ABSTRACT
But beneath the surface-or “between the lines,” as one recent report (LICADHO 2008) put it-the Cambodian press remains under tight central control. Almost all of the Khmer-language publications and broadcast outlets are aligned or sympathetic to the country’s prime minister, Hun Sen, and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), which has been in power in various guises since 1979. The presence of a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in Cambodia in 1992-93 pried open a space for a rambunctious press, but diversity of the press has since declined as the CPP has consolidated its control over the Cambodian political landscape. This reality is broadly reflected in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, which ranked Cambodia at number 139 out of 180 countries surveyed (Mueller 2015).
