The Exploratory Research on Articles and Essays in Newspapers during the Reign of King Rama IV to King Rama VI

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore written works in the form of articles and essays in newspapers during the reign of King Rama IV to King Rama VI by analysis of their origins and of their contents and compositional techniques. This research concluded that there is some confusion among the public, who thought of the articles and essays as the same entity because of the similarities between the two forms of written works. This resulted in the tendency of the public to simply call them “articles”. Nevertheless, the researcher found that “articles” and “essays” were not used in the same context upon the initial introduction of newspapers during the reign of King Rama IV to King Rama VI. Furthermore, these two types of written works are different in terms of both their content and their compositional techniques. When the Thai word for “article” was created in the year 1942, however, it became a label for all forms of literary prose. It can be concluded that this exploratory research on articles and essays could fill the knowledge gaps and understanding regarding the literature in the form of articles and essays during the period when literary prose was beginning to spread among Thai people and society.