Kitiarsa ( 2012 : 66, 67, 92, 102, 118, 126, 143) studied three examples of cults
around the spirit of Phumphuang Duangchan, the late country music queen, and the
lotto mania; Luang Pho Khun, the famous magic monk and his amulets that bless
people to become rich and free from dangers; and Chatukham-Ramathep, an
invented Thep or divine spirit for commercialization purposes and concluded that
the mass media had constructed and reconstructed the stories around these three
personas and created hyperreality. The media cited are Thairath, Matichon, Khao
Sot newspapers, talkshows on TV such as the Cho Chai (pierce through the heart)
program, Lok Thip (Divine World) and Mahalap (great fortunes), and
Daraphapayon (movie stars) magazines. According to Kitiarsa ( 2012 ), the media
framed the personal stories of these three examples to the interests of the public in
spirit-medium cult and amulet cult. Couldry ( 2003 : 26) discusses“media rituals”
which he explains as a symbolic expression of any social relations by the media.
The media created“myths”around the persona in question. In Phumphuang’s case,
the media enhance her tragic death through framing with supernaturalism; in Luang
Pho Khun’s case with his charismatic characters and magic amulets that induce
good fortune, wealth and safety; in Chatukham-Ramathep with invented divinity
that blesses good luck, fortune, and wealth. The rituals of people giving gifts and
worshipping the effigy of Phumpuang became the media ritual as well as people go
for the holy knocking on the head and holy spray from Luang Pho Khun or the
mythification/inauguration process of Chatukham-Ramathep amulets. Recently in
2016, the media created a hype of Tukata Look Thep or Divine Dolls. Thai
newspapers spread the news that airline companies allow the believers of Tukata
Look Thep to book a seat on a plane for their dolls (Dailynews online, February 29,
2016). Some believers carry around a doll and treat it as if it was their child out of
the belief that the doll would bring them good luck. The dolls were found of
containing hair or a piece of nails from a dead body and were believed to have
spirits inside. These were stories portrayed by the mass media.
Kitiarsa ( 2012 : 84) refers to the process by which the mass media enhance and
create hypes around medium-spirit cults“mediation.”According to him, mediation
goes hand in hand with deification and commodification (Kitiarsa 2012 : 84).
I would rather use the term“mediatization”as it is the process whereby culture and
society are increasingly dependent on the media and their logic in such a way that
the degree of the social interactions within a given culture and society modulated by
the media capital can be observed within social institutions, between institutions, or
in a society (Hjarvard 2013 :17). It is seen as a longer term process than mediation
as the media’sinfluence on the change of the social and institutional interactions is
to be expected whereas the mediation describes only the concrete act of commu-
nication by using a type of media in a given social context (Hjarvard 2013 :18–19).
Mediatization, as a part of globalization, characterizes the postmodern culture
industry. The productions and products of the communication and cultural industry
record and reproduce cornucopia of social interactions, representations, and orga-
nization systems in diverse media formats. Mediatization is closely related to
individualization as I will explain next.
1.3 Thai Culture: A Mediatized Buddhist Culture 11