Pantip.com and Self-Regulation in Online Community: a Case Study of Unmasking Sock Puppetry

Abstract

This research is derived from the analysis of sock puppetry phenomenon in Pantip.com. The study focused on prominent features of such forum threads and procedures of validating and unmasking the sock puppets in Pantip’s online community along with the utilization of web tools for self-regulation. The qualitative methods with content analysis were used to examine five selected cases publicized between 2013-2016, which are 1. Manee Me More Restaurant 2. Smooto Cosmetics 3. Seven Days TV Series 4. Homepro Department Store and 5. Hungry Wolf Restaurant.

The findings indicated that there were 4 prominent features of sock-puppetry threads, namely, plot, theme, characters and usage of contagious ingredients. Also, there were 3 procedures of validating and unmasking the sock puppets, which were: analyzing the possibility and compatibility between texts and images, introducing external sources from other threads or websites and exposing unpublished sources. Moreover, it was found that self-regulations took part in Pantip’s online community could be classified into two levels: the utilization of interaction among Pantip’s members and the utilization of embed web tools.