(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
Because people and some students responded to the political communication
features as the manipulation purpose, they fear and avoidance to communicate.
Moreover, they were tired and quit to track political news (Kanjana Kaewthep: 1999).
In addition, when online social networks occurred, student groups could monitor a
variety of news in many sources. Radio, television or newspapers could not cover all
news details, or they were likely to report political news as dominance characteristics.
On the other hands, Internet system linked computers in millions, so it made
anywhere could exchange texts, images, movies, and audios with others that linked
globally which supported with the word “Virtual Communities”. Therefore, it became
the new kind of discussion like real time which users could join the discussion on
topics of their interest (Peter Norton: 2002). With these features, Internet users could
seek information as well as the progress of the situations from news websites and
online newspapers both in and out country. Particularly, online social network in
Thailand's political crisis was as a way of sharing information in the form of various
groups which chose a political side or political neutrality. They searched for
information and data and shared in their groups. The different views and comments
may lead to the development of Thai politics in the future. As well as online social
networking had made students more interested in politics. This allowed students to
cultivate democratic ideas well. From one person to another person (Word-of-Mouth)
and from friends to friends of friends allowed the integration of people who shared the
same interest with network to form groups. The various political groups that occurred
in the Thai political crisis were caused by the same political stance and led to the
introduction of friends to join the network and various activities after the political
crisis situation.
Because lifestyle of most students spent on the Internet and online social
networks more than reading books, government or political parties should have
strategies to student groups which were a group in society and would grow to be adult
and the future of the nation in the future turned to participate in politics. Students
should be set up the way of political participation by using online social networking
that matched with the lifestyle of students such as the election both local elections and
national elections. Office of the Election Commission should use online social
networking as another way to provide political information to the group of adolescent
participation in the elections via Facebook that did not cost much. But it was a more
efficient way of sending information to the student groups. It was also a way to
student groups could post comments back rapidly.
In addition, political parties or various political groups could also use online
social networks to find a political group aligned with student groups as well. It also
could get different opinions as a guide to prepare party's policy for these student
groups and also found the voice from student groups which were a large group in
society. It could cause the loyalty to a political party for a long time and the
effectiveness of online social networks caused the person to tell another person
quickly. It made the activities of political parties sending to a group of aligned
students quickly and could find more aligned rapidly as well.
On the other side, which was very important was the information from the
online social network that received from major media such as radio, television and
newspapers which was the general news. However, another part of information may
come from web boards or forward mails which may come from some unreliable
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