Media, Politics, Tech & Censorship with Cod Satrusayang [Season 4, Episode 20]

Greg interviews Cod Satrusayang, editor-in-chief of ThaiEnquirer.com, one of Thailand’s newest news sites. Cod explains that after a decade of experience in the foreign press in Thailand and abroad, he felt that Thailand’s English-language press had been somewhat diluted by corporate meddling and special interests. What the country needed was true independent media from a Thai perspective. 

Greg and Cod discuss ‘woke’ culture and the similar role that comedians and journalists play when pushing boundaries regardless of the risks, in the same way that the leaders of the Future Forward Party, recently dissolved, have done by expressing no regrets about starting a party that challenged the Thai military. Greg and Cod also discuss the history of student involvement in politics in Thailand, from the original protests in 1973 through 1976 and later Black May in 1992. Cod argues that although students were less involved in the 1990s, they have become more involved since the coup of 2014 - something that we see happening in greater numbers as this episode goes to air.

Last, the guys discuss some of the ways that the new generation of Thais think and act differently from their predecessors, especially when you take into account the role played by overseas travel and education, and the influence of the Internet and social media. 

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