3212 Ronan Lee International Journal of Communication 13(2019) dominates Myanmar’s broadcast sector, and most television channels and radio stations are state owned (Ministry of Information, 2018). There are a number of state-owned daily newspapers published in Burmese, and the GNLM has Burmese and English editions that while often similar are not identical. Published by the Myanmar Ministry of Information (MOI), the GNLM is the country’s longest-running newspaper, has been in print in various forms since 1914, and was nationalized by Burma’s military-led government during the 1960s when it was published as the Working People’s Daily (“About Us: Brief History,” 2014; “Chronology of the Press,” 2004). English was the country’s official language until independence in 1948, and while it is still widely spoken by professionals, it is today a minority language in Myanmar. GNLM as an Englishlanguage publication is not aimed solely at a domestic market but is also a mechanism for the MOI to communicate official views to the diplomatic corps, foreign business, media, and the outside world more broadly. The GNLM represents the face official Myanmar wants to show the world—the messages the authorities want the world to hear—and for this reason it is also important domestically. I examined GNLM English-language editions during two calendar months from late July until late September 2017, using August 25 (the date the 2017 crisis began) as the pivotal date. My focus was on the front-page stories— there are usually two or three daily (including photo leads)—and the online news archive. Not all articles make it to the online news archive; these articles are selected by the publisher to be retained and available and are a reflection of the MOI’s priorities. The GNLM publishes a daily edition in print that is also available online at the MOI’s website for around one week from publication, and there is an online archive of articles available (Global New Light of Myanmar, 2018b). Further highlighting the influence of Facebook in Myanmar, GNLM also maintains an active presence there, with around a half dozen articles taken from each edition posted daily, as well as an archive of front pages (from the printed version) available to the public (Global New Light of Myanmar, 2018a). I adopted a thematic analysis of the GNLM data and coded articles related to Rakhine State by their primary theme. The GNLM’s approach was not subtle, and most articles about Rakhine State could be neatly categorized as focused on security, development, or the role of the UN there. A clear indication of state media’s security-heavy focus was the extremely narrow range of Rakhine State matters addressed in GNLM. Before the August crisis, Rakhine State matters were already overrepresented in the GNLM relative to its proportion of Myanmar’s population, and the majority of these presented the authorities as either creating economic opportunity (for example, “Union Ministers Inspect Rakhine State Public Works Projects,” 2017) or defending Rakhine State from Muslim terrorists. The GNLM’s use of the description “terrorist” for militants in Rakhine State would be widely understood in Myanmar as a reference to Muslim militants. During the period between July 26 and August 25, 2017, 294 articles were included in the news archive; 36 of these related to Rakhine State matters. The most common theme was Rakhine State security matters, which accounted for 25 articles and included headlines like “Tents of Violent Attackers Discovered in Mayu Mountain” (2017), “IED Explodes in Maungtaw” (2017), and “Emergency Meeting After Killings of Civilians in Maungtaw” (2017). The content of GNLM articles further points to Muslims as the perpetrators of terrorism by, for example, making references to areas understood to be Muslim majority and to finding UN humanitarian supplies, widely understood as having been provided to Muslims in Rakhine State at the “violent attackers” camp. The second most common theme was development issues in Rakhine State, which