Direction and Adaptation of Chinese Newspaper in Thailand

Abstract

        Chinese newspapers have started publishing in Thailand since 1907. At that time, there are 95 Chinese newspapers. However, there are only 6 Chinese newspapers left in Thailand, although there are a lot of Chinese people in Thailand. Chinese newspaper used to be a communication channel for China and Chinese-Thai. Nowadays, the technology has been changed rapidly. Normal newspaper needs to adapt to be digital media. Also, Chinese newspaper in Thailand have to change to be digital newspaper or online newspaper. This research is to study about funding sources, policy, style, role and adaptation of Chinese newspaper in Thailand. This research analyzes the 6 Chinese newspapers in Thailand, and interviews key informants such as 6 owners, 1 academics in the academic field of communication arts, 1 political scientist, and Chairman of the Thai-Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

        The research found that most policy has changed because of the political and economic changes. However, the mission about supporting China has continued. There is only one newspaper still supporting Taiwan. The type of Chinese newspaper looks like newspaper for leader. There are both serious news and normal news which talking about Chinese in other countries. The income normally comes from advertising and post for the Thai-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and patronage system. They also get the income from another company business. There are 3 Chinese newspapers which still do the same role as they did, but the 3 newspapers have changed their role because of political and economic changes. However, the policy about China and Taiwan of each newspaper has still not changed. The changing may be divided into 3 groups: (1) having never changed; (2) changing and (3) having changed already. The suggestions are changing to way to communicate with the consumers and expand the group of consumers by concentrating on the new generation of Chinese-Thai, cancel the patronage system, and move to other platforms such as WWW, or digital media.