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The emergence of a local public sphere under violent conditions: The case of community radio in Thailand's South

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2015

Sascha Helbardt
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Abstract

Community radio has strongly changed Thailand's centralised media landscape. This article analyses community radio's role in establishing a public sphere in the context of Southern Thailand's ongoing Malay Muslim insurgency. This article argues that although the new community radio stations potentially provide ethnic communities, particularly Malay Muslims, with a chance to broadcast in their own language, these stations are dominated by middle-class broadcasters and commercial interests. More politically-oriented community radio stations in Southern Thailand feel threatened by both the Thai military's attempts to intimidate them or influence their programming as well as by militant threats to broadcasters who show favour to the Thai armed forces, which results in the self-censorship of sensitive topics. In addition, the community radio sector is fragmented between Malay Muslim and Buddhist broadcasters.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 32 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2015 

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References

1 Additional characteristics of community radio are said to be a low budget and a high involvement of community volunteers. See http://cima.ned.org/media-development/community-radio#sthash.RDNREHES.dpuf (last accessed 29 Jan 2014).

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3 Between Jan. 2004 and Mar. 2013 more than 5,600 people were killed and almost 10,000 have been injured either by Malay separatists and Thai security forces, mainly in the three provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, and Pattani; http://www.deepsouthwatch.org/node/4147 (last accessed 8 Aug. 2013).

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13 As the case of the media landscape in neighbouring Malaysia shows, ethnic media can strike a balance between expressing the particularities of an ethnic group and, at the same time, integrating ethnic communities at the local or national level. Ibrahim, Faridah, Kee, Chang Peng and Chwee, Kuik Cheng, Ethnic media and nation-building in Malaysia: Issues, perceptions and challenges (Bangi: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 2012), p. 7Google Scholar.

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24 The Red Shirt movement emerged after the ousting of the former elected prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra by a military coup in September 2006. The opposing pro-monarchy, anti-Thaksin movement, the Yellow Shirts, has rather relied on mainstream media, especially television, for mobilising support. Interview, Pitch Phongsawat, Bangkok, 29 Sept. 2013.

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27 The ethnoreligious composition of Southern Thailand varies from area to area. In Pattani province, for example, the Malay population averages 80 per cent. Askew, Marc, ‘Landscapes of fear, horizons of trust: Villagers dealing with danger in Thailand's insurgent South’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 40, 1 (2009): 63Google Scholar.

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34 Personal interviews between Aug. 2008–Mar. 2009.

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36 See further Imhof, Kurt, Die Krise der Öffentlichkeit: Kommunikation und Median als Faktoren des sozialen Wandels (Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus Verlag, 2011)Google Scholar.

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38 Ibid.

39 Pirongrong, Community radio in Thailand, p. 93; and Palphol Rodloytuk, ‘Thailand: Real vs. commercial community radio’, in Peoples' voices, peoples' empowerment, p. 256.

40 Since 2012, media laws demand that local radio stations register as either (a) public, (b) commercial, or (c) community radio, at the national, regional, or local levels. Some local commercial stations register themselves as community radio, as the registration fee for the former is THB10,000 against THB500 for the latter. Interview, Somporn Amornchainoppakun (NBTC staff), Bangkok, 28 July 2012.

41 Interview, Ahmad Somboon Bualuang, Pattani, 17 Aug. 2013.

42 Interview, Yala, 9 Sept. 2012.

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45 Additionally, the Broadcasting Business Act B.E. 2551 (2008) prohibits broadcasting material that might cause: ‘1. the overthrow of the democratic government, which has the King as the Head of State; 2. Impact the State's security and public order or good morals of the people; 3. An action that is obscene; 4. Have a serious impact on the deterioration of the people's mind or health.’ This law gives the (NBTC) the power to suspend any broadcasts or close the whole station. This law has, to date (early 2013), yet to be applied in Southern Thailand. Two aspects come in here. First, the NBTC does not have the capacity to monitor all community radio stations. However broad the definition of ‘state security and public order’ may be, the NBTC itself has a tendency not to search for infringements too actively. Instead, regulators act upon complaints brought to them by third parties, checking each case individually. Interview, Perapong Manakit, Bangkok, 18 Aug. 2012.

46 Interviews with various community radio owners and officials at the headquarters of the Fourth Army Region, Pattani, Aug.–Oct. 2012.

47 Interview, Prachya Pimarnman, Narathiwat, 29 Sept. 2012.

48 Various interviews, Narathiwat, 9–26 Sept. 2012.

49 Interview, Mansoh Saleah, Yala, 8 Oct. 2012.

50 Interview, anonymous Malay community radio activist, Narathiwat, 1 Aug. 2012.

51 Interview, Lt. Colonel Uayporn Chumtong, Fourth Army Area, Pattani, 23 Jan. 2013.

52 In Thai, the station is called Withayau Ruam Duay Chuay Kan (United to Help Each Other Radio).

53 Interview, Yala, 13 Sept. 2012.

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55 Sascha Helbardt, ‘Deciphering Southern Thailand's violence: Organization and insurgent practices of BRN-Coordinate’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Passau, 2011), pp. 162–6.

56 Interview, Rungrod Anantoh, Pattani, 19 Sept. 2012.

57 Interview, Lt. Colonel Uayporn Chumtong, Pattani, 23 Jan. 2013.

58 Interview, Lt. Colonel Uayporn Chumtong, Pattani, 23 Jan. 2013.

59 Interview, Mariam Chaisantana, Pattani, 22 Sept. 2013.

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63 Interview, Yala, 13 Sept. 2012.

64 Apitzsch, Gerüchte und Gewalt, p. 28.

65 Helbardt, Deciphering Southern Thailand's violence, p. 143.

66 On 28 April 2004, 32 Malay militants besieged the historic Kru Se mosque in Pattani after a total of 100 militants had attacked government buildings and security installations in Pattani, Yala, and Songkhla. Despite government orders to resolve the stand-off between militants in the mosque and the Thai army peacefully, General Panlop Pinmanee ordered his soldiers to storm the mosque, which resulted in the deaths of all the militants. Six months later, on 25 October, at least 78 Malay demonstrators suffocated in state custody after they were arrested and piled into the back of military trucks. More than 1,000 people had demonstrated in front of Tak Bai police station, Narathiwat province. Human Rights Watch, ‘No one is safe: Insurgent attacks on civilians in Thailand's Southern Border Provinces’, 28 Aug. 2007, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2007/08/27/no-one-safe (last accessed 18 Nov 2014), p. 36.

67 Thomas Zitelmann, ‘Gerücht und paradoxe Kommunikation: Systhemtheoretische Implikationen der Gerüchteforschung’ (MS, Free University Berlin, 2000), pp. 2–3.

68 Ibid.

69 Interview, Ahmad Somboon Bualuang, Pattani, 17 Aug. 2012.

70 Sukri and Patchara stress that ‘negative terms’ like terrorist (phu ko kan rai) should not be used to label the rebels in Southern Thailand.

71 An exception is ‘Media Selatan’. In 2012, this station received financial support from USAid for six months. One of the conditions for this support was that the station had to report on critical issues like fighting corruption, democracy, and civil society during this period for five hours per day. The rest of the time, the station could broadcast whatever it wanted, which meant playing songs or other forms of entertainment. However, the implementation of this condition proved to be difficult. Although the station has six programme hosts, they have to go on air so often that they hardly have time to prepare the programmes. Interview, Narathiwat, 10 Oct. 2012.

72 http://www.isranews.org and http://www.deepsouthwatch.org/about (last accessed on 20 Jan 2014).

73 Interview, Narathiwat, 10 Oct. 2012.

74 Interview, Pattani, 3 Sept. 2012.

75 Interview, Pattani, 20 Dec. 2012.

76 Interview, Pattani, 28 Sept. 2012.

77 Interview, Prachya Pimarnman, Narathiwat, 2 Aug. 2012.

78 Interview, Ahmad Somboon Bualuang, Pattani, 7 Aug. 2013.

79 Bangkok Post, ‘Five demands remain focus of the peace talks’, 19 June 2013, http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/355906/five-demands-remain-focus-of-peace-talks-says-brn-negotiator-hassan-taib (last accessed on 3 Mar. 2014).