‘Mouthpiece’ and ‘arena’? – social(ist) media in contemporary Laos

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article addresses a critical lacuna in the scholarship on South East Asian media: the lack of a general overview of the media and social media landscape in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. It provides an historically-grounded introduction to the country's traditional media (print, loudspeakers, radio, television, cinema) and offers reflections on the impact of digital/social media on state-society relations. In so doing, I argue that it is an oversimplification to reduce the Lao party-state's stance on media and social media solely to repression and control. In recent decades in particular, market forces, technology and global integration have blended with the Marxist-Leninist state's long-proclaimed pursuit of popular participation to tentatively (re)open spaces for an under-acknowledged level of diversity. Despite ongoing restrictions engendered by the ruling party's continuing pretence to being the final arbiter between ‘truth' and ‘untruth', ‘beneficial' and ‘subversive’ critique, a surprisingly open country-specific media and social media landscape is cautiously emerging in contemporary Laos. Making this case, I bring Laos into conversation with similar arguments made for neighbouring Vietnam, paving the way for more considered inclusion of the Lao PDR in comparative analysis of South East Asian media dynamics.