1. Changing Media Ecologies in Thailand: Women's Online Participation in the 2013/2014 Bangkok Protests
- Author
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Guntarik, Olivia and Trott, Verity
- Subjects
Participatory Politics ,Politikwissenschaft ,Digitale Medien ,Protestbewegung ,050801 communication & media studies ,lcsh:Political science ,Medienökologie ,ddc:070 ,geography ,lcsh:Social Sciences ,Digital Activism ,Interactive, electronic Media ,Südostasien ,0508 media and communications ,Geographie ,050602 political science & public administration ,Frau ,media ecology ,Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture ,Political science ,Social sciences, sociology, anthropology ,interaktive, elektronische Medien ,politische Aktivität ,digital media ,News media, journalism, publishing ,politische Willensbildung, politische Soziologie, politische Kultur ,Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie ,Bangkok Protests ,Yingluck Shinawatra ,Gender Studies ,politische Partizipation ,protest movement ,05 social sciences ,Thailand ,Southeast Asia ,0506 political science ,lcsh:H ,Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung ,political activity ,ddc:320 ,woman ,ddc:300 ,Women's Studies, Feminist Studies, Gender Studies ,Publizistische Medien, Journalismus,Verlagswesen ,political participation ,Media Ecologies ,lcsh:J - Abstract
Traditionally marginalized groups now have more access to new and unconventional means to participate in politics, transforming the media ecologies of existing political environments. Contemporary feminist scholarship has centered on how women use new media technologies to serve political agendas. However, this literature focuses predominately on women in the West, while women in developing countries, or Asia more generally, have been largely excluded from analysis. This article aims to fill in this gap by examining Thai women’s online activities during the 2013/2014 Bangkok political protests. Specifically, we ask how the rise of social and digital media has altered what it means to participate politically in the context of Thai women’s present-day political experience. To answer this question we looked at how women resorted to various digital and social media to discuss women’s rights and political issues, including Yingluck Shinawatra’s political leadership as Thailand’s first female prime minister (2011-2014). Moving beyond traditional notions of participation, we argue that there is a need to recognize the emerging dynamics of women’s online engagement in the political landscape of Thailand. In the context of a totalitarian state, speaking out against the ruling authority online embodies an additional layer of citizen resistance, a feature of digital life that is often taken for granted in Western democracies., Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, Vol 9 No 2 (2016): New Media
- Published
- 2016