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Session Submission Type: Organized Panel
The last few years have seen the most significant period of change in Myanmar since the military takeover in 1962, including a dramatic effect on a media landscape long controlled through direct censorship and harsh penalties for dissent. Myanmar's censorship body has been dissolved and many restrictions on journalists, writers and artists have been lifted. A young generation is rapidly becoming accustomed to a level of freedom unfamiliar to their elders. This multidisciplinary panel includes contributions from academic scholars (Ferguson, anthropology; Aung-Thwin, history; and Brooten, media studies) and practitioner-scholars with media advocacy (Venkiteswaran) and media consulting (McElhone) experience in Myanmar that informs their scholarly analyses. The panel offers a wide-ranging discussion on contemporary media, a topic only sparsely represented in the literature, yet crucial in that media play a vital role in the symbolic construction of any contemporary society. The paucity of media studies in Myanmar is due in large part to the limitations facing researchers during the military regime, when media were strictly controlled and a source of insecurity for the authorities. This panel features valuable primary source material obtained from research recently conducted in Myanmar on media reform efforts and media development in the ethnic states, and draws transnational linkages with global discourses, policies, and national and transnational culture industries. Providing insights still largely unavailable to the public yet vital to media and political policy makers, this panel begins to address the lacunae in scholarship on Myanmar media and their role during this vital transition period.
Transnational Narratives of Change in Contemporary Myanmar: Media, Advocacy, and Scholarship - Maitrii V. Aung-Thwin, National University of Singapore
Whose Reforms? A Critical Analysis of the Media Reform Processes in Myanmar - Gayathry Venkiteswaran, University of Nottingham University Malaysia
A Slow Struggle: Building Independent Media and Free Expression in Myanmar’s Ethnic States - Jane Madlyn McElhone, Independent Consultant
A Tortured Soul: New Media, Burmese Copy Songs and Culture Cringe in Contemporary Myanmar - Jane Ferguson, Australian National University