(Pirated) Transnational Broadcasting: The Consumption of Thai Soap Operas among Shan Communities in Burma
Amporn Jirattikorn, University of Texas at Austin
This research examines the roles of transnational media in the lives of Shan communities in Burma with a focus on their consumption of Thai satellite television, a main window on the outside world available to them. Unlike other neighboring countries of Thailand, i.e., Laos and Cambodia where Thai media is consumed directly from satellite signals, the Shan living in Burma access and consume Thai media only in a form of Thai soap opera dubbed in Shan and distributed in a form of Video CDs. The research consists of two parts. The first part examines how the Shan audiences appropriate transnational television to create a new site of identity that transcends national boundaries while expressing an ambivalent sense of interaction with mediated modernity. The second part discusses the role of this transnational media as a catalyst for Shan migration into Thailand and as a source of information for potential migrants. Together, the two parts of the research address the complex relationship between transnationalism, media consumption and identity formation.
