This week in Deep Cuts, we feature anthropologist Jennifer Leehey’s 2010 dissertation, which contains one of the most insightful analyses of regime propaganda of the era. To wit: “I would emphasize that this is something other than a persuasive campaign to win the hearts and minds of state subjects. The authorities are much more concerned with producing a facsimile of public opinion than with convincing people, affecting their inner lives in some way” (13).  

Leehey, Jennifer. “Open Secrets, Hidden Meanings: Censorship, Esoteric Power, and Contested Authority in Urban Burma in the 1990s,” Dissertation, University of Washington, 2010. 

See here for the PDF.