tionalism quickly made it one of the highest circulation weeklies in Yangon. Its no-holds-barred coverage of corruption among high-ranking officials and their cronies in the business elite attracted a wide audience. But the newspaper’s personal attacks and unsubstantiated claims quickly landed The Sun Ray in legal hot water. In November 2013, powerful tycoon Tay Za accused the newspaper of defamation after it ran a front-page story with his photo under the headline ‘Cronies Should Jump into the Andaman Sea’ (Weng & Zaw, 2013). The following month, the Ministry of Information asked the IPC to take action against the newspaper for its ‘unethical yellow journalism’ and ‘hate speech’ (Snaing, 2013). Journalists interviewed for this study were equally critical of The Sun Ray and other tabloids for bringing their profession into disrepute. The following quotation from an Irrawaddy journalist is typical of many: The Sun Ray is 50 percent gossip. It provides no evidence for its accusations. Its unethical behavior damages public confidence in the media and allows the government to say we need restrictions on what journalists can report.54 Other journalists expressed concern that the success of The Sun Ray and fellow tabloids, such as Snap Shot, would encourage more newspapers to adopt a sensationalist style. Some interviewees expressed suspicions that more sinister motives lay behind the tabloidization of the press. Although it appeared that by exposing state corruption tabloids were living up to their watchdog role, such stories concealed political biases, as a member of the IPC explains: Look closely and you will realize that some newspapers only attack members of a particular faction within the regime. Their victims are carefully chosen.55 As is predicted by Voltmer’s theories when liberalization is predominately top–down, ownership of much of the Myanmar media by figures close to the military-backed regime means that reporting on government corruption was often a by-product of intra-elite conflict rather than the result of a commitment to the public interest (Table 1). Similar ‘information wars’ between competing elites in post-Soviet Russia badly damaged public confidence in the media. Journalists’ complicity in the information wars of the 1990s strengthened public support for President Putin’s increase in state control of the media from 2000 (Burrett, 2011). Although often an obstacle to successful democratization, the tabloidization of the media that invariably accompanies liberalization is not included in Voltmer’s theories (Table 1). My recommendations for additions and amendments to Voltmer’s theories based on my analysis of the 54 55 Myanmar media are summarized in Table 4 and in the concluding section below. 5. Conclusion During the five-year liberalization period preceding parliamentary elections in November 2015, to a greater or lesser extent, all of the media features and functions predicted by Voltmer’s theories were present in Myanmar. Looking again at Table 1, the Myanmar media strongly exhibited features associated with both top–down and bottom–up liberalization. Although less significant, elements derived from externally-induced liberalization were also present. Programs broadcast from abroad by, for example, DVB, Radio Free Asia and the BBC were popular. But there is little evidence that exposure to transnational media content by itself mobilized popular resistance to the regime. News from overseas of international solidary with Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement, however, may have helped strength the resolve of opposition activists in their struggle against the regime (Puddington, 2000). Although Volmer’s tripartite theory is helpful in analyzing the media’ role in Myanmar’s liberalization, the complex causes of the country’s political transformation suggest that the distinctions between her three discreet models are becoming obsolete. Voltmer acknowledges that democratic transformations often contain elements from more than one model. Innovations in online media, however, are accelerating interdependence between the forces driving liberalization. The presence of social media brings greater potential for grassroots participation and coordination that are part of bottom– up transformations (Krastev & Holmes, 2012). Growing Internet access provides foreign and exiled media alternatives to state-run news, increasing the role of external forces in pushing domestic change. Furthermore, prodemocracy activists can use online tools to draw global attention to government brutality and to pressure the international community to support their calls for democracy. External pressure and domestic activism can convince ruling regimes to initiate top–down reforms. Given the growing interdependence between the forces driving liberalization, it may be better to collapse Voltmer’s three models into one. Applying Voltmer’s models to the Myanmar media highlights several omissions in her theories. In Table 4, I recommend additional features for inclusion in each dimension of the media system, regardless of the source of liberalization. The features I identify cut across Voltmer’s three models. Myanmar’s experience suggests these additional features are factors potentially influencing the media’s actions, regardless of whether liberalization is precipitated by bottom–up, top–down or external forces. Voltmer’s focus on politics as the catalyst for change leads her to omit some of the practical challenges that Author’s interview with Irrawaddy journalist, December 2013. Author’s interview with IPC member, December 2013. Politics and Governance, 2017, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 41–58 54