Confirmation of Candidature - Candidate : Ken Wongsa

Between 1998-2017, Thailand's accumulative losses caused by flooding reached 52.4 billion US dollars. One of the worst floods occurred in In 2011 which affected 1,886,000 households, displaced 2.5 million people, damaged 17,578 square kilometres of farm lands, and costed 1.43 trillion baht of the overall economy. Rural areas of the country were also badly affected by this repeated and frequent flooding which disrupted community's livelihood and decimated its social cohesion. Thus, communication within and with community, to acquire flood details and situational information, is a crucial process that can help to mitigate these impacts.  This study will investigate why flood-affected residents in Nan province of Thailand acquired, exchanged, and utilized flood information via LINE, a many-to-many and mobile phone-based communicative application. The literature suggests that Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) may be responsible for these changes. An online survey will be used to investigate the use of LINE in flood communication. To date, no previous research on the use of LINE on flood communication in Thailand has ever been conducted. Thus, the findings from this research can lead to a better understanding of this emerging communication method in flood-affected rural areas of Thailand.

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