Aroi Mai? The Multimodality of Thainess in Thai Tourism Videos

Abstract

Abstract This paper offers two contributions to the multimodal discourse analysis of tourism advertising videos. First it shows how Thainess has been resemiotized to be accessible to non-Thai people and second it illustrates how the mediated action can be used as a unit of analysis to analyze advertising videos. Thainess has been a national identity strategy that has evolved into numerous polysemic. In this discussion five discursive stances to Thainess are identified: Thainess as a national identity, Thainess as a form other-ness, the Thai-ification of Thai people, Thainess as popular culture, and Thainess as commodified consumption. The analysis uses an integrative framework based in mediated discourse theory, multimodal discourse analysis and social semiotics to discuss and analyze the discursive stances of Thainess that emerge in two videos from the 2015 Discover Thainess campaign. Using the mediated action as the unit of analysis the multimodal features of Thainess that emerge from these videos are analyzed. Through this analysis Thainess is shown to be resemiotized in the videos where it was once inaccessible to westerners, the Thainess represented in the videos has been resemiotized to be both accessible and authentic to western tourists.