Interesting perfect storm occurring in the Thailand capital this weekend as the ongoing Red Shirt political protest intensifies and reaches Bangkok’s backpacker community.
Major protests in Bangkok – and indeed elsewhere in Thailand – are nothing out of the ordinary, but the current battle between the Red Shirts and police is taking place in full view of web-savvy and social media hungry tourists.
Groups protesting against the government began congregating today near the Khao San Road, Bangkok’s famous refuelling and cheap accommodation spot for backpackers as they criss-cross South East Asia.
This, of course, may be a deliberate effort on the part of the protesters given that pictures will be taken, messages sent out on Twitter etc, by onlookers.
A number of travellers in the area began Tweeting that protesters and riot police were facing each other in streets close to the Khao San Road.
Within a short period the first photographs of the stand-off began appearing on quick-upload sites such as YFrog and Tweetphoto.
- See stream from bethanyshondark.
- And plenty of pictures from legalnomads [incl homepage carousel shot and below].
Documenting violent political protests on social media is hardly new (G20 in London in 2009 was a good example), but very rarely does it impact so directly on travellers.
Thailand’s almost constant political unrest in the years since it became a haven for backpackers and other tourists has often been ignored, perhaps securing a small item on TV news broadcasts or in newspapers.
[Violence in Aceh in 2000 during a trip by this author to Sumatra got a mention in a weekly email home]
But the immediacy of web publishing and social media coupled with the curiosity of human nature means that events such as those taking place in Bangkok are being streamed quickly (and, thankfully, mostly accurately) straight to the internet, where not only friends and family can witness what is happening, but where the wider world sees political protest through the prism of citizen journalism.
There is a lot of heavy bias (from both sides) wrapped up in a lot of the tweeting going on regarding the Bangkok shambles (not talking about the abovementioned tweeters). It’s useful, but it pays to be selective in who you pay attention to — previously that would have been done by an editorial staff – now you have to do it yourself — not always a win result.
Tweets + photos helped me steering a friend out of trouble today, I agree that one has to be selective. Let’s hope that things soon calm dowm. Too may injured already.
@stuart – absolutely right. the filter now is the end-user (reader), which isn’t necessarily the best-informed.
Thanks for the mention and use of my photo. It was certainly unexpected to find myself in the middle of these protests, but it has been amazing to see how fast the information gets passed around, and has certainly changed the direction of my blog (at least during my time here). All the more reason to try and be as accurate as possible when tweeting from events like these. Thanks again.
It is just horrible what happens in Thailand I was there two years ago and it was great. So I think this demonstrations have a really bad influence on the economie and especially the tourism.