experts assess this critically because the omission of political deliberation fosters the opinionoriented, sensational and polarized media landscape. The combination of a strong national identity, which seems to be endangered by the southern conflict, and the Thai concept of seniority13 legitimizes military actions, such as the I.O., when it comes to national security, social conflicts or national identity, as seen with the southern conflict. Seniority is the basis for a patriarchal hierarchical in Thai society which results in a culture of agreement, or absolute obedience because juniors are not eligible/allowed to confront seniors. This creates a conflict circumventive culture and leads to the need of intermediaries, such as the king or the military, when the Thai society faces conflict: We give importance to those who are in seniority and those who are considered of higher power than us. So, it goes without saying that, the ones who are in power feel that they have the legitimacy to think for other people (…) and at the same time the people find it acceptable to be led in such a way simply because our culture has grounded us into thinking that perhaps there are other people who are better off than ourselves. (S. Gadavanji, personal communication, 23 March, 2017) Therefore, biased media reporting or information operations of the military in the southern conflict occur without resistance from the public. This may be based on the perception existing within Thai society and politics that the military is an appropriate intermediary to build social and political harmony: They know that they are peaceful under this government. There is no rally. People are also tired of Red and Yellow Shirt movements. And Thai culture is not a culture of contestation. In terms of democracy, it is kind of dead. (Anonymous, personal communication, 6 March, 2017) Additionally, Thai governments have effectively relied on techniques of power coercion to control the online public sphere through “institutional mechanisms”, “infrastructural mechanisms” and “ideational mechanisms”, and have thus been able to establish “hegemonic control because other actors have internalized some of its norms and values” (Sinpeng, 2013, p. 435). These combinations of context factors and the wish for social peace explain the society´s and political concerns that the media enjoys too much freedom: [I]n their perception they think that media in Thailand right now enjoy too much freedom that creates conflict in the society (…); even civil society and academics come to the point that they think that the media should be controlled again. (S. Klangarong, personal communication, 21 March 2017)                                                                                                                         13 The concept of “Pooh Yai” and “Pooh Neuh” (Pooh Yai means senior, Pooh Neuh means young people) affects the media-politics and media society relationship to a great extend. Winter 2019 | 82