Abstract:
The objectives of this research are to study the advantages of the Internet in being the medium for a cyber-gossip column, factors that give rise to the Beep Saw column in Manager online newspaper, factors that influence content creation of the column, form and content of the column, forms of interaction in the webboard attached to the column. Besides, the research studies how the content within the Beep-Sew column may contradict with the ethics of Thai journalism; the ethics of Thai Webmaster and the law. The methodologies of this research are content analysis and in-depth interviews. The result of study finds that the advantages of the Internet in being the medium for a cyber-gossip column are ease of navigation, openness, interactivity, anonymity and multimedia. The factors that gave rise to the opening of the Beep Sew column are internal factors of Phoo Jad Karn organization such as the executives vision, organizations policy, technological factor (the Internet) and social factor. Both internal and external factors are found to shape the content creation in the column. The internal factors are the organizations policy on entertainment news and the writers policy. The external factors are readers and the behavior of the celebrities who are the focus of the story in the column. The Beep-Sew column takes a form of executive gossip column in the entertainment section of Manager online newspaper. It makes use of multimedia and two-way communication from the interaction in the webboard. The presentation of content use alias to describe the characteristics of the celebrities, denotation, connotation, juggling with words, slang, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, personification and irony. Furthermore, forms of interaction in the webboard of this column are varied. Guessing the name of the celebrities, agreement and/or disagreement with the content, criticism of the ethics and moral standard of the writer and the content, support for the continuance or discontinuance of the column, dispute and exchange of words about the column, and suggestion of topics for future content.