http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/o...gn-perceptions


The widening battle over foreign perceptions

  • Published: 2/07/2010 at 12:00 AM
  • Newspaper section: News

Thailand's relations with the outside world appear increasingly contentious as the domestic crisis continues. When foreign perceptions are favourable to government policies and actions, they are embraced and disseminated widely in the domestic sphere, particularly state-owned media and information outlets supportive of the incumbent administration.



Foreign reporters monitor the situation at Bon Kai in Bangkok during the height of the May 17-19 crackdown on red shirt protesters, as black smoke fills the area after protesters set fire to tyres to keep soldiers at bay.



But when views from outside the country are critical, they tend to be treated with scorn and sometimes outright condemnation.

Because it expends vast resources and energy combatting adverse perceptions of how Thailand has manifested since the September 2006 military coup, the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva clearly cares about how foreigners view Thailand and how foreign takes should be consistent and conform to official positions.

The government does not seem to detest the foreign media per se. It selectively prefers the foreign perceptions that toe the official worldview from Bangkok, support the status quo, and obey the mainstream narrative.
For example, the appointment of Ambassador Sihasak Phuangketkeow, Thailand's permanent representative in Geneva, as president of the United Nations Human Rights Council, has been touted and portrayed as the acceptance and understanding by the international community of the Thai authorities' handling of the domestic unrest and deadly violence in recent months.

Prior to this high-level international appointment, senior Thai officials have lambasted certain foreign governments for allowing convicted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra freedom of movement in their countries.
Yet nowhere have foreign perceptions been fought over as controversially as in the foreign media. The foreign media are crucial bridges and intermediaries to the international court of public opinion. Local observers have derided foreign journalists and media for bias in their allegedly rose-tinted coverage of the red shirt protests as democracy aspirants fighting an illegitimate government.

CNN and BBC, in particular, were the objects of disgust and revulsion to some groups of people. Visceral attacks on online social networks were aimed at correspondents of these leading foreign media.

Some of the accusations appear justified. Foreign media accounts rarely mentioned that the latest round of red shirt protests was directly connected to the US$1.4 billion confiscation of Thaksin's assets. Fulfilling a threat to mobilise during the assets' judicial deliberation, it was exactly two weeks after the assets seizure that the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship organised the red shirts onto the streets of Bangkok.



Government spokesman Panithan Wattanayakorn, left, talks to foreign reporters following the clashes between security forces and anti-government UDD demonstrators on April 10.



As the crisis intensified, a number of foreign journalists "parachuted" in from abroad and told oversimplified and dramatic stories of a pro-democracy movement rising up against an unjust government, whereas both sides preferred different versions of democratic rule.

While the foreign media have had much to answer for, so does the sitting government. If foreign media were not to be trusted, why did the government blow up stories that were favourable to official viewpoints? For example, when the Financial Times became the first major international news organisation to delve deeper into the militancy of the apparently armed and pro-red "men in black," it was cited by government officials and translated in prominent pro-government media. When the Associated Press filed a story about how Ratchaprasong was unlike Tiananmen, it made the rounds in Thai media. When al-Jazeera took Thaksin's lawyer Robert Amsterdam to task in an interview, it was lauded by the same people who also criticised foreign media coverage. When two foreign reporters embedded in the "men in black" camp relayed their experiences, it was circulated by government and pro-government media arms. The same was the case with a subsequent CNN revelation of the "men in black".

Thus it appears when foreign media stories coincide with how the government and pro-government groups see things, they are highlighted and even extolled. But when such stories challenged the official reality of events, they were branded as biased or paid by Thaksin in an ill-intentioned strategy to encircle Thailand from the outside world.

Other times, the journalists whose filings contradicted the government were branded as naive and misinformed because of the Thai exceptionalism and uniqueness. The foreign journalists who get their stories right in the eyes of the government understand Thailand. Others who disagree either misunderstand or intend to undermine this country. That seems to be the polarised dichotomy in the controversy over Thai perceptions of foreign perceptions.

Interestingly, the Thais who tuned in to foreign media, especially in televised coverage, happen to derive from the relatively more equipped and privileged of the population. Foreign media are not available on state-owned and government-run free-to-air channels that dominate domestic airwaves. Cable and satellite viewership is limited to a fraction of nationwide audiences. Is it the case that the relatively more equipped and privileged are the ones who objected to the foreign media reporting?

Finally, the question that is not being asked concerns the role of the Thai media. Have the Thai media, particularly the state-dominated electronic media, been fair and balanced in their reporting? If there are at least two sides to any story, as is the cardinal rule of journalism, do both sides of Thailand's divide get to air their views? What would an average person in an average province outside Bangkok, not proficient in the English language, think of CNN's coverage during last April-May disturbances if told about it? Who gets to tell this person's story or does it not deserve to be told?



  • The writer is Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.