MEDIA-THAILAND: Struggle for Airwaves Still On

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Alejandro Gonzalez

BANGKOK, Jun 17 2002 (IPS) - Four months after the government issued a tough warning to community radio stations, a struggle for the airwaves is brewing here between a group of volunteer-based radio stations in the provinces and the central government authorities in Thailand.

The clash could pit the new National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and liberals against conservative government opponents – including the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who has shown repeatedly that he wants to clamp down on independent media outlets and public criticism of his administration.

On Feb. 12, the Public Relations Department (PRD), which is part of the Prime Minister’s Office, issued a stern warning to the nation’s fledgling community radio sector: stop your “illegal” broadcasts or risk five years in jail and/or a 100,000 baht fine (2,350 U.S. dollars).

Some stations are defying the government and continuing to broadcast with, so far, no arrests or reaction from the PRD, but the threat has mostly achieved its intended effect — a majority of independent radio stations are now off-air.

“We received the (PRD) notice, and we’re still transmitting,” says Suchart Panpeng, an announcer for the Special Educational Radio Service, speaking from a studio in See Na village, Ayutthaya province, 85 kilometres north of Bangkok.

When the group started broadcasting last year, a group of 20 volunteers aimed to reach 30 homes in See Na village using a small transmitter. Today, the station boasts of a listenership of 100 homes, he said.

Asked about the secret of their success, Suchart replied: “We are an alternative to the government-controlled radio. We talk to farmers, factory workers and students about general news topics but also about decisions at the local level that affect them.”

Public involvement in the media is relatively new to Thailand, having only begun after democratic reforms took hold in the 1990s and the 1997 Constitution was drawn up with the idea of overturning feudal structures of media control, says Professor Ubonrat Siriyuvasak, a media studies lecturer at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

State control of the media has persisted, she says, although its purpose has shifted from serving the military to serving elected parliamentarians and parties that want to stay in power.

The new constitution provides for ownership of the country’s radio and television media to be shared between the state, private and community sectors, replacing six decades of state control of the broadcast media.

When, in 1999 Parliament voted to give the community sector control of 20 percent of the radio and television frequency spectrum, the PRD launched a pilot project to sponsor daily community slots on 30 government-run radio stations in the provinces “to demonstrate their positive attitude towards reform,” says Ubonrat.

But as the popularity of the community slots grew, conflicts started to emerge between station management and the volunteer groups participating in the programmes.

People began to use the community slots to air grievances about local services and government policies on live phone-in shows, often forcing officials to answer embarrassing questions and respond to the issues raised. This format was in stark contrast to the “one-way and propagandistic format long employed by the state stations,” explains Ubonrat.

The government started to get uneasy about this trend and began curtailing community involvement at its stations, eventually resulting in the PRD calling off the project in mid-2000.

The decision left a raft of aspirant community broadcasters in limbo. On the one hand, the constitution protects their rights to run community stations, but on the other the government, which owns and controls the nation’s 500 radio frequencies, had cut off what seemed their only access to the airwaves.

That is until mid-November last year when Thailand’s first independent radio station went to air using a small 10-watt transmitter.

‘Wittayu Siang Chumchon’ (Voice of Community Radio) broadcasts without a licence, and in doing so Boonsong Jansongratsamee, a radio host, finds himself in breach of a government order demanding he shut down the transmitter.

“We have not and will not yield to the government, because doing so would be to allow them to block our system of learning and communication,” said Boonsong, speaking from the orchard grove from where he broadcasts daily and reaches “an estimated 20 to 40,000 villagers” in Kanchanaburi province, 120 km west of Bangkok.

“This station is about two-way communication and listener participation. We remind people about their rights to access the media and encourage them to make use of the airwaves,” he said.

Two radio hosts broadcasting in their native Lanna and Issan accents have, for example, looked for and found an audience with roots in the north and north-east of Thailand.

The idea is catching. Charoen Wat-aksorn, a protest organiser against the government’s coal-fired Bo Nok and Ban Krut power-plant projects, plans to set up a small transmitter with 20 volunteers in Prachuap Kiri Khan province, 250 km south of the capital.

In September they plan to set up a community station, “where people can voice their concerns about the use and exploitation of our natural resources,” he said.

To get around the ambiguity in the law that has allowed the PRD to issue its dire warning that flies in the face of the spirit of the constitution, Charoen has enlisted the help of the Human Rights Commission.

“The commission should help people access the airwaves, help us uphold our constitutional rights and bridge the gap between the community and the government,” he said.

In early June, the commission held talks to bring the PRD and aspirant community radio broadcasters together, but it seems too soon to tell what will come of this, if anything.

But if recent history is any guide, government agencies will do their utmost to hold on to their not-insubstantial media assets. For example, the PRD itself owns 145 radio stations, the Ministry of Transport and Communications has 65 and the army owns 200.

“They fear loss of power and loss of privileges,” says Ubonrat.

Critics say that government agencies, like the PRD and the various branches of the military, are seeking to hold on to their broadcasting stations not just because they are an indispensable tool for peddling their propaganda, but also because they are a lucrative source of income from the leasing of licences.

Similarly, people have become increasingly frustrated with the legal route to accessing the airwaves and have begun to assert their rights directly by starting up their own radio stations – and in doing so have thrown down the gauntlet to the government.

In a country where the broadcast spectrum has traditionally been in the hands of the government and the military, the idea of villagers learning to freely and independently operate radio stations outside the purview of officialdom is a frightening thought for the powers that be.

“Our stations will have no ads, no party politics – just people,” Charoen said.