iieiiei1eWrkers - Leicester Research Archive - University of Leicester

5.2 The Production of News and Current Affairs Programmes: Organisation
and Professional Ideology
Broadcast journalism emerged during the acceleration of commercialism in the
media industries in the 1960s, but the development of a professional ideology is
a more recent phenomenon. As Golding and Elliot (1979:17-18) have pointed
out, the strategy of audience seeking in the commercial press provides a fit
between organisational goal and professionalism as an ideology. Broadcasting
however, suffers from the state-defined notion of news which prohibits the airing
of opinion, extreme dissent or excessive controversy. In common with many
Third World countries, broadcasting in Thailand is under stringent legislative
restraints, as outlined earlier in 4. 1 . So how has professionalism in
broadcasting developed within these complex relations between political constraints
and economic imperatives? To answer this question we look firstly at how
broadcast journalism evolved in relation to news making in the press and the
state-run media. We then examine the production of two 'popular neWS
conunenlary' programmes, Kao Si Mum Baan on Tor Or radio and Kao Dunn
Juan Saang on Wor Bhor Tor radio, in an attempt to show how professionalism
as an ideology must necessarily challenge the state-defined notion of impartiality
in order to fulfill the broadcasting organisations' economic goals.
Broadcast journalism, the state and the conunercial press
For the first three decades of radio's development, the Department of Public
Relations monopolised broadcast news production. The political goals of the new
constitutional government coupled with a paternalistic view deeply rooted in the
bourgeois state provided the bedrock for an 'impartial' use of broadcasting.
But as we shall see, this notion of impartiality which equates it with an
uncritical view of the state, becomes problematic within the dual system of
broadcasting.
News production in the state-run sector of radio is divided into two separate
operations, processing and presenting. In the Department of Public Relations,
news processing is located in the Domestic and Foreign News Divisions. News
presentation is allocated o Radio Thailand. In its early years, the passive
processing of official annou ncemeiits and news releases required little jou inal istic
skill from the practitioners/civil servants. In contrast, Radio Thailand's news
announcers are now at the forefront of presentation. They aie selected for
their language capability and their convincing tone of 'voice' (Huncliaroen,
1983).
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