The Role of Social Media in Political Engagement among Thai Youth
Keywords:
Thai youth, Political engagement, Social media, Digital activism, CensorshipAbstract
This paper explores the role of social media in shaping political engagement among Thai youth. It examines how digital platforms facilitate access to alternative political information, foster peer-based discourse, and support protest mobilization, particularly during the 2020–21 student-led movements. Drawing on concepts such as connective action, political efficacy, and media ecology, the study also highlights the structural limitations of online activism in Thailand, including censorship, misinformation, surveillance, and the digital divide. The analysis underscores that while social media empowers youth political participation, its transformative potential remains constrained by legal repression and uneven access to digital and civic education. The paper concludes by calling for policy reforms that promote digital rights, media literacy, and inclusive governance to sustain democratic engagement in the digital age.
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This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which allows others to share the article with proper attribution to the authors and prohibits commercial use or modification. For any other reuse or republication, permission from the journal and the authors is required.
