NITITORN    THONGTHIRAKUL: COMMUNITY COMMUNICATION PROCESS IN MAINTAINING TRADITIONAL WORSHIP OF “PHI POO YA" IN  WORKAEW SUB-DISTRICT, HANG CHAT, LAM PANG PROVINCE

This research aims to study about the function of traditional worship of “Phi Poo Ya” from the past to present, especially after its revival. It mainly scrutinizes the changes of this manifestation in term of its consistency, disappearance, adaptation and new function as well as enquires the potential factors of these changes and deeply studies on the community communication process in maintaining this traditional worship. This research is conducted through the qualitative research methodology as: documentary research; in-depth interview; informal interview and participatory observation.

This research discovers that

1. There are fifteen functions of traditional worship of “Phi Poo Ya” that could be grouped within three main categories as: the consistent function i.e. to inherit the belief, to build the fraternity and unity,  to construct and maintain the self-identity, to provide the moral support and internal security, to entertain, to pacify and relieve the tension, to consolidate the collective felling, to make more public spaces for experience exchange, and to dispense the health care procurement to members; the adapted function i.e. to arrange the social order as well as to incubate and maintain the “social value” to the offspring generation; and the new function i.e. to channel the communication of politic, to be a room for sharing experiences and knowledge among the several groups and generations, and to link up with all kinds of folklore media. The research also finds that no function is disappeared. And in the matter of the potential factors for these changes, they are identified as education and school, the occupation and the development of transportation as well as the communication development.

2. The communication process of community for maintaining the traditional worship of “Phi Poo Ya” is the progressively cultural working process which identifies this worship as a part of community culture. It obviously explains the culture as the process which respects the rights of the owners of the mentioned culture and also identifies the function of the traditional worship of “Phi Poo Ya” as the dynamic process. The communication process of community can be divided into three intervals as: The first interval calls the pre-revival period. There are two important positions, first is a position of spiritual leader named “Kao Phi”(Ghost’s Master) who traditionally inherited within the female members and the second position is the fellow named “Kum Lung Phi”(Ghost’s Power) who also traditionally inherited within the male members. These two positions play the main roles in communication process and can be inherited within the members of the same group of ancestor merely. The second interval is the revival period which there is an exchange of the role between the senders (Kao Phi and Kum Lung Phi) and receivers (group members). Within this interval, the modern media has been applied with the folklore media and resorted as the caravan of activities. The third interval is the period of extension and reproduction of activities for inheritance. It covers three main aspects as the increasing of members in different status i.e. age and gender, the diversity of activities i.e. application of modern and folklore media and the extension of cooperation and management i.e. the collaboration with the local authorities, particularly the Tambon Administrative Organization.