Chinese media's stance on Thailand's 2014 Coup d'état by Prayut Chan-o-Cha

Abstract

Due to political unstableness, Thailand has faced coup d’état for more than 20 times since 1932 Revolution. After the political system has been changed to constitutional monarchy, Thailand’s citizens expected to live within democratic system. However, what they have experienced after 1932 is purely repetitive coups. In the scope of the most recent coup in 2014, initiated by General Prayut Chan-o-Cha, this paper explores how Chinese state-owned/pro-state medias, including China’s Global Times, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, Taiwan’s Central News Agency & Singapore’s Straits Times, reported on Thailand’s 2014 coup. From the viewpoint of ownership and news reportage, this paper identifies media’s connection with its government. In particular, the paper analyses trajectory of articles produced by each state-owned/pro-state media with governments’ stances on 2014 Thailand’s coup to discover if these media agencies would possess identical stances as governments’ standpoints. By scrutinising articles placed in each section, this paper argues that Chinese state-owned/pro-state media would have different stance from government’s standpoint since it’s obvious that news trajectories created by media in this paper regarding 2014 Thailand’s coup are not constantly parallel to the diplomatic relations between Thailand and 4 governments.