Myanmar Media Historically and the Challenges of Transition 17 The media tended to support the nationalist movement that grew during the 1920s, contributing to its radicalization (Linter 2001; San San May 2016). The first cartoon published in Burma was drawn in 1914 by a British railway official, and, in 1917, Shwe Ta Lay’s cartoon critiquing British officials for callously wearing shoes in Buddhist pagodas initiated a controversy that stirred early Burmese nationalist consciousness (Leehey 1997). By 1923 there were thirty-one newspapers operating in Rangoon, Mandalay, Moulmein, Sittwe, Bassein and Tharawaddy, including one of the country’s longest-running newspapers, the state-owned Myanma Alin, launched in 1914 (The Irrawaddy 2016).9 Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Burmese media and Burmese language cartoons reflected the popular desire for independence (Leehey 1997; Linter 2001). In 1947, Burma’s first constitution guaranteed citizens the right to freely express their opinions and convictions, and ushered in a brief era of parliamentary democracy during which writers and artists had almost total freedom of expression. When the country won independence from the British in 1948, there were thirty-nine newspapers publishing in a variety of languages, including Chinese, Gujarati, Urdu, Tamil, Telegu and Hindi (Tharaphi 2011). During the post-independence period, media in Burma thrived, reinforcing the country’s reputation as having one of the liveliest presses in Asia (Leehey 1997). Many of the more than thirty daily newspapers and myriad journals and magazines operating at the time considered themselves watchdogs against corruption, and most had their own cartoonists (Allott 1993; Leehey 1997). Ethnic conflict was rife, and journals emerged in the rural areas of the country that were home to ethnic rebel groups, establishing what Smith (1991) has called an “insurgent press” (p. 69). By the 1950s, the space for free expression was beginning to narrow. Writers began joining various political factions, and literary criticism became politicized despite the inability to write freely (Leehey 2005). Film-going began around 1906, with films projected on to large sheets hung by scaffolding in the streets because of a lack of equipped theatres. Documentary filmmaking started in 1920 with a short work about the independence hero U Tun Shein (Aung Min 2012). In the post-independence period, the film industry grew, with for-profit companies beginning to produce documentaries, including recordings of the funerals of high-profile student leaders Bo Aung Kyaw and 01 ch1-MyanmarMediaIT-5P.indd 17 8/4/19 10:29 am