The detective figure, literary and real, emerged in Siam between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to bring clarity to increasingly complex social and political situations. In early detective fiction including the Seup saphakan [ | Investigating it All] (1892–97) and Nithan Thorng-in [ | The Tales of Thorng-in] (1904–05) series this was certainly the case – mysteries were solved, secrets revealed. In real life, however, the state's deployment of an army of detectives did not so much clarify as codify mysteries. This paper examines the links between the literary and the real detective, arguing that the appearance of detective fiction provided the vocabulary for understanding and dealing with social and political change in early twentieth century Siam.
A cursory examination of the Thai press reveals two things: A history of censorship, at times violently repressive, and sensational content centered on crime news. Reporters, editors, and publishers have been threatened, intimidated, and murdered in an effort to control the print media while front pages are filled with stories of violent crime and gory photographs. This paper explores both these forms of violence, censorship and crime news, to understand the relationship between the two. It argues that the prevalence of the latter—sensationalism—has resulted in part from the former, a historical process of increasingly murderous repression. So while the form and content of the print media in Thailand, as elsewhere, follow the financial imperatives of the market and reflect trends in current events, they do so within a framework of legal, professional, and informal relationships established over time with seemingly unrelated institutions, including the police.
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