RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.4 Listeners
This study explored the efficiency of the NCPO‟s patriotic songs from listeners as a part of the analysis of the process and strategies in creating patriotic songs of the NCPO. For this part, “Return Happiness to Thailand” was selected as a representative of the NCPO‟s patriotic songs to examine listeners‟ perception, attitude, and satisfaction with the NCPO‟s songs. The research on this part was conducted online through YouTube.
Patcharaphon Kraichumpol (2012) explained, “YouTube is a kind of social network for the great use of public relations, image and fame building.” Besides, YouTube is a free channel that receivers are an engaged audience and can choose to expose to it or not. Listeners can also expose to Video clips by themselves and can voluntarily express their opinions, so it is not necessary to do a survey to question about their reception. Accordingly, the researcher chose to study the perception, attitude, and satisfaction of listeners who listened to “Return Happiness to Thailand”
through YouTube.
3.4.1 Criteria for Selecting Samples
Purposive sampling was conducted, and three websites were selected to study listeners‟ opinions and feedback. To be able to consider their feedback against social and political contexts where the NCPO‟s songs occurred, three groups of listeners were selected as follow:
1) Representatives of the military and of people who supported the NCPO, who have a tendency to be satisfied with the NCPO‟s songs and who can accept the military governance the most were examined to see their attitude and satisfaction with the NCPO‟s songs. The sampling was conducted from the websites post by military offices and using songs originally produced and sung by the military.
2) Representatives of people from the private sector, whether supporting the NCPO or not, were selected from websites post by private sectors. The song was the version produced and sung by the private sector. The researcher expected to gain a variety of information from the civil sector to see if their satisfaction with the NCPO‟s song produced and sung by a popular artist from the private sector will be different from their satisfaction with the original song by the army or not.
3) A mixed group between private and military sectors who did not oppose but cooperated with the NCPO in producing songs. The sampling was conducted from websites post by private sectors who cooperated with military offices in producing songs to study if the listeners‟ attitude and satisfaction towards the NCPO‟s songs were different from that towards previous songs that produced and sung by either military or private sector purely.
Figure 3.1 Illustrates Samples of the Study
3.4.2 The Criteria in Website Selection
1) Websites that represented the groups supporting the NCPO and Military and disseminating the NCPO‟song created and sung by the military, namely
“Return Happiness to Thailand,” post by Trass Simma of the 1st Infantry Regiment in King Rama V, retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3pLyAHMzJI&lc
=z23hxnmj4yjuzvxax04t1aokgtxfj2d4ewuu4ayejhxnrk0h00410
The website was posted by Royal Thai Army office with top viewers and opened for expression of ideas. The singer of the song was Sergeant Major Pongsathorn Phorjit of the Royal Thai Army. For this sample, the researcher aimed to study the efficiency of the song composed and sung by the military from listeners‟ views.
Remark: Since the song “Return Happiness to Thailand” on the official military website with top viewers, post by Kittinun Nakthong, was not allowed to give comments or opinion, the researcher needed to select another site from YouTube post by the military with the second top viewers, retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=xLYSBVmoPhY, which allowed for comments and opinions.
2) The website of private sectors that did not use the original military songs but used rearranged one and sung by a Pop singer. The selected song, “Return Happiness to Thailand” was posted by Carabao Channel. (Version of Asanee and Wasan Chotikul), retrieved from https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=Cd
5
WS7
FQRTU.“Return Happiness to Thailand” of this version was rearranged from the original the NCPO song by a well-known private producer and sung by famous singers. The purpose of studying this sample was to examine the listeners‟ feedback and opinion towards this revised song sung by pop singers.
Military Private &
Military
Private
3) The website of the mixed group between private and military sectors who cooperated in producing the song. On this website, “Return Happiness to Thailand” song was post by Bangkok House TV (Version of singers from both Royal Thai Army Music Band and Bangkok House Production Co., Ltd), retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn1sUdYCTEA
For the song “Return Happiness to Thailand” (Version of a joint singing of private and military singers), the research aimed to study the listeners‟ feedback towards such collective singing.
For accessing the samples above, the researcher selected the songs disseminated up to December 31, 2016, per the scope of research on four the NCPO‟s songs, which needed to be analyzed within January 4, 2017. (Remark: the last song was “A Bridge”
disseminated on January 4, 2017).All three groups of samples were classified by issues and directions of opinions as follow:
1) Positive/negative views about the military
The questions under this topic aimed to examine to which direction and how the transmission and persuasion of the NCPO‟s songs affect the listeners‟ attitude towards the NCPO and the military offices.
2) Positive/negative opinions about the NCPO‟s songs
The questions under this topic aimed to examine if the transmission and persuasion of the NCPO‟s songs affect the listeners‟ listening of the NCPO‟s songs.
The answers might explain the reason why the NCPO adjusted their patriotic songs to popular songs.
3) Positive/negative opinions about artists/singers
The questions under this topic aimed to examine if the transmission and persuasion of the NCPO‟s songs affect the listeners‟ attitude towards the singers or not.
Would they have attitudes towards singers of the military and the private sectors differently? The answers might explain the effect of having singers from a private sector on the transmission of the NCPO‟s songs.
3.4.3 Data Analysis
The analysis of the opinion expression via YouTube was conducted from the researcher‟s perspective mainly through the use of both qualitative and quantitative research. The researcher observed and analyzed general comments or opinions quantitatively from 1) the number of views 2) the number of Likes 3) the number of Dislike 4) the number of positive and negative opinions. Such opinions were analyzed in combination with qualitative analysis of the opinions in each topic. The positive opinions were an appreciation, likes or preference, and encouragement while the negative opinions were dislikes, dissatisfaction, sarcasm, mocking, etc.