Know Your Media

The information that we know, the news that we consume; all of this comes from the media. Our world view is shaped by the media; they’re telling us exactly what to believe and we form mediated versions of reality. Have you ever thought about how significant this is in a democratic society, where ordinary citizens are the ones electing people to the highest offices? When the people have this sort of power, what they think and believe is highly important. It happens to be that the media are telling them what to think and believe.

During the past year and a half, I have been deeply engaged in the political turmoil that played out in Thailand, and I became a citizen-journalist, documenting the political conflict as it unfolded. Through the course of my writing, I noticed the reach that some of my own articles had and how simply writing and posting from the comforts of your own home can impact political discussion elsewhere. If even a teenager could do this, I wondered about the impact of the mainstream media, with an audience many times the size of any teenage independent writer in Thailand.

As part of the required school component, the IB MYP Personal Project, I completed a research project about the media, with a focus on Thailand. The end result was an eBook, containing an examination and analysis of the relationship between the media and democratic society. The two ebooks can be found here:

The eBook is downloadable here:

• PDF
• iBooks

Please be reminded that this is not a scholarly work and as I am not an expert on this subject, some inaccuracies may be found and I apologize for any of them in advance. Overall, however, I have had an amazing time learning and writing about this subject, and I hope that you will find this resource to be of some use.

-Ken