This volume examines how media have brought about or placed dramatic political events in Southeast Asia since the 1980s. It highlights a situation where media dynamics are no longer a simple formula of state control versus media resistance. The state can propel its own media-liberalizing programme; civil society can be an enemy of press freedom; market forces and cultural mindsets are sometimes more potent agents of change than state-appointed media custodians. Practitioners, scholars and activists have come together in this volume to provide a diversity of narratives on subjects as varied as powerful politicians and marginalized transexuals.