News in distress : the Southeast Asian Media a time of crisis.

Section 1: Democracy, globalization and the media in Southeast Asia - - The Information crisis - - The Democracy boom - - Through a glass, darkly - - Speculations, spins and sinking fortunes - - Global media and empire - - Section 2: country case studies - - The Burmese way of muzzling dissent - - Malaysia: ownership and control - - The Liberation of the Indonesian press - - Indonesia: the web as a weapon - - Philippines: the Problem with freedom

In 1996, when we were planning a conference that would examine information flows in Southeast Asia, the phrase "economic crisis" was not yet synonymous to the region. The Asian tigers were still roaring and not yet in distress. The waves of democratization that swept Indonesia in may 1998 and the street protests that took place in Malaysia later that year were then unimaginable. How things have changed. Since then, things have been turned around in may countries in the region. Old truths are being turned inside out, and if there is a consensus that seems to have emerged, it is that old ideas have to be rethought. By the time we held a conference and gathered 30 Southeast Asian journalist at the Subic Freeport in the Philippines in October 1998, such notions as transparency, freedom of information and access to information were already being preached as part of the solutions to the Southeast Asian economic malaise. This collection reflects the themes that were discussed at Subic. It starts off with an overview essay that describes the state of the media in a region currently in the throes of an economic -- and information -- crisis. Te second essay looks at an important development in Southeast Asia: the waves of democratization that enabled countries like the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia to enjoy previously unimagined freedoms. A free press, these countries have found out, is certainly a blessing, but it can sometimes also be a curse. --From the foreword