The Political Parody Parade of the Chula-Thammasat Traditional Football and a Power Negotiation of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) Administration

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to study communication strategies to negotiate power with the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) government through the traditional political parody parade at the Chulalongkorn-Thammasat University traditional football. The content was analyzed via samples of puppets displayed through the political parody parade of Chulalongkorn University social reflexed group and Thammasat University political parody independent group from 2015 to 2019. Data were obtained from in-depth interviews. Samples were students involved in the political parody parade. Data were analyzed to evaluate processes and communication strategies occurring in the pre-production, production, and post-production of political parody parade activities. As a result, before the parade three factors that influenced substance creation and control over meaning processes were organizational structure, issue selection, and supervision. During the parade, students used communication strategies to negotiate the power of each puppet through eight main tactics: meaning connection, wordplay, satirical language, symbol use, deconstruction, linkage/combination, intertextual use, and verse/ slogan used. Those tactics were used as communication to resist and negotiate. In addition, after the parade, the students preferred to upload content through social media to reiterate their activities much more than mainstream media that only reported the situation of the political parody parade. The political parody parade served as alternative media for communicating and criticizing politics, while also being an important communications area to simulate patterns of student political activism.