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Short abstract:

Thailand’s history of satellite television for education challenges assumptions that technology importers passively adhere to determinism. The study explores how Thailand innovated uses of satellite and other technologies to fulfill locally-inflected visions for its unique distance learning project.

Long abstract:

As is true in many nations in the Global South, Thai development policy has significantly centered on the promises of new technologies. Thailand has drawn from the innovation and technology policies of the United States and Europe. In the 1990s, Thailand procured its inaugural satellite technology, which King Bhumibol named, "Thai Communication" (Thaicom),from a US-based company with the hope of becoming more developed and connected.

King Bhumibol and his trustee utilized this satellite infrastructure as a pivotal component of their education initiative, known as the Satellite Television for Distance Learning project. Contrary to its name, which suggests exclusive reliance on satellite television, the project incorporated diverse infrastructures and technologies, which includes mundane technology such as fax, landline, and textbooks, to deliver quality education to Thailand's rural areas. This story reminds us once again: Technology adoption has never been simple, straightforward, or obvious.

This research challenges historical analyses that assume nations passively adhere to technological and innovation determinism, a perspective that diminishes the agency of adopters in creatively utilizing technology. It aims to restore agency to technology importers, shedding light on how users, such as Thailand, actively participated in innovating the use of and creating meaning around technology. The study explores the nuanced ways in which Thailand, as a technology adopter, took part in innovating the use of technology and how they altered and rearranged the satellite technology and other technologies to fulfill their own, locally-inflected, even unique, distance learning project visions.