iieiiei1eWrkers - Leicester Research Archive - University of Leicester

closed and tightly manipulated Sunday sermon and military commentary
programmes, we find incoherences in the propagation of the dominant ideologies.
In the case of the Sunday sermon for example, the schism within the Sangha
has resulted in a variety of definitions of a moral society. Although the state
version of 'Pandin Dhamma, Pandin Thong' is predominant, the diversity in the
Sangha resists any total incorporation. Santi Asoke's popular politics and the
'comic sermon' exemplif' the recent secularisation of Buddhism. In the military
commentary programmes the army finds themselves arguing for contradictory
positions. On the one hand, they consent to the 'conslitulional monarchy' in
the present form of parliamentary representation. On the other, they want the
largest share in this new consensus and continue to promote the triple alliance
as a source of legitimation for the slalus quo.
These constructions of reality are challenged in turn by both the modern
political institution and the media professionals as we saw in the case of
popular news commentary programmes. Despite stringent state regulation, the
producers are able to assert a certain degree of' autonomy based on the ideology
of 'professionalism'. Consequently, we find both continuities and breaks in
content and form that indicate a shift away from the authoritarianism of the
official programmes. The contradictory imagery of popular news commentary
represents the liberal democratic mode of the current political consensus,
In the case of political drama we find that a predominantly conservative
discourse is in play and that the author locates herself firmly within the
framework of 'anti-socialism'. However, as a form of popular entertainment, its
attempt to sustain continuity with tradition is disrupted.. Although the
controversial issue of the forni of democratic rule is tightly organised in terms
that favour the ancien regime, there are constant slippage of meaning. The
internal tension of dramatising political discourse in a love story problematises
the argument rather than solving it. Consequently, the attemp to reproduce a
particular ideology also produces , its anti-thesis since the bourgeois form of
romantic love, based on individual choice and free will, invariably contradicts
the notion of loyalty and patriotism prcscntcd in the political theme.
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