"Burma is a country of great ethnic diversity, in which over one hundred different languages and dialects have been identified (Smith, 1991b). The country is wedged between Thailand and Laos to the East, India and Bangladesh to the West, and Tibet and China to the North. The central plains of the Irrawaddy Delta are ringed by mountains that are home to a variety of ethnic peoples. Ethnic statistics in Burma are generally unavailable, and contentious when they are, since there has been no attempt to take a count of the population since the British census in 1931 (Smith, 1991a). The 1974 Constitution identifies seven divisions and seven ethnic states – Chin, Kachin, Karen, Kayah (Karenni), Mon, Rakhine (Arakan) and Shan. There are several other large minority groups in the country as well, such as the Lahu, the Nagas, the Pa-O and the Wa, and there are many Chinese, Tamils, Bengalis and others of Indian origin living in the country. Burma was annexed by Britain in three stages between 1824 and 1886, and was governed at first as a province of India. The British divided its administration in Burma into two divisions – Ministerial Burma and the Frontier Areas, in which the ethnic nationalities were given autonomy to govern themselves. The British also used a divideand-conquer strategy by employing ethnic minority men to help control the Burmans, who were agitating for independence in central Burma. During World War II, the Burmans fought with the Japanese against the Allies while the hill peoples such as the Karens and Kachins stayed loyal to the British. The British exacerbated existing tensions between the various groups by using ethnic minority soldiers to police the Burmans, who were pushing for independence. After independence in 1948, Burma experienced only a few years of civilian rule before General Ne Win took over in a coup that brought the military into power in 1962. While there has been reshuffling of personnel over the years, the military has remained in power. In December 1987, Burma was accorded Least Developed Country (LDC) status at the UN, which recognized that after years of economic decline, Burma was one of the world’s ten poorest nations. This was so embarrassing that the government in power at the time, the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), waited for four months to announce this news to its own people (Smith, 1991a). And so, while Ne Win instituted his plan for the “Burmese Way to Socialism,” the country languished in isolation. As conditions throughout the country worsened for the central regime, territories were designated as white, brown or black areas, corresponding with the degree of control the government had over that area. White areas were entirely under the government’s control, brown areas were partially government-controlled, and black areas were under the control of ethnic nationalist groups. Visitors to Burma were generally restricted to all but the white areas. Scholarly work in Burma has also been severely restricted by the country’s isolationist policies, and there are few works that examine the development of media and communications technology use since Burma’s independence. The few descriptions that do exist make clear that historically, Burma was a highly literate country with “proud educational traditions” (Smith, 1991a, p. 17). Western-style newspapers were introduced into the country during the colonial period, and a host of locally-produced magazines and newspapers appeared soon afterwards (Smith, 1991a). This diversity of outlets continued after independence in 1948, and the Burmese press during the 1950s was recognized as among the freest in Asia, with more than 30 daily newspapers in several languages and representing a wide variety of political viewpoints (Hollstein, 1961; Smith, 1991a). While many of these papers were sympathetic to particular political parties, they remained relatively free of government control, and there was no serious attempt at censorship or harassment of journalists or writers (Allott, 1993; Smith, 1991a; Smith, 1999c)..."