for community media; (4) strengthening media regulatory bodies such as the Myanmar Press Council; and
(5) promoting ethnic/provincial media to encourage
pluralism and diversity in the media landscape. During
the NLD’s five years in power, the media landscape
did not see much progress, following as it was in the
military government’s footsteps. This negligence led
to favouring the current coup council which does not
intend to loosen its grip on power easily, and is taking
all possible steps to maintain the authoritarian forms
of media, as it can protect the council’s long-held political and economic interests.
TIGHTENED CONTROL OF THE IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS:
THE FALL OF THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION
Throughout Myanmar’s post-colonial history, all successive governments were steering the ISA towards
reproducing a system that would benefit the ruling
elites. On 1 February 2021, as soon as the military
overthrew the NLD government, it strengthened its
ISA through assuming control of all state-run media
outlets. As soon as the NLD leaders were arrested,
the entire information infrastructure fell into the hands
of the military and was placed under the newly-announced leadership of the Ministry of Information
(MOI). The continuing existence of the MOI has itself
been a topic of debate in recent years. Most of the
journalists and media analysts were critical about the
pace of reform inside the governmental structure,
not only because of its connection to the wartime
authoritarian information management of the British
in the colonial days, but also because of its association with many historic corruption charges, and the
continuing kleptocracy.8 Since the coup, Chit Naing,
a former senior military official and Director General
of the Information and Public Relations Department
(1997–2009) has taken charge of the MOI, while
the two former ministers for information are being
detained at Naypyidaw Military Headquarters. Later,
for unknown reasons, Chit Naing was transferred to
the post of second Minister of Union Government
Office, and Maung Maung Ohn, who was Deputy
Minister of Home Affairs under Thein Sein’s government, became his replacement. In his role in shaping
the agenda of the ISA, the Minister is not only using
his power to influence the media sector, but also culture, as many vocalists, musicians, and film stars are
taking part in the resistance movement.
Even beforehand, when the MOI attracted the praise
of international donors for its reforms, it was not ready
to embrace a full liberalization of the press.9 Instead,
it deliberately introduced the 2014 Printing and Publishing Enterprise Law with the intention to control
the ownership of the media, and a new broadcasting
media law in 2016 that favoured a monopoly of government ownership in radio and television platforms.10
Under the NLD, it became clearer that the new media
system was still operating in the shadow of the authoritarian legacy.
A mix of legal changes under the governments of the
Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and
the NLD demonstrated a new authoritarian strategy,
as stressed by Christopher Walker and Robert Orttung:
Today’s authoritarian regimes do not seek total domination of all the means of mass communication. What they
want instead is what we might call “effective media control” — enough for them to convey their strength and puff
up their claims to legitimacy while undermining potential
alternatives.11
While the new media strategy partly allowed the
commercial expansion of the media, keeping the restrictive laws was necessary for both of the previous
governments. Positioning the MOI as the core of the
ideological apparatus of the military, the junta quickly
returned with revitalized authoritarianism. The MOI is
now trying to eliminate the free voices of the media,
just as it was pre-2011 before the democratic transition, when it was running the country’s media platforms.
8
K. H. Mon and M. Myint, “Media Experts Support Shuttering of Info Ministry”, The Irrawaddy, 3 February 2016, available at https://www.irrawaddy.
com/news/burma/media-experts-support-shuttering-of-info-ministry.html.
9 UNESCO, Assessment of Media Development in Myanmar, Bangkok-Copenhagen: UNESCO-IMS, 2016, available at https://bangkok.unesco.org/
content/assessment-media-development-myanmar-based-unescos-media-development-indicators-assessment.
10 G. Venkiteswaran, Y. Y. Thein, and M. Kyaw, “Legal Changes for Media and Expression: New Reforms, Old Controls”, Myanmar Media in Transition,
edited by L. Brooten, J. M. McElhone, and G. Venkiteswaran, Singapore: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, 2019, p. 62.
11 C. Walker and R. W. Orttung, “Breaking the news: The role of state-run media”, Journal of Democracy, vol. 25, no. 1, p. 72.
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