Proceeding Papers

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    Personality traits and demographic profile predicting social networking site usage in Thailand
    The present study examined the influence of the Big Five personality traits (i.e., Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) on the amount of social networking sites (SNSs) usage, and the differences in time spent on SNSs among people who were in different age and gender groups in Thailand. This study employed a cross-sectional design using the purposive sampling to collect the data. Participants (N = 397) who have used social networking websites: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were participated. Three hypotheses and three research questions were posed. Overall, personality traits predicted time spent on SNSs. The findings showed a positive relationship between Extroversion and a negative relationship between Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness and the overall time spent on social networking sites. People who scored high on Extroversion and low on Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness tended more to spend time using SNSs. In addition, the main predictors of time spent using SNSs and Facebook were Extroversion and Emotional Stability. Moreover, there were significant differences in demographic characteristics and time spent on SNSs. Females would spend more time than males using Youtube. Younger people were more likely to spend time on SNSs, Facebook, and Youtube than were older people. The investigation of the present study extended our understanding of personality and SNSs usage in Thailand and supported the Big Five framework and past research on the associations among personality, demographic characteristics, and time spent on social networking sites.
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    Thai and non-Thai reader perceptions on politeness strategies in English language letters of request
    This paper studies the perceptions of Thai and non-Thai readers on politeness in business letters of request written by Thais. The study seeks to answer to what extent the Thai writer's strategies to make a 'polite' request match the reader's views. While studies of politeness in business correspondence in the past decades have revealed some remarkable differences in the strategic politeness used by English native and non-native speakers (e.g. Maier, 1992; Sims and Guice, 1992; Yeung, 1998; Chakorn, 2006) no studies so far have been made from the perspective of the recipient of those letters. In most cases, the degree of politeness is assessed by the researchers, using Positive and Negative Face models (Goffman, 1967, Brown and Levinson, 1987). The deviation from the models has led to the conclusion that non-native speakers do not have the same understanding about 'politeness' as native speakers. As written business discourse in English is not always intended for the native readers, particularly in the contexts where English is an international language (EIL), it is worth examining the effects of such 'mismatched perspectives' on business communication. Authentic written requests were given to 3 groups of readers in an international workplace setting: Thai, English Native Speakers, and Non-Thai/Non-Native Speakers. These readers' judgements about the letters' politeness have revealed some common ground about politeness across cultures and also can shed light on the teaching of business communication in English in international contexts.
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    Exploring bloggers' motivation and behavior in Thailand
    Blogs have evolved exponentially as a global phenomenon where scholars have attempted to answer why and how people use blogs. An active weblog requires a long-term commitment and much effort from a host to frequently update the contents as well as from users to regularly interact with the webblog. Thus, an investigation on what motivate people to blog interactively may help us develop and promote blog usage to fulfill various needs of the users better. This study serves two purposes: (a) to discover the reasons why people blog and (b) to investigate the relationships of how motives influenced blog usage. Different from previous research, this study used both qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore blog motivations directly from users. The findings revealed five blog motives: new friendship, relationship maintenance, passing time, social influence, and self-expression. Relationship maintenance, new friendship, and passing time were significant predictors of length and duration of blogging. Gender differences were significant in relationship maintenance motive and time spent on blogs.