Rethinking Thai democracy: the impact of social media on political movements in time of political conflict

重新審視泰國民主：論社會媒體對政治運動的影響Thailand has experienced political instability since 2005 until present. The political conflict has divided people into two factions, the supporters and the opponents. First faction is the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD). On the other side, the political movements of the anti-government faction are led by the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC). Social media such as Facebook, Line and YouTube have become the new tools for communication which are used to create change in social movements and political movements around the world. The new tools have revolutionized the social movements’paradigm and theory. This research thus aimed to study social media by focusing on the relationship between Facebook platform and Thai political movements. Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies were applied in this research as the tool to find an answer of the main question. The total amount of 1,500 survey questionnaire samples were distributed to respondents nationwide, and Pearson’s chi-squared test was applied to examine the relationship between social media (Facebook) and political movements. Finally, a result of the study showed that Thai people had different democratic ideologies, and that conflict of ideas had been accumulated and turned into the bedrock of political turmoil in this era. Moreover, it was found that Facebook was an amplifier, connector, and accelerator for political movement. Having Facebook as the new communication tool, Thai people in the society were encouraged to participate political movements rather than individual group or class movement presented in Thai history before. Social media such as Facebook linked cyber space and public space together through the new method of idea and information distribution and people mobilization. This motivated citizen to demonstrate on stress occupying government buildings and department stores. Therefore, political reconciliation should be concerned with democracy from the Thai society perspective rather than the Western one