Culture and Communication in Thailand (Communication, Culture and Change in Asia)

characterized by mutual distrust and formality. Because the Thai view of the

world lacks a center in which the opposites between power and morality can be

overcome, they have to take notice of both in everyday life and have to act

according to the situation in which theyfind themselves.

4. In Thailand, as documented in other parts of the world as well, one observes at
   least two interrelated developments with regard to the production and con-
   sumption of media software and hardware. On the one hand, there is a tendency
   to import cultural content and technology and develop local imitations, that is,
   attempting to forge a more autonomous culture, independent of but at the same
   time borrowing from foreign (mainly Western) cultures. On the other hand, as is
   the case in the West, one observes that in spite of the better production quality
   the majority of local audiences prefer programmes produced in their own
   culture.


5. Modernization and Westernization have strengthened the animistic concept of
   power rather than weakened it. Unemployment, economic, and political crises
   have made life for the majority of the population even less attractive, so the need
   for worldly and spiritual“protection saints”has increased proportionally, just as
   the struggle for status and prestige under the growing Westernized middle
   classes has increased. Whereas before one fought with traditional
   “power-means,”the power of money anditthiphonis undermining many tra-
   ditional relationship patterns.

References

Baker, C., & Phongpaichit, P. (2005).A history of Thailand. Melbourne: Cambridge Press.
Bangkok Post. (2015). We no speak english. Language teaching and learning are in a parlous state
in the Kingdom. What is to be done? InInternational Education 2015– 2016. Special
Publication. Bangkok Post, Bangkok.
Barry, C. (Ed.). (2013).Rights to culture. Heritage, language, and community in Thailand. Chiang
Mai: Silkworm.
Brummelhuis, H. T., & Kemp, J. (Eds.). (1984).Strategies and structures in Thai society.
Amsterdam: Antropologisch-Sociologisch Centrum.
Buddhadasa, B. (1986).Dhammic socialism. Bangkok: Thai Interreligious Commission for
Development.
Buripakdi, A. (2014). Hegemonic English, Standard Thai, and Narratives of the Subaltern in
Thailand. In P. Liamputtong (Ed.),Contemporary socio-cultural and political perspectives in
Thailand(pp. 95–109). Budoora, Australia: Springer.
Buruma, I. (1989).God’s dust: A modern Asian journey. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Carrier, J. G. (1995).Occidentalism: Images of the West. Oxford: ClarendonPress.
Chaloemtiarana, T. (1983).Kanmang, rabop phokhun uppatham bp phadetkan (Thailand, the
politics of despotic paternalism). Bangkok: Thammasat University. (in Thai).
Chamarik, S. (1993).Democracy and development. A cultural perspective. Bangkok: Local
Development Institute.
Charoensin-O-Larn, C. (1988).Understanding postwar reformism in Thailand. Bangkok: Editions
Duang Kamol.

66 4 A Village in the Jungle: Culture and Communication in Thailand