"Pre-publication censorship has been abolished, private journals and papers abound (although the issue of consolidation caused by financial strains is another matter) and, depending on your calculations, there are between 2,000 and 5,000 accredited journalists in Myanmar, at least half of whom are w ... omen. Yet you could count on one hand the number of women in leadership positions in the local media landscape … In the words of Nai Nai, a former journalist who worked first for the Southeast Asian Press Alliance and now FOJO (and conducted the interview with Ye Naing Moe in this volume), "The hardest challenge of all is the attitude from male senior staff who do not want to accept and respect the effort and capacity of women. The top-down communication and 'don't talk back' culture is a huge issue to tackle." Women journalists, instead of being respected, are seen as "incapable, burdensome, emotional and unable to reason", added Nai Nai. Her family of journalistic talent also includes a younger sister who left her job as a producer with a television station to give birth, becoming yet another statistic of female journalists whose careers were cut short after choosing to start a family." (Pages 243-244) more

"Myanmar Media in Transition: Legacies, Challenges and Change is the first volume to overview the country’s contemporary media landscape, providing a critical assessment of the sector during the complex and controversial political transition. Moving beyond the focus on journalism and freedom of th ... e press that characterizes many media-focused volumes, Myanmar Media in Transition also explores developments in fiction, filmmaking, social movement media and social media. Documenting changes from both academic and practitioner perspectives, the twenty-one chapters reinforce the volume’s theoretical arguments by providing on-the-ground, factual and experiential data intended to open useful dialogue between key stakeholders in the media, government and civil society sectors. Providing an overview of media studies in the country, Myanmar Media in Transition addresses current challenges, such as the use of social media in spreading hate speech and the shifting boundaries of free expression, by placing them within Myanmar’s broader historic social, political and economic context." (Publisher description) more