Amidst a time of political change in 2012, the government lifted press censorship. This reform allowed private publishers to operate daily newspapers, including those aligned with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). Exile media organisations re-entered the country, and media institutions underwent reform with international support. Following the NLD's electoral victory in 2015, the government granted broadcasting licences to private entities, including the previously banned Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). In 2015, the telecommunications sector’s liberalisation, along with the widespread availability of affordable SIM cards, cheap imported smartphones from China, and the development of cross-border cables, sparked a significant rise in internet usage in Myanmar. This change transformed how people accessed news; online platforms, particularly Facebook and Viber, emerged as the country’s leading channels for news dissemination and messaging (see Aung & Htut, 2019). These social media platforms increasingly became new avenues for media reporting. Despite the transition in government, the media industry continued to struggle (see Brooten et al. 2019). Larger privately owned mainstream media outlets have ties, whether direct or indirect, to the army’s cronies, relatives of ministers or generals, or individuals in their close circles. There is a lack of transparency surrounding ownership structures and revenue streams of these mainstream outlets. Meanwhile, smaller media houses have been forced to shut down, partly due to competition from heavily subsidised state-sponsored media and limited access to capital. Journalists also continue to face the risk of arrest or murder. For instance, two Reuters journalists were imprisoned for reporting the Rohingya genocide; six were detained for their coverage of hardline Buddhist-nationalists; and one was murdered while reporting on illegal logging. The 2021 military coup has once again shattered the burgeoning resurgence of the media industry in Myanmar. Since the coup, 15 news outlets have had their media licences revoked, while at least 202 journalists have been arrested, of which 138 have been released while the rest remain behind bars. At the same time, state-sponsored media thrived, benefiting from substantial state subsidies. 12