Politics and Governance (ISSN: 2183–2463) 2017, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 41–58 DOI: 10.17645/pag.v5i2.831 Article Mixed Signals: Democratization and the Myanmar Media Tina Burrett Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sophia University, 102-8554 Tokyo, Japan; E-Mail: tburrett@sophia.ac.jp Submitted: 5 December 2016 | Accepted: 20 March 2017 | Published: 13 April 2017 Abstract This article investigates the media context of Myanmar’s recent political reforms and transition of power. Drawing on interviews with 57 Yangon-based media professionals, the article analyzes the media’s role as both an agent and subject of political change as Myanmar prepared for parliamentary elections in November 2015. It asks to what extent changes in the Myanmar media system adhere to existing theories of the media’s role in the democratization process. Specifically, the article analyzes the features and functions of Myanmar’s media during the country’s liberalization from 2010 to 2015. The article concludes by assessing what Myanmar’s experience adds to our theoretical understanding of the media’s transformation during liberalization. Keywords Burma; democratization; freedom of the press; journalism; liberalization; media; Myanmar; reform; transition Issue This article is part of a multidisciplinary issue of Politics and Governance, edited by Andrej J. Zwitter (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) and Amelia Hadfield (Canterbury Christ Church University, UK). © 2017 by the author; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY). 1. Introduction 2016 was a monumental year in Myanmar. Parliamentary elections in November 2015 delivered a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). In March 2016, the NLD’s Htin Kyaw became Myanmar’s first civilian president since the military coup in 1962, a role denied to Aung San Suu Kyi by the juntadrafted constitution because she married a foreigner. The NLD’s 2015 election victory is the culmination of a five-year reform process. In March 2011, Myanmar’s ruling junta handed power to a new nominally civilian government, led by former general President Thein Sein. The new president initiated a series of reforms leading to a substantial opening of the former pariah state (Hlaing, 2012). Most dramatically, these reforms include allowing Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD to contest parliamentary by-elections in April 2012, following her release from house arrest in November 2010. Reforms also included releasing hundreds of political prisoners, reaching preliminary peace agreements with the majority of armed ethnic groups and gradually reducing restrictions on media freedom. In August 2012, Thein Sein’s government abolished the Ministry of Information’s pre-publication censorship regime (Harris, 2013). Previously off-limits topics such as rampant corruption, inequality, ethnic conflicts, and government land-grabs began to feature frequently on the front pages. Myanmar’s media have been center stage in the country’s transition process, both as a subject and agent of change. Media and politics influence each other. This article investigates the media’s role in Myanmar’s democratization during the five-year liberalization process preceding parliamentary elections in November 2015. Myanmar was selected as an illustrative case against which to compare existing theories of the media’s functions and features during liberalization for the purpose of both testing and refining these theories. To develop a more nuanced understanding of the conditions and consequences of the Myanmar media’s involvement in the democratization process, the article draws a distinction between structure and agency. The structural dimensions refer to the economic, technological and political context in which the media operate. Agency denotes the editorial aspects of the media. Journalists play an active role in constructing social reality, Politics and Governance, 2017, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 41–58 41