The Development of Mass Media from the Central Region to the Northeast Region of Thailand

Abstract

The Objective of this article is to study the development of mass media from the Central Region to the northeast region of Thailand. The purposive sampling technique was used to select 18 key informants and the research instruments were semi-structured interviews. All raw material data were analyzed by descriptive analysis. The results showed that the mass media developments from the Central Region to the northeast region were slightly diff erent. That is, the newspaper was the fi rst emerge, in the central region followed by radio, television, internet and satellite television whereas, The radio was the fi rst medium, in the northeast region followed by newspaper, television, internet and lastly satellite television. The further analysis found that the driving forces to more mass media in the Central Region were the power of western infl uence, the spread of democratic ideology, political confl ict, and the development of advanced communication technology; while the driving forces in the Northeast Region were the government policy and the development of advanced communication technology. Moreover, the time scales for mass media development from the Central Region to the Northeast Region were likely to be continually reduced; namely, the journey time of newspaper from the Central Region to the Northeast Region was around 116 years, followed by radio in around 10 years, television 7 years, internet 6 years, and satellite television 5 years, respectively. Therefore, this research predicts that, in the digital age, new forms of digital media - such as smart phones, tablets, Google glasses, smart watches etc. - will become more rapidly proliferated into the northeast region until there will be no diff erence between their arrival times.