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Communication in Southeast Asia and its Influence

Postcolonial Society

The introduction of secular education and a Western curriculum in the twentieth century had profound effects on Southeast Asian language and culture. Necessary skills for preserving and transcribing old texts have been lost, while Western cultural traits have become a source of status. After publishing houses were established

TIMELINE—SOUTHEAST ASIA

Mainland Southeast Asia consists of the presentday states of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Maritime or island Southeast Asia includes the Malay part of the peninsula and a large archipelago divided between Indonesia and the Philippines.

PRECOLONIAL ERA

c. 500 B.C.E. Indian trade with mainland Southeast Asia begins, leading to the spread of Hindu-Buddhist ideology and the influence of Sanskrit and Pali on local languages.

c. 1 C.E. With the spread of trade into the islands, west and central maritime Southeast Asia comes under the influence of Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

1st millennium C.E. Mon-Khmer people settle Irawaddy Valley, Bangkok Plain, and Mekong Delta; Khmer site of Angkor Wat (ninth century) typifies court of Hinduized Southeast Asian state. Red River Valley (southernmost extent of Chinese Empire) occupied by Vietnamese. Chams (Malayo-Polynesian language group) inhabit coast from the Red River Valley to the Mekong Delta.

Early 2nd millennium C.E. Burmans move into the Shan Hills from the eastern Himalayas; conquer Mon-dominated Irawaddy River Valley. Thai and related Lao move into what is now Laos and Thailand from Southeast China.

1300 C.E. Islam expands into island Southeast Asia from the Indian Ocean, following trade routes; Muslims introduce Arabic as they convert local populations.

14th–18th centuries. Vietnamese push south, dominating Chams and taking the Mekong Delta from the Khmers.

16th century. Spain annexes the Philippines, bringing Christianity and Spanish and blocking the eastward spread of Muslim conversions. Portuguese and then the Dutch occupy the Spice Islands.

18th century. Four ethnic groups dominate mainland Southeast Asia by this time: Burmans (Irawaddy River Valley), Thais (Bangkok Plain), Lao (northern and central Mekong Valley), and Vietnamese (eastern lowlands). The contemporary states of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam take their names from these ethnic groups.

COLONIAL ERA

1824–1885. British acquire Burma, which becomes an Indian province in 1885.

1858–1885. French take over the Nguyen dynasty of Vietnam; French becomes the language of administration in French Indochina (present-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). French introduce the printing press to Vietnam; the first French-language bulletins appear in 1861. Malay (later the Indonesian national language) develops a popular literature, spreading ideas of modernization and nationalism from the late nineteenth century on.

1885–1945. Western schools rapidly expand by the early twentieth century. First Vietnamese (French-language) newspaper is printed in 1917. First Thai publishing houses are established in the 1930s. In Vietnam a remarkable expansion of literacy in quoc-ngu, romanized Vietnamese script, takes place between the 1920s and 1940s. Early nationalist movements develop throughout Southeast Asia in response to colonialism and the introduction of Western thought.

1945–1954. Most of Southeast Asia is decolonized in the aftermath of World War II.

POSTCOLONIAL ERA

1954–1975. The expansion of radio in the 1960s and 1970s creates a community of listeners in Southeast Asian countries for the first time. The Vietnam War, ending in 1975 with the fall of Saigon, results in massive devastation, population loss, and displacement within mainland Southeast Asia as well as an unprecedented international refugee flow.

Mid-1980s. Television is introduced to Laos and Bali. The refugee diaspora stimulates use of new media, such as video. Literary analysis and the first women scholars emerge in Laos during the late twentieth century.

1990s. Television viewing greatly expands with the advent of satellite television.

2000. Cell phones, fax machines, computers, and cybercafes permeate city life. The Thai language, in both spoken and written forms, increasingly dominates neighboring Laos.

in Laos and Northeast Thailand in the 1930s, writing on palm leaves became obsolete. In the late twentieth century a new field of Lao literary analysis emerged in which female as well as male Lao scholars participate.

The last two decades of the twentieth century brought modern mass media within reach of most Southeast Asians, though access varies. Television first appeared in Thailand during the 1950s but was not available outside the capital until rural electrification took place in the late 1970s. During the 1980s color television sets and then videocassette recorders became common, and by the next decade television viewing had greatly increased. In Bali (Indonesia), famous for its popular theater, the effect of television on live theater was so great that eight out of ten theater troupes vanished during the 1980s. Siam's (presentday Thailand) confrontation with Western colonialism in the nineteenth century led to a concern with boundaries and remodeling of the Siamese administration system after the model of Dutch and British colonial practice. One of the first Asian countries to use new media to further national development, Thailand has promoted an "official" national cultural identity for at least ninety years through its public education system and mass literacy in Central Thai. By the late 1980s television programming was used to introduce new, nonindigenous patterns of consumption, such as the presentation of Christmas gifts. Due to Thai control of modern mass media, the Thai language in both spoken and written forms increasingly dominates neighboring Laos. Whereas Thai and Lao are closely related, the Thai language modernized more rapidly; Lao scholars are still debating the standardization of its writing system.

Communication of ideas on the popular level in mainland Southeast Asia in the early twenty-first century is largely within an Asian sphere of influence; for example, Thai boxing and beauty contests, Hong Kong dramas dubbed into Vietnamese or Thai. Foreign ideas and the English language have begun to enter Thailand to some extent as a result of the increase in tourism after 1987. The influence of Southeast Asian refugees on both their host countries and countries of origin should not be ignored, particularly now that former refugees can visit or even return permanently to Southeast Asia; new ideas include more rights for women, increased individualism, and democracy. The political legacy of the Vietnam War remains a part of global, particularly U.S., consciousness.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bellwood, Peter. "The Prehistory of Island Southeast Asia: A Multidisciplinary Review of Recent Research." Journal of World History 1 (1987): 171–224. Useful background on prehistory of region.

Chandler, David P. A History of Cambodia. 2nd ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1992.

Christie, Clive J. A Modern History of Southeast Asia: Decolonization, Nationalism, and Separatism. London and New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 1996.

Ebihara, May M., Carol A. Mortland, and Judy Ledgerwood. Cambodian Culture since 1975: Homeland and Exile. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Evans, Grant, ed. Laos: Culture and Society. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 1999. This is a useful collection of essays on Lao language and culture.

Ginsburg, Faye D., Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin, eds. Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. See particularly essays by Annette Hamilton, Mark Hobart, Rosalind C. Morris, and Louisa Schein.

Higham, Charles. "The Later Prehistory of Mainland Southeast Asia." Journal of World Prehistory 3 (1989): 235–282. Useful for overview of ethnic groups and languages.

Marr, David G. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Fascinating discussion of how romanized Vietnamese script became the vehicle for literacy and popular debate between the 1920s and the 1940s, developing along with the nationalist movement. Has an excellent chapter on women.

McDaniel, Drew. Electronic Tigers of Southeast Asia: The Politics of Media, Technology, and National Development. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 2002.

Reid, Anthony. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680. 2 vols. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988–1993.

Somers Heidhues, Mary. Southeast Asia: A Concise History. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000.

Janet E. Benson

Additional topics

Science EncyclopediaScience & Philosophy: Cluster compound to ConcupiscenceCommunication in Southeast Asia and its Influence - Precolonial Southeast Asia, The Age Of Commerce, Colonial Society, Postcolonial Society, Timeline—southeast Asia