executive summary despite the high cost of mobile access in Myanmar at the time of this research, nearly half of all urban Mon State respondents have a mobile phone There can be few places left in the world where almost half the population does not know what the internet is. The Mon State pilot research has particular value in attempting to describe the information ecosystem of a target community situated at an unprecedented tipping point in the history of a closed society. Key structural factors (governance, technology, economy) are changing suddenly, simultaneously exerting profound change in the ways in which citizens access and use information. Whilst experience drawn from other political transitions may be indicative of future trends in Myanmar, there has rarely been an opportunity to track and chart such sudden and extreme change, and establish a baseline before social media and other forces disrupt and transform the information environment. Some of the key findings of this report are consistent with the current image of Myanmar opening its doors and airwaves to a brave new influx of information. More frequently there emerges a mixed picture as to access, and some thought-provoking findings around trust and flow of information. The research indicates that, despite the high cost of mobile access in Myanmar at the time of this research, nearly half of all urban Mon State respondents have a mobile phone. This penetration would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Nevertheless, widespread lack of electricity continues to significantly hamper full mobile phone usage. Furthermore, only 2% of mobile phone users in Mon State use their phones to access the Internet. In the urban areas of Mon State, TV has replaced radio as the main source of news and information. However in rural locations, qualitative interviews indicated that TV is mainly used as an entertainment medium, not to access news and information. However, a large proportion of Mon State residents do not watch TV at all. Nearly half of the total sample said they had never watched TV (46%). In rural and former conflict areas, radio is the most common source. Once information enters a community however, its flow is overwhelmingly face-to-face sharing through word of mouth. Moreover, this information flow largely takes place in the home (78% of respondents), and to immediate friends and family. Indeed, only 28% of respondents saw themselves as a source of news for the greater community, indicating that most information exchange tends to stay close to home. In this study, news and information sources that are considered trusted—with trustworthiness defined in terms of a source’s accuracy and reliability—tended strongly to be the sources that were best-known and familiar to respondents. Few people indeed trust what they are not familiar with. As a result, friends and family ranked highest for trust, but perhaps surprisingly, so did state-owned media, such as MRTV (jointly-operated with the private Forever Group Ltd.) and Nay Pyi Daw Myanmar Radio National Service (Nay Pyi Daw Myanma Ah-Than). Overall, however, people in Mon State remain generally skeptical of the news they hear, a habit held-over from a time when information sources were few and rumors abundant. Most people regularly validate the news and information they hear against other sources, never fully trusting any source completely. Findings around the reach and impact of formerly exiled (pro-democracy) media indicated little awareness of exiled print media. However, there is a solid recognition of shortwave international Burmese language services, and strikingly high recognition for Democratic Voice of Burma TV. Serious consideration needs to be given to the more nuanced, and perhaps less rosy outlook brought to the surface by the ecosystem research responses on trust. Not only did state-owned radio show up as significantly better recognized and trusted than the international stations, but qualitative research revealed mixed or decreased trust in foreign news sources. This is primarily due to strong perceptions among some respondents of biased reporting on the conflict between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine State by foreign news media. 2 INFORMATION ECOSYSTEMS in transition: a case study from myanmar part one: rese arch findings It is true to say that media content and media and information channels will always be primary factors of supply in any information ecosystem. However, it is necessary to guard against drawing conclusions about media access and “openness” based on a “production + distribution = better informed citizenry” model that cannot adequately account for the quality of the information available, or flow, trust and uptake factors in complex environments. In Myanmar today there exists the risk that under the guise of increased media access, the formerly “information dark” ecosystems which prevailed across much of the country under military rule may be seamlessly replaced with “information lite” ecosystems in which unsophisticated media audiences consume primarily entertainment and “managed” news content. This sleight of hand would replicate the information ecosystems of the “disciplined democracies” of Singapore, Malaysia and China - to which Myanmar aspires - by (at best) doing nothing to foster the development of an informed citizenry and (at worst) perpetuating state influence over the architecture of public information and discourse. For those who wish to see an increase in both the quantity and quality of content feeding into local information ecosystems as a way of enhancing development or democracy/governance goals, it will be important to temper runaway excitement about Myanmar’s “opening” with an understanding of some of the constraints and idiosyncrasies in the country’s national and local information ecosystems. It is the contention of this paper that a better understanding of the information ecosystem of any given community or population will be helpful in developing holistic strategies that harness dynamics in that ecosystem to improve the chances of information actually reaching its destination. 3 how to inform, empower, and impact communities INFORMATION ECOSYSTEMS in transition: a case study from myanmar how to inform, empower, and impact communities PART ONE: RESEARCH FINDINGS