Royalist propaganda cranks up

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The royalist propaganda machine has been cranking out rather old-fashioned messages for many years now. The images are tired, often very old and packaged in ways that reek of state bureaucracies at work.

Of late, though, there have been attempts to re-package. Those who go to the movies will have noted a new royal anthem visual display. Now there is more on its way.

We say “re-package” because  the message of the great monarch and father of the people remains the same. However, the attempt is to make these messages appear relevant to a younger generation, who seem to be less interested in the monarchy despite growing up in the period when the royalist message has been loudest. Perhaps the target is also those who are wavering in their support for the monarchy due to recent political events. Of course, the re-packaging owes a lot to the challenges posed by the way that the red shirts have been using new media.

For a flavor of the re-packaged propaganda, see the silence-power website. This site has no ownership specified, has a .com extension, and says nothing about who or what it is. There is no ownership information in its scripts, etc. PPT imagines that the “silence power” moniker has something to do with the so-called silent majority (a term used by Suthep Taugsuban today). There is also an admonition to “stop pulling the sky down.”

This is probably a government-sponsored website. If readers click through to its greatest kings page, it is seen that there is plenty of cash behind the exercise. It is also seen that the sponsors of the forthcoming birthday extravaganza include a bunch of government ministries and the military and corporate world sponsors (Thai Beverage, King Power, CP, Siam Commercial Bank, Air Asia, Yamaha, Samart, PTT and one we don’t recognise).

Update: A reader tells us that silence-power is registered through a U.S. domain registrar and directed us to 2bangkok.com that says: “The Bhumjaithai Party and its Blue Shirts are behind the Silence Power website having taken up or been assigned the role of openly opposing Thaksin by the coalition government. It is perhaps ironic that much of the rest of the anti-Thaksin movement sees Newin and the Bhumjaithai Party to be as dangerous as Thaksin to the existing political order.”

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