Brokering Culture and Power in a Media-Driven World: Parents of Adolescents in Northern Thailand

Abstract

Exposure to modern media alters cultural values and individual identities. Little is known, however, about whether and how media use alters cultural socialization processes in family relationships. In this study, 20 urban Thai parents of adolescent children took part in individual interviews in which they discussed media use in their families. Thematic analysis of interview data indicates that adolescents act as cultural brokers for their parents in a media-driven culture, and that this brokerage engenders adolescent agency, power, and the renegotiation of traditional age-based hierarchies in the Thai context. Data also indicate that parental power and authority are maintained and reasserted by way of parents placing restrictions on adolescent media use and mobilizing their children’s technological desires as opportunities to teach culturally salient lessons about necessity—a value that reflects central tenets of the late Thai King Bhumibol’s Sufficiency Economy and of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths. Findings suggest that media use can both transform and maintain traditional cultural values and family dynamics in northern Thailand. More broadly, this study carries implications for the psychological science of globalization by applying the concept of cultural brokerage to communities undergoing rapid technological change.

Negotiating Local and Global Values in a Globalized World: The Envisioned Futures of Thai Adolescents

“…And yet, adolescents commonly discussed wishing to give back to their parents prior to being asked about their parents. This corroborates research which points to filial piety as a cultural ideal that is maintained even in the rapidly changing Thai context (McKenzie et al, 2019a). Other global and local values were perhaps less likely to be addressed given the focus of these interview questions.…”

“…Some spoke about the wishes they had for and concerns they had about their parents' futures; others spoke about their parents' wishes for their futures. Such findings indicate that youth have integrated their parents' wishes into their thinking about their own wishes and that the interdependent-oriented local value of filial piety remains even as independentoriented global values of autonomy and independence emerge in this cultural context (McKenzie, 2018;McKenzie et al, 2019a).…”

“…Such a finding suggests that even as cultural values transform in this era of modern globalization, they are not erased in favor of a singular global value system. This also speaks to the power of localization and to the maintenance of local values alongside transformation in contexts experiencing rapid cultural change (Manago & Pacheco, 2019;McKenzie et al, 2019a).…”

Virtue, Shame, and Choice: Perspectives of Sex Work Among Adolescents in Variously Globalized Thai Communities

“…The endorsement of Thai values of sexual purity for women, shame avoidance, and reputation maintenance, alongside the shared moral evaluations of sex work, in the less globalized rural community and the more globalized urban community point to stability in cultural values in the face of sociodemographic and sociocultural change. These findings align with research which suggests that, while globalization pushes cultural values in the direction of Western ideologies, the process of cultural value change is gradual and does not necessitate local value eradication (Hansen et al, 2012;Huntsinger et al, 2019;Kaasa & Minkov, 2020;Manago, 2012;Manago & Pacheco, 2019;McKenzie, 2020a;McKenzie et al, 2019a). Findings therefore do not neatly align with Greenfield's (2009) hypothesis that traditional values are replaced by modern values as communities undergo sociocultural change.…”

“…Mounting evidence suggests, however, that as Thailand has undergone dramatic economic, sociocultural, and technological change in recent decades, cultural and moral values have transformed-particularly among young people and those living in urban areas (McKenzie, 2018(McKenzie, , 2019a(McKenzie, , 2020aMcKenzie et al, 2019aMcKenzie et al, , 2019b. In contrast with traditional Thai cultural-moral values of collectivism, gendered power imbalances, and relational religiosity, urban Thai adolescents center autonomy in their moral reasoning (McKenzie, 2018(McKenzie, , 2019a, endorse gender egalitarianism (McKenzie, 2020a), and experience religion as primarily internal (McKenzie et al, 2019b).…”