PEACEWORKS 92 Antigroup attitudes, suppressed under the military regime, are surfacing in the new climate of openness. One area of positive change is the lifted media restrictions, which has led to an explosion in the availability of information across multiple media formats. People have new access to information that can, for example, hold wrongdoers accountable, promote transparent governance, and increase understanding and exchange between previously competing ethnic and religious groups. This opening should be supported. However, increasing access to information also carries conflict risks. Fed for decades on a restricted diet of state-sponsored half-truths, the population at large has little media literacy and a tendency to attach as much validity to rumor as to reported fact. Most notably in relation to the communal violence between Buddhist and Muslim communities across the country that has marred the transition period, media (particularly social media) have been used as vehicles for hate speech and tools to mobilize antigroup (particularly anti-Muslim) sentiment and action. Antigroup attitudes, suppressed under the military regime, are surfacing in the new climate of openness and, according to some interviewees, are being mobilized by certain elites—particularly those resisting the reform efforts—for political gain. Media opening in Myanmar creates both benefits and risks. This study recommends initiatives to capitalize on opportunities for media to support peacebuilding and guard against the potential for the newly opened media environment to cause harm. IONA Methodology Building on the work of the United States Institute of Peace’s (USIP) Center for Media, ­Conflict, and Peacebuilding in multiple conflict-affected countries, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, this study uses an IONA methodology that blends conflict analysis with an assessment of Myanmar’s rapidly evolving media landscape.1 The project team comprised senior Myanmar media experts, in-country conflict advisers, and key staff from USIP. The project was guided by an advisory group of Myanmar media professionals and conflict experts who offered their input at two stages in the process. Before the interviews in Myanmar, the advisers helped revise the preliminary conflict assessment and afterwards assisted in refining the proposed media interventions. Data collection included extensive desk research; field research included two workshops, individual and group interviews, and follow-up meetings with more than one hundred participants. The participants included local peace and conflict experts, legislators, technologists, state and nonstate representatives, creative professionals, non-Bamar ethnic leaders, civil society representatives, and media professionals. The analytical framework can be distinguished from traditional conflict assessments by its focus on knowledge, attitudes, and behavior (KAB) change. This framework is designed specifically to examine how access to and consumption of information influences peace and conflict: ■■ Knowledge is what people know to be true based on their experience and access to information. ■■ Attitudes are what a people in the target society believe. These attitudes are formed on the basis of what people know and influence why people engage in certain behaviors. ■■ Behaviors are what people do. Behavior is knowledge and attitudes made manifest in context, though not always deliberately. The framework relies heavily on substantial local input to characterize the culturally unique knowledge, attitudes, and behavior of the target populations. The investigation necessarily con6  USIP.ORG