WHY 1980 AND AFTER?

Reviewing all the available literature on media in Southeast Asia risks cramming too much (both in quantity and diversity of topics) into the limited confines of a book chapter. It is likely to produce a long list of broad categories, too summarily treated to be of any analytical value.1 Thus, scaling the exercise down to more manageable proportions would be sensible and, in that regard, dealing only with what has been published after 1980 dovetails with the theme of “transition”. Beginning in the 1980s, the region saw the start of several major new trends that continue to shape political-economic-social reality till today. They are:

The 1980s saw the beginnings of a democratization trend in the region. The more dramatic manifestations of this trend were “people power” uprisings in Manila (which were successful) and in Myanmar (which were aborted). In the 1990s, people power again forced the demise of unpopular regimes in Thailand and Indonesia. Even politicallyplacid Singapore experienced a gradual but discernible process of democratization with a changing of the guards in the top leadership in the 1980s and, with that, some relaxation of political control. At the same time, in Vietnam and Laos, authoritarian Communist governments introduced liberal reform programmes. In the 1990s, Cambodia turned from a one-party socialist state to a multi-party democracy, an outcome brought about through international negotiations. Every country in the region can sense that its political status quo cannot remain as it is, although some regimes may be putting on a front of having their power-sharing formula right.

The changes were not just in politics. Another major trend beginning in the 1980s was economic transformation. The countries — Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar — turned from socialist state planning to capitalist market economics. At the same time, the non-socialist countries implemented aggressive economic development programmes, the results of which are still pending. Meanwhile, all these developments have produced great socio-cultural changes. The middle class expanded and sought more political participation. At a more visible level, consumerism grew, hastening the impact of globalization through the import of goods and lifestyles. A greater demand for more space in private lives gave birth to a new form of culture politics.