Dominant Characteristics of “Emotional Narratives” towards the Decease of H.M. King Bhumibol Adulajadej

Abstract

After the decease of H.M. King Bhumibol Aduljadej (King Rama 9) on the 13rd October 2016, the grievous event has left unfathomable grief to his people. Every Thai has expressed their condolence towards this miserable event with different presentations. Concerning the King’s death, construction of online narratives is an interesting method worth studying. This study collects 56 narratives which are retrieved from https://storylog.com during October 2016 to January 2017. This study aims to examine dominant characteristics of content and significant value of those narratives.
The results reveal that the “emotional narratives” towards the death of King Rama 9 are constructed on basis of facts. Therefore, “sorrowful emotions” lead to constructions of thoughtful and emotional “messages” or “contents” that are successfully communicated both for the narrators and receivers counterpart. For instance, the “emotional contents” have shared two themes in common. Those are contents representing great lost and contents expressing salutes. The remarkable contents are realized through “language” thus it provokes emotional meanings. Structurally, both of thematic contents are relational. The narratives usually start with the lost and then the salutes respectively. In terms of values of the narratives, there are three aspects of value including knowledge value, human development value, and understanding life truth value. Thus the dominant characteristics of emotional contents and valuable aspects of the narratives meaningfully co-construct the sorrowful narratives.