International Journal of Communication 13(2019), 3203–3224 1932–8036/20190005 Extreme Speech in Myanmar: The Role of State Media in the Rohingya Forced Migration Crisis RONAN LEE1 Queen Mary University of London This article considers the role of the state authorities in perpetrating extreme speech and the processes by which state power is used in normalizing hateful expressions against minoritized communities. Drawing attention to Myanmar’s 2017 Rohingya crisis, a human rights and humanitarian catastrophe, the article examines how the state media publication, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper, has actively produced antiRohingya speech in its editions and influenced violent narratives about the Rohingya Muslims circulating on social media. It shows how official media contributed to a political environment where anti-Rohingya speech was made acceptable and where rights abuses against the group were excused. While regulators often consider the role of social media platforms like Facebook as conduits for the spread of extreme speech, this case study shows that extreme speech by state actors using state media ought to be similarly considered a major concern for scholarship and policy. Keywords: Myanmar, Rohingya, extreme speech, Facebook, forced migration The expectation that the state should regulate speech in modern democracy has prompted a large volume of scholarship on hateful and extreme speech, focusing primarily on nonstate actors’ use of social media. Excessive focus on regulating the risks of social media, however, overlooks other important factors contributing to the landscape of extreme speech that exists in countries like Myanmar, notably extreme speech by state officials and in state media. While the negative consequences of extreme speech by nonstate actors in Myanmar using platforms such as Facebook have been widely acknowledged, extreme speech by official Myanmar is underexamined.2 In this article I consider the role of extreme speech perpetrated by the Ronan Lee: ronan.lee@qmul.ac.uk Date submitted: 2018–07–24 1 Many thanks to Matti Pohjonen and Sahana Udupa for their assistance and encouragement during the drafting of this article, and thanks also to the reviewers for their constructive feedback. 2 I use the name “Myanmar” to refer to the country from the time its name was officially changed by the military junta in 1989. In referring to the country’s history before 1989, the name “Burma” is used. Some interview participants’ contributions are anonymized at their request and to minimize risks of victimization by Myanmar’s authorities, who have a history of punishing individuals who speak publicly and show the Myanmar government or military in a bad light (HRW, 2016). Copyright © 2019 (Ronan Lee). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org.