Thai entertainment shows wrap sexual harassment in laughter — and viewers answer by withdrawing support

In what forms does inappropriate sexual harassment content appear in Thai entertainment programmes, and once viewers notice it, what attitude and behaviour do they take towards the media business that produced it?

Mixed methods. The qualitative half content-analysed eight programme episodes that had drawn public criticism in the news between 2016 and 2020, using a nine-part coding sheet validated by two communication arts specialists. The quantitative half surveyed 425 Bangkok viewers aged 18 and over who watch entertainment programmes at least three days a week, through an online questionnaire in April 2021 (overall reliability 0.809), analysed with one-way ANOVA, LSD pairwise comparison, and Pearson's correlation.

• Verbal harassment was by far the most common form, at 45 instances, followed by non-verbal at 9, combined forms at 8, and physical harassment least often at 7.
• The most common pairing was men harassing women (6 pairs), then women harassing men (5 pairs), with two pairs each in either direction involving people of diverse gender identity. Almost every pairing shared the same underlying reasons: the behaviour had become habitual, and it was done to entertain within the programme's format.
• The producing organisations delivered this content alongside comedy, to soften its severity enough to be broadcast.
• Viewers of different genders perceived the content significantly differently, with viewers of diverse gender identity perceiving it at a higher level than either men or women.
• Age, education level and average income made no significant difference to how the content was perceived.
• Viewers' attitude towards the organisation was negative, and moved in the same direction as their unsupportive behaviour towards it (r = 0.683, a moderate correlation).

The study translates an ethics problem into language management reads: viewers treat a programme as the organisation's product, and when the product lacks social responsibility they stop supporting the company — which hits popularity and profit over the long run. The authors' recommendation is to hold production to media ethics standards from the outset rather than fixing things once the story breaks.