From political contestation to ‘Witch Hunt Phenomenon’ in Thailand’s social networking era in 2013 - 2014

Abstract

          Nowadays, ‘social media’ as a public space plays a vital role in people’s daily life, particularly, in the communication context, where people can easily express their thoughts and feelings through various types of platforms, such as websites or webboards. At the same time, such a communication can cause a negative effect on social media users. This research aims to study the ways in which the changing media landscape has brought about different kinds of political expression of individuals, which, therefore, leads to the ‘witch hunt phenomenon’ in Thai society. This research seeks to answer the question as to how the new media is used as a tool to eliminate people with different political opinions by employing documentation and information from websites to study the expression of political opinions or the creation of political contents by social media users that leads to the witch hunt phenomenon in Thai society. In this regard, the concepts of social networking, public space, and hate speech are adopted to discuss the witch hunt phenomenon in Thai society.

          The study reveals that the changing media landscape has contributed to an increase in number of people participating in public discussion on social issues, or exchanging their opinions, which leads to their decision-making on social issues. In the context of an ongoing political conflict, on the one hand, social media has become a political instrument for individuals to demonstrate their political attitudes or ideologies, but on the other hand, it has been used to effectively eliminate those who hold different political opinions. A group of people utilized social media to disseminate hatred and demonstrate evilness of those who hold different political opinions, which leads to the ruthless hunt for those people by publicly condemning, intimidating, and excluding them from society. Such a witch hunt is considered a violation of the rights and freedom of individuals, and no measures have been implemented to help or remedy victims of witch hunt.