Vietnam's communication policies since the 1980s have shown a curious dualism in their treatment of the mass communications and telecommunications sectors. While the development of telecommunications has been undertaken with increasing participation from foreign firms operating under liberalized investment policies, the mass media experienced limited freedoms from state controls for only a short period, followed by rapid retrenchment by the Vietnamese Communist Party. This study describes the historical development of the two communication sectors and documents policy trends affecting each over the last five years. The study then explores Vietnam's shifting political economy during the same period, finding that the country's efforts simultaneously to maintain its Communist political ideology and to develop its economy through free-market mechanisms and foreign invest ment explain the tenuous dualism in communications policy.
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