to work with unfamiliar sympathizers in the independent media and the failure of pro-democracy parliamentarians to support new liberalizing media laws are factors not considered in Voltmer’s theories. 4.3. The State As is expected based on Voltmer’s theories, when liberalization is largely initiated from above, the political needs of the ruling regime determined the pace and scope of the new freedoms granted to the Myanmar media from 2011 (Table 1). Restrictive media laws remained intact, with journalistic freedom granted at the discretion of the government, rather than by legal statute. In Myanmar, liberalization did not include a new freedom of information law. Journalists complained that government ministry information bureaus were under-staffed and difficult to contact.36 Given the brutal and secretive culture of the junta that ruled Myanmar for 50 years, despite liberalization, government officials continued to fear getting into trouble if they talked to the media. Like the rest of society, bureaucrats are traumatized from living under a dictatorship.37 The vague wording of national security laws and other laws meant that bureaucrats often felt unsure about what information they could release to the public. Rather than getting into trouble for releasing restricted information, bureaucrats preferred to release nothing. Even when the information pursued by journalists was benign, bureaucrats often stayed silent.38 A culture of secrecy, distrust and fear meant government ministries were slow to respond to breaking news stories. In this regard, the military-back government was often ‘its own worst enemy’.39 Prior to the 2015 elections, the government and military were frequently slow in commenting on stories about ethnic insurgencies. The government’s opponents were much faster to respond to media requests for information: Following an incident, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) will speak to the media within hours, while it takes the government days to respond. In the old days, the government could release days-old information and no one knew. But now that SIM cards are inexpensive and the Internet is more pervasive, information comes out almost immediately on social media. The first version of a story that appears sets public opinion. The government is very bad at getting their story out to the public. Unfortunately, they usually blame the messenger, accusing the media of being one-sided about Myanmar’s civil wars.40 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Although it was often the military-backed government’s secrecy rather than journalistic bias that led to imbalanced reporting of ethnic insurgencies, the authorities used this imbalance to justify cracking down on media freedom.41 Government secrecy took a step backwards in August 2014 when hard line Information Minister Ye Htut replaced moderate Aung Kyi (August 2012–July 2014).42 Interviewees for this study stated that Ye Htut called editors to criticize their reporting more commonly than his predecessor, pressuring them to change their editorial line. Editors at various newspapers also complained that Ye Htut was less willing to work with the media to solve disputes between the press and authorities than Aung Kyi. Several interviewees speculated that Ye Htut had been appointed to intimidate the media into submission ahead of the 2015 election. Many more journalists were prosecuted and jailed in 2014 and 2015 than in any other year since liberalization began (Nyein, 2014; Stout, 2014). As Voltmer anticipates when political change is top– down, Myanmar’s military-backed government retained a variety of legal means to silence and intimate the media (Table 1). Vague national security laws, such as the 1923 Official Secrets Act, the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act, the 2000 Internet Act, and the 2004 Electronic Transaction Act, ensured that censorship could be legally enforced and journalists punished for non-compliance. The authorities had broad discretion in deciding whether media reports posed a ‘threat to national security, domestic tranquility, or racial harmony’ (Crane, 2014). While these laws remained mostly unenforced during the reform period from 2012 to 2013, they were utilized as mechanisms of harassment more frequently in 2014 and 2015. In July 2014, the courts sentenced four reporters and the CEO of current affairs magazine Unity Weekly to ten years in jail with hard labor for publishing an article alleging that Myanmar’s military was operating a secret chemical weapons factory in central Myanmar (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2014b). The government used the colonial-era Official Secrets Act to convict the journalists rather than prosecuting them through the new Media Law, passed in March 2014. The new law empowered prosecutors to decide whether to prosecute journalists using the Media Law itself—which allows for fines but not imprisonment for misdemeanors—or Myanmar’s more punitive defamation and national security laws.43 In 2014, the Ministry of Information took legal action against two media outlets for defamation. Action was taken against an article on President Thein Sein published by the weekly journal the Myanmar Herald and against a story by Daily Eleven alleging misuse of funds by the Author’s interview with Irrawaddy editor, December 2014. Author’s interview with The Voice journalist, September 2015. Author’s interview with Myanmar Freedom Daily reporter, December 2013. Author’s interview with Myanmar Freedom Daily reporter, December 2013. Author’s interview with Mizzima editor, December 2014. Author’s interview with Yangon Times journalist, December 2013. Author’s interview with The Voice editor, December 2014. Author’s interview with IPC member, December 2014. Politics and Governance, 2017, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 41–58 50