THE ROLE OF ONLINE MEDIA IN AFFECTING THE DIRECTION OF THAI POLITICS

Abstract

Mass communication plays a role in politics. We can consider it since the time when Thailand changed its government in 1932. The mass communication process has played a clear role in the political participation of the people. In the era of information society, technology has advanced more and more. Computers and mobile phones have become important factors that have become a part of people's daily lives. Especially when the Internet network was created that could connect information like a miniature world on the computer screen or mobile phone, it resulted in many types of media having to adjust and give more importance to online media in order to expand the user base and increase the opportunity to access, including the newspaper business that had to improve and develop from "paper newspapers" to "online newspapers" (Bunnag, C., & Abdulhani, W. (2016). Online newspapers in Thailand were created from the popularity of information technology from abroad because of its ability to link together various information including text, still images, moving images with sound, which can help reduce the disadvantages of newspapers very well.In addition, The same problem that newspaper organizations around the world are facing is the impact of the global economic downturn. In March 1996, many newspaper organizations gradually adjusted to provide information services to consumers in the form of online newspapers (Bunnag, C., & Abdulhani, W. (2016). The role of being a tool for political scrutiny is an important role of the media in expressing political expression according to the liberal theory because the expression in this role will be a measure of the openness in granting freedom to the media, which is considered to be granting freedom to all groups of people in society and politics in the era when the government came from a revolution, a coup, or from having a military power base as a backer. As can be seen, the role of being a tool for political scrutiny in presenting news about the drafting of various laws and in addition to the role of presenting news also provides additional knowledge to the readers. (Bunnag, C., & Abdulhani, W. (2016).