Rebuilding Hegemony: State Responses to Fake News in Thailand

Abstract

Fake news leads to various social costs. During the pandemic, it undermined public health measures, making state intervention appear justified. However, in many countries, anti-fake news measures have resulted in restricted freedom of expression. This raises important questions about the underlying motivations of such efforts: are they driven by genuine concerns for public interests or a desire to suppress dissent and consolidate political control? Adapting the strategic-relational approach (SRA) developed in Jessop (1990, 2016), this thesis develops a conceptual framework to argue that, in authoritarian regimes, state responses to fake news serve to legitimise mechanisms of state control over information flow on social media in an effort to rebuild state hegemony. Using Thailand as a case study, this thesis contends that the Thai state seeks to rebuild hegemony because of the rise of social media as an increasingly contested domain for the state, and a hegemonic crisis that has unfolded in the country over the past two decades.

The findings reveal that each state response to fake news, implemented through different institutional and organisational mechanisms, fulfils a distinct function in controlling the flow of information: censorship, surveillance, and propaganda. These institutional and organisational mechanisms, which contribute to structural determination of hegemony, are central to the Thai state’s efforts to rebuild hegemony. At the same time, the state constructs hegemonic visions by legitimising the necessity of these mechanisms to combat fake news—invoking claims of public interest that are ultimately illusory. This illustrates constructed consent as a means of reinforcing coercive state power.