Ms Gayathry Venkiteswaran is Executive Director of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, a network representing media freedom groups in the region. Before this, she was director of the Centre for Independent Journalism, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated towards advancing media freedom and people’s access to information in Malaysia. She has worked as a journalist and has also taught journalism and media history in several Malaysian institutions of higher learning. She has an MA International Relations from the Australian National University and a Bachelor in Mass Communication from Universiti Sains Malaysia. She co-authored a chapter entitled Sexing the Internet: Censorship, Surveillance and the Body Politic(s) of Malaysia for the book Access Contested (2011) and co-authored a chapter entitled Civil society use of media and ICT: A case study of SOS Selangor Campaign in the book Media, Culture and Society in Malaysia (2011). She headed the project to raise awareness on the rights to privacy and access to information at the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), in collaboration with Privacy International in Malaysia up to 2010.

@gayathry

Session: Session 2 – Asia: From “Clicktivism” to “Civic Activism” | Final session – Digital Media and Consequences for Media Development