"ธุรกิจการเมือง" กับการควบคุมสื่อมวลชน : ศึกษากรณีสถานีโทรทัศน์ไอทีวี / เพียรฤดี ธีรพรสกุล = Political business and media control : a case study of ITV / Phianruedee Theerapornsakul
The study has the objective of discovering whether “political business" has come to control the mass media in the particular case of ITV, Thailand’s only “independent television” station during 2000-2001 .The period was when Shin Corporation Public Company gained substantial share ownership in ITV Public Company during which some of the station’s journalists had their employment terminated. It hypothesized that “Political businesspersons”, businesspersons seeking political office, exerted power and influence to control and change the method of working of journalists in ITV station such that the media content was affected. Documentary research into primary and secondary sources and in-depth interviews of relevant respondents were the research methods used in the study.
The study found that today when business groups seek political office, business and politics become more closely connected, especially in the case studied where Shin Corporation Public Company’s leadership coincided with the national political leadership. The fact that Shincorp gained a significant amount of shares in ITV made for the monopolization of television as a type of mass media because all TV stations were already government-owned or government-controlled except for ITV, which was privately owned. It was also found that when Shincorp took control of the management of ITV, it intervened in the station's operations by exerting shareholding power such that the direction of ITV’s information dissemination benefited political businesspersons with national governing powers. The study's hypothesis was thus confirmed.
