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How the Young Use Twitter to Challenge Thailand's Most

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How the Young Use Twitter to Challenge Thailand's Most 1 Anonymously and Creatively Criticizing the King: How the Young use Twitter to challenge Thailand’s most untouchable status quo Wirada Saelim 12846988 Master’s Thesis Graduate School of Communication, Master’s programme Communication Science Supervisor: Mark Boukes Abstract Facing the violation of freedom of expression under the military-led government, the young generation has nevertheless actively joined Thailand’s political landscape. Twitter is, so far, a popular social media site used to express political opinions, even including dissent towards the monarchy. Focusing on how communicative transformation caused by convergent technologies has enabled young Thai citizens to criticize the monarchy—risking fifteen-year jail term under the lese-majeste law—this study uses a qualitative content analysis method to explore trending hashtags related to royal issues from national election to Covid-19 crisis. This study finds that the technologically-enabled sphere on Twitter is crucial to Thailand’s democratization as it allows young citizens to achieve political goals through anonymously and creatively interacting with like- minded people, mobilizing and advocating democracy, setting agenda, and expressing dissent with coded language. Keywords: Thailand, monarchy, youth political participation, social media, authoritarian, convergent technologies, public sphere, political expression Word count: 7,844 2 Introduction In Thailand, one important question has remained unanswered. Under the Democratic Regime of Government with the King as Head of the State, who does the sovereignty belong to? The king or the people? This ambiguity is argued to be at “the heart of Thai political malaise” (Tejapira, 2016, p. 228) that has never been directly discussed in the public sphere: Due to the lese-majeste law, known as Article 112 of Thailand's criminal code, the royal family is protected from criticism. It is considered the strictest lese-majeste law in the world with a harsh jail term from three to fifteen years (BBC, 2017). The prosecution of this law is supported by the notion of “defending the monarchy, the center of Thai people’s hearts,” which has been embedded in Thai culture and identity by past and present military dictatorships (Farrelly, 2016). Self-censorship not only occurs among Thai citizens and journalists, Fong (2009) points out that there has also been a self-censorship among Thai and international scholars due to the enforcement of the law. Some Thai academics have sought asylum after being charged with Article 112. The same goes to international media such as BBC journalist Jonathan Head, who was accused of criticizing the monarchy by a Thai police officer (MacKinnon, 2008). Obviously being restricted in the ability to freely express themselves too, young citizens have moved to the digital sphere to engage in issues related to the monarchy risking being prosecuted by the state. After five years under the military government led by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) that seized the power from then-elected government in the 2014-coup, the young generation has actively participated in contemporary Thai politics in both offline and online spheres, especially the latter. Twitter is, so far, the most prevalent platform utilized by the young users since the first national election in March 2019. Yet, much remains to be understood about how this platform is used to express their political ideas under the condition of a repressive regime. 3 Since the emergence of convergent technologies has profoundly changed the way citizens engage in politics (Papacharissi, 2010), scholars tried to understand and find meanings of the new forms of civic vernacular and political expression of youth in democratic societies (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; Graham et al., 2015). Although some authoritarian regimes like China and Egypt have adjusted to new information tools for their survival by restricting online political participation (Jiang, 2010; He & Warren, 2011; Lynch, 2011; Iskandar, 2019), research in these regimes has revealed that civic empowerment and political mobilization may still be afforded by the use of social media (Douai & Nofal, 2012; Papacharissi, 2010; 2016). In order to better understand the democratizing influence of social media, what is required is a methodological approach that is more open and interpretative, and that “recognizes the influence of social diversity, inequality and cultural difference as important sources of power influencing democratic innovation” (Loader & Mercea, 2011, p. 760). Considering that still little is known about the ways through which young citizens in non- democratic countries use social media for everyday forms of political engagement (Lee, 2018), the current study hopes to shed more light on this phenomenon. This study is aimed to better understand how communicative transformation caused by social media has enabled young Thai citizens to engage in taboo topics of the monarchy. Moreover, it scrutinizes how they make use of the technologically-enabled sphere to negotiate their place and challenge the most untouchable status quo amidst the country’s struggles towards democratization. Theoretical Background 21st Century Citizenship: New Political Vernacular in ‘Merged’ Spheres The 18th century coffeehouses described in Habermas’s theory of the public sphere have been replaced by a mediatized public sphere due to the advent of mass-circulation newspaper and 4 broadcasting media halfway the 20th century (Habermas, 1989 as cited in Bruns & Highfield, 2016). This notion has become even more complicated in the time of the Internet with the proliferation of social media platforms (Bruns and Highfield, 2016; Siapera and Mohty, 2020) as the quality of deliberation on cyberspace does often not reach the requirements of the model (Dahlberg, 2006). New models are needed to better understand how civic engagement and political participation have been transformed and challenged by convergent technologies (Papacharissi, 2010; Loader & Mercea, 2011; Brun & Highfield, 2016). These new lenses will help to transcend disengaged versus engaged paradigms due to a concern about declining in traditional forms of political participation (Ekman & Amnå, 2012). Structural fragmentation, individualization, and pressures of economic globalization are argued to be causes of breakdowns in identifiable political memberships and institutional loyalty in many economically-developed democracies (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). Feeling powerless and dissatisfied with the civic environments, citizens practice new civic activities through their smartphones, the private realm where they may feel more secure and experience more autonomy and flexibility to express themselves (Papacharissi, 2010). As technological affordances have blurred the distinct line between ‘private’ and ‘public,’ ‘formal’ and ‘informal,’ ‘personal’ and ‘political,’ new civic habits have emerged — which are different than those conventionally expected from citizens in traditional models of the public sphere (Papacharissi, 2010; Bennett and Segerberg, 2012). Papacharissi (2010) argues that increased individualism, autonomy, and self- expression have turned citizens from a deliberative mode (a crucial aspect according to Habermas) to a monitorial mode: Monitorial citizens are defensive rather than proactive, reactive rather than consistently active, multitasking while remaining informed. Employing technology to join fluid, issues-based group politics from a self-determined sphere, “monitorial citizens are capable of action, but they are also calculative of the risk associated with political action” (Papacharissi, 2010, 5 p. 101). Additionally, Bennett and colleagues posit that citizens nowadays especially the young generation are unlikely to uphold the ‘Dutiful Citizenship’ in which more conventional forms of civic engagement (e.g., voting, joining political groups, and consuming information from authoritative sources) are considered a duty and obligation. Instead, new technologies are used to socialize with peer networks in everyday life. Accordingly, ‘Actualizing Citizens’ still engage with politics and organize civic action to maximize individual expression (Bennett et al., 2009; Bennett, et al., 2010; 2011), but in alternative ways. Examples are countless: debating with strangers about government’s decision on Twitter during the work break; sharing political content on their news feeds with friends while lying in bed before sleeping; changing a profile picture with the same message to show solidarity supporting social movements; asking friends to support fundraising projects available on Facebook on one’s birthday. As users move from interpersonal to public topics, from one Twitter post to the next, everyday social interaction on social media between ‘peers’ and ‘public’ are intertwined (Bruns & Highfield, 2016). Focusing more on “an expression of personal hopes, lifestyles, and grievances” (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012, p. 743), citizens—especially the young generation— engage meaningfully in civic activities from their private sphere that allows individualized and personalized styles of communication making today’s civic forms different from those in the past (Papacharissi, 2010). Connective Actions and Participatory Politics on Twitter Youth are generally seen as early-adopters, who deploy new communication technologies to develop their civic identity and engage in politics through the use of creative digital artifacts (Kahne et al., 2015; Kligler-Vilenchik
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