USE OF MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY SMS and Internet Penetration – Complicated by Illiteracy and Lack of Written Language The potential of SMS and internet access on mobile phone in Myanmar is already somewhat complicated by the existence of more than one font for Burmese language. It will continue to be limited in Mon State and other ethnic states, at least in the short to medium term, by the extent to which the country’s close to 50% ethnic population are unable to speak or read Burmese language, and the absence to date of fonts for Mon language. Television – Overtaking radio in Urban Mon State But Half of Mon State Residents Have Never Watched Turning to the findings on broadcast media, it is interesting to note that TV has overtaken radio as the most prevalent media device found in Mon State homes. Two-thirds of survey respondents in Mon State owned a TV as well as a DVD or VCD player. Patterns of TV ownership differed significantly by location, however. While 85% of urban respondents had a TV in their home, only 46% of respondents in former conflict areas had TVs. Despite this, a large proportion of Mon State residents do not watch TV at all. Nearly half of the total sample said they had never watched TV (46%). The least frequent viewers were respondents in former conflict areas, of whom 70% had never watched TV, followed by rural respondents (51%). Further questions reveal that a high proportion of TVs across the state are not being used to access news and information. In rural locations, qualitative interviews indicated that because connecting to a satellite service like Sky Net was expensive, reception by antenna in rural areas poor, and the electricity supply often limited or costly, many rural villagers choose to watch movies on TV using a VCD or DVD player mostly at night just for entertainment. Nearly all respondents who used TV as a news and information source watched TV either in their own home, another family member’s home, or in the home of a neighbor (92%). Only 4% relied on a TV in a tea shop for their source of news, while the remaining 4% reported that the TV they relied on was in a temple, shop, or other location. Compared to urban and non-conflict area respondents, individuals living in rural and former conflict area were slightly more dependent on sources outside the home to watch TV, but only by a margin of 5-10%. Furthermore, despite the growing popularity of Sky Net and other satellite TV services in Myanmar as a whole, most respondents in Mon State still receive TV broadcasts by antenna, meaning that they are watching the national broadcasters MRTV and MRTV4. Of the top four most recognized stations in Mon State, the government-owned MRTV stands out in particular for both popularity and viewership—100% of respondents who watch TV have heard of the station, and 98% of those who had heard of the station have watched it. Many of the qualitative interview respondents mentioned the popularity of MRTV, which features news, entertainment, game shows, American Idoltype song competitions, live sports, and Burmese and Korean soap operas. Unlike the Sky Net satellite TV NO ELECTRICITY FOR A TV 1% CAN’T AFFORD A TV 23% OTHER 4% FIGURE 4 WHAT IS THE MAIN REASON YOU DO NOT WATCH TV? (PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL SAMPLE THAT HAD THE FOLLOWING IN THEIR HOUSEHOLD) 48% 24% NO TV SIGNAL NO INTEREST IN TV and many foreign TV stations, MRTV can be viewed in many locations in Mon State through the use of an antenna, although less so in more remote, rural locations. TV is a powerful medium: it competes with other media for people’s time and attention, and it can typically erode audiences for radio and print. In the “disciplined democracy” model, the notion of flooding the broadcast market with entertainment is a known strategy (as in China). 28 INFORMATION ECOSYSTEMS in transition: a case study from myanmar part one: rese arch findings was popular before. ““Radio Now that we have more access to electricity, TV has become more popular. The radio is listened to mostly by older adults. Radio is used more in areas where there is no electricity, like villages. People would use radio there more, to listen to Shwe FM and the news, for example.” U rba n r e s p o n d e n t, Z ar Yar M o n W ard , K yaik H t o T o w n s hi p At least in the urban areas of Mon State, TV has replaced radio as the main source of news and information for respondents. In an interesting twist, the (formerly banned exile-based) Democratic Voice of Burma TV channel on satellite achieved high recognition alongside private satellite giant SkyNet. This is significant when considering the hugely different styles and resources of these stations. SkyNet offers over 70 channels of international and local content, including sports and entertainment, news and parliamentary coverage 24 hours a day, while DVB runs just two hours of programming a day running on a 24 hour loop, yet offers extremely rich and frequently controversial political and news content. 29 how to inform, empower, and impact communities INFORMATION ECOSYSTEMS in transition: a case study from myanmar how to inform, empower, and impact communities PART ONE: RESEARCH FINDINGS