dead, but we understand that in an increasingly fast-paced environment fueled by regional and global crises (the Israel-Hamas war, the war in Ukraine, and pandemics, to name a few), our readers are. Looking for written analysis in a relatively short and digestible format.
To give you a sense of the breadth and depth of our coverage, over the coming week we’ll be republishing the top 10 commentaries that garnered the most attention in 2023. Hopefully this will give you a sense of the topics and the issue. The most important parts for our readers.
The team at Fulcrum wishes all Fulcrum readers a peaceful and reflective Christmas and New Year!
Hosts and Fulcrum Group
Hae Won, Hwee Leng, Hwok An, Julia, Lydia, Bo An, Sue-An, William, Xuan Tung
