Reading Abhisit : Analysis of Abhisit Vejjajiva's Television Remarks during the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship's 'Final' Mass Rally in Bangkok (March-May 2010)

Abstract

In this study, Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) is employed to analyze television remarks of the Prime Minister of Thailand Abhisit Vejjajiva during the political campaign of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), also known as the Red Shirt, in Bangkok from March to May 2010. This study explores the representation of 1)the UDD campaign and its demonstrators, 2)the government's measures in handling the situation and the authorities implementing them, and 3)Abhisit himself in the addresses. Also, degree of negativity towards the UDD campaign and the demonstrators in the addresses in relation to the escalation of the conflict is investigated. This study shows that lexical and iconological choices used to 'portray' or 'represent' three subjects above in Abhisit's television addresses are not just based on certain values which have traditionally been used by Thai power holders to counter political dissent. Furthermore, Western values including democracy and rule of law are, to a writer's surprise, used.