Abstract

This study aims to point out the issue of media “quality”, another flaw that has scarcely been acknowledged or discussed while “freedom” of the press is repeatedly debated, through the “prime minister’s eggs” discourse that the media have created and reproduced extensively from remote past to present days in Thai society to justify the government’s competency in economic management when egg price rises or drops, by means of advanced quantitative methodology. Hence, time series data on the egg price, minimum wage, and core consumer price index have been employed in the advanced statistical analyses, regression analysis and Johansen’s cointegration test, for that purpose.The regression analysis show that the two pairs-egg price and minimum wage, and egg price and core consumer price index-both have positive correlations at statistical significance of .01, but Johansen’s cointegration test indicates no cointegrating relationship between the pairs either at .05 or .01 level. This implies that bringing the egg price issue to justify the government’s competency in economic management is the media’s major misconception, which in reality may be a more pressing concern to be reformed than freedom.

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