Description
This presentation is my working paper that offers an initial analysis of young Thai military women’s self-representation on the TikTok platform. Specifically, there has been a significant increase in the usage of TikTok in Thailand among young military personnel, including young military women, since the Covid-19 pandemic. The term military influencers, nonetheless, is specific to military personnel whose military profession is mediated and shaped around social media practices, platformisation and digital labour. And this primarily challenges the military practices of hierarchies and collectivism that play a crucial role in military personnel’s everyday activities in both offline and online settings. In my examination, I looked at five Thai military female influencers’ accounts and their most viewed TikTok videos. The analysis focused on the ways in which they construct, reconstruct and make sense of their (gendered) military identities given their engagement in influencer culture as well as the degree to which their TikTok content undermines, reinforces, or conflicts with the narratives of nationalism and militarism promoted by the Thai military.
