Embattled Media

‘Embattled Media is a book on the travails of the media in Sri Lanka that will be of interest to media academics, students and citizens outside the country because this collection is of a high standard, and engages with general issues of media, power and freedom.’
  -- Professor James Curran

‘This is a timely and important book about the difficulties of holding fast to the principles of free speech under lethal pressure from the forces unleashed in a conflict zone. Sri Lanka is currently on the world’s conscience as a result of human rights atrocities. This work shows how crucial an independent media will be to any prospect of future peace.’

-- Geoffrey Robertson QC

‘This pioneering study considerably broadens the scope of media studies in South Asia. … The vibrant but beleaguered media in Sri Lanka deserves much greater scholarly attention and Embattled Media makes an invaluable contribution to this endeavour.’

-- Daya Thussu

‘In this book, Crawley and Page and their co-authors have produced a remarkable and authoritative analysis of media in the region. We need more of this kind of analysis ... comprehensive, clear in its conclusions, carving clarity from complexity and beautifully written.’

-- James Deane

‘This book is both a reality check and an eye opener on the state of the news media in the island nation. This corpus not only confirms what we have known for some time to be a state of siege of the fourth estate in Sri Lanka but also offers depth and breadth to that plight and puts the current condition of the news media there in perspective. It is remarkable that resident media practitioners and proponents of civil liberty yet say all that they do with analytic clarity and cool conviction in the chapters they have contributed to this work. Between the lines in these pages, too, is a call for professional solidarity with those hunkered in the trenches in this struggle for restitution of free democratic expression.’

-- Sashi Kumar * Chairman, Media Development Foundation & Asian College of Journalism, Chennai *

"This volume is a critical review of the Sri Lankan media during a particularly dark phase of the country’s history and offers a comprehensive blueprint for media freedom, not just in Sri Lanka but South Asia as a whole."

-- The Book Review, December, 2016

"This pioneering study considerably broadens the scope of media studies in South Asia."

-- Daya Thussu,