Belief Identities of 9 ASEAN Member States from Viewpoints of Thai Media

Abstract

The objectives of this research article were: 1) to study the belief identities of 9 ASEAN member countries through Thai mass media, and 2) to examine the linguistic strategies used for presenting belief identities of 9 ASEAN member countries through Thai mass media, using the conceptual framework of beliefs and linguistic strategies in discourse for analysis. The research adopted a qualitative research methodology using content analysis, focusing on the concept of belief and language strategies employed in the analyzed texts. The research collected data from four types of Thai mass media: Television programs; books; weekly news magazines, and daily newspapers. The sampling methods used included purposive sampling, simple random sampling, and systematic sampling. The researcher presents the findings of the data analysis through interpretative analysis.

The research findings revealed that: 1) The belief identities of the 9 ASEAN member countries, as presented in Thai mass media, can be categorized into four main groups: beliefs related to religion, society and customs, astrology, and superstition. 2) The linguistic strategies used to present the belief identities of the 9 ASEAN member countries through Thai mass media can be classified into three main approaches: lexicalization; modification and discourse-pragmatic strategies. The belief identities of the 9 ASEAN member countries, presented through various linguistic approaches in Thai mass media, exhibit diversity, which helps reduce bias towards neighboring ASEAN countries, which will be beneficial to intercultural communication causing acceptance and cooperation between each other for peaceful coexistence.