Ethics and regulation for media in Thailand

Media is one of the most important institutions for social mechanism in every country. The role of media is construction of public belief and attitudes and its relationship to social change. At the present, it's in the era of transition from traditional media to new media which both still play important roles for the society. As the nature of coins which have 2 sides, the important roles that the traditional media and new media play have both advantages and disadvantages that could cause the positive and negative changes to the society. According to the four theories of the press which is political determinism communication theory, Fred S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson and Wilbur Schramm have divided into 4 main theories sorted by time as Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility, and Soviet Communist concepts of what the press should be and do related to the political pattern of domination. Ethics refers to the set of principles of right conduct, the study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person, the body of moral principles or values governing or distinctive of a particular culture or group, and the rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession. Media regulation refers to the process by which a range of specific, often legally binding, tools are applied to media system and institutions to achieve established policy goals such as pluralism, diversity, competition, and freedom. The objective of this article is to study about the development of ethics and regulation of media in Thailand for the readers' awareness, adaptation, and application in order not to violate the rules and infringe others' rights. This article is qualitative with content analysis from news, researches, articles and related documents in the issues of ethics and regulation for media in Thailand in the eras of traditional media and new media. As long as media is used a the positive and negative tool for various institutes, the triangulation control between the media professionals association as ethics (self control) and the state control as regulation (control by others) is required in order to meet the demand of both population and government. As the role of the media in the construction of public belief and attitudes and its relationship to social change, the media is one of the most important organs in the social mechanism. Therefore, the freedom of the press is still important for the better and proper construction of public belief and attitudes and its relationship to social change in Thailand and everywhere around the world.