(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
in the same topic. They applied in and share opinion on it which was a good way to
communicate too.
In addition, communication was always parallel with the context of Thai
especially with Thai political crisis situations such as on 14 th October 1973 and 6 th
October 1976. The crisis situations were that people and university students gathered
for demanding constitution from dictatorship government. In those days, students had
significant role in democracy and the student center of Thailand participated in the
movement. In that period, communication technology had not developed yet and most
university students recognized the stories and political idea from the discussions in
books, three monthly magazine “Social Science Perspectives” and newspaper. The
gathering occurred from face to face and leaders contacted each other by sending
notes. In those times, "people" was the most powerful communication tool. Using
telephone, there were only the rotation public telephones; besides, both television and
radio had minimal users and they were under government power.
The Black May in 1992 was the situation that people movement protested
against the government of General Suchinda Kraprayoon as Prime Minister and
National Peace Keeping Council (NPKC) on 17 th - 20 th May 1992, which was a Thai
military junta that overthrew the civilian elected government of General Chatichai
Choonhavan in February 1991. This situation leaded to the domination and control of
police officers and soldiers to protesters. There were many deaths and injured, so this
crisis also leaded to political change. This political gathering was called a “mobile
mob” and a “pager mob” because most protesters were middle class, business men
and working age that it was different from 14 th October situation which most
protesters were university students. In addition, mobile technology had just arrived in
Thailand. At that time there were mobile user approximately four hundred thousand
people, particularly in Bangkok and in the big cities. The protesters also used mobile
phone as an important communication tool, so The Black May was also called a
“mobile mob”.
In 2005 – 2008, there was a yellow-shirt protest. The government of Thaksin
Shinawatra was kept an eye on the fraud policy. Starting with his first year as the
Prime Minister in 2001, Television and Radio were bought by some political capital.
In addition, TV program which reported in depth on the work of government was
removed from the TV program schedule in September 2005. For this reason, ASTV
satellite occurred and it could gather the yellow-shirt protesters in Bangkok and other
provinces to join the rally. It could lead to the coup in September 2006 and the
yellow-shirt protesters close Suvanabhumi Airport to pressure the government of
Thaksin Shinawatra . Therefore, the government had to resign in 2008.
The current severe political crisis began in 2009. The red-shirt protester
continually rallied against the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva because the protesters
claims that Thai Army were behind the dissolution of the People's Power Party (PPP)
and making the Democrat Party became the leader of the coalition government and
they also raised the topic of the double standards in society to against the
government. This leaded to various conflicts in society and people who had the
conflicts with each other would try to use the mechanisms both in violence and
ideology as tools for their struggle (Kanjana Kaewthep: 1999). Later year, The United
Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) had continued the political
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