10 Brooten, McElhone and Venkiteswaran voters (Keane 2015, p. 250). This concept can help illuminate aspects of Myanmar’s transition, including, arguably, assessing the role of those oligarchs that currently control the broadcast sector. The continued role of the state can be problematic when govern­ ments transitioning from authoritarian rule use the powers available to them to curb press freedom and freedom of expression, demonstrating that changing regulatory frameworks is one challenge, but dealing with cultural change is another entirely. Transitions literature refers to the phenomenon of path dependency, or the tendency to repeat patterns from the old regime in the organization and behaviour of new institutions and practices in the newly democratizing state (Powers 2016; Voltmer 2013). Those who have been in power will try to remain there, employ­ ing media as agents of stability, while contending forces will contest this by working to break free of old cultural patterns, employing media as tools or as partners in their attempts to push for change. Writing about the political changes in post-Communist Eastern European states and the relationship between the political actors and the media, Milton (2001) argues that the democratic forces that came into power after the Communist regimes retained the same media dependence as the regime they were replacing. Regardless of ideology (whether, for example, nationalist, Nazi or Soviet regimes), political actors “will use available political opportunities and resources to pursue their own political goals, and therefore institutional relations of media dependence will persist because this serves the agendas and interests of the political actors charged with granting media independence” (Milton 2001, p. 518). In their chapter on the legal frame­work for media and expression, Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Yin Yadanar Thein and Myint Kyaw argue that the democratically elected NLD government also uses legal tools as a means to keep itself in power. Economic Forces of Change Economic liberalization and promotion of commercial media are creating a global media model that is displacing the national variations of the past, and where journalism, in particular, is being modelled after dominant political and economic powers like the United States (Hallin 01 ch1-MyanmarMediaIT-5P.indd 10 8/4/19 10:29 am