Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies (ISSN: 2321 - 2799) Volume 9 – Issue 1, February 2021 Asian Online Journals (www.ajouronline.com) 38 The Effects of Chinese Cultural Digital Product Consumption toward the Motivation to Learn Chinese Culture: A Study of Chinese TV Series Watching among Thai-teenage Users Tanin Tirasawasdichai 1 , Korakot Pookayaporn 2 and Diana Tsoy 3 1 Ph.D. candidate School of Media and Communication Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China Email: tanin.ti [AT] ku.th 2 Ph.D. candidate School of Media and Communication Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China Email: ice.korakot [AT] gmail.com 3 Ph.D. candidate School of Media and Communication Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China Email: diana.tsoy [AT] gmail.com _________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT—The diffusion of Chinese communication channel and digital products is very rigorous in the era of media technological advancement. People absorb cultural attitude via cultural product consumption, along with digital online platform, accession is much more easily than before. In Thailand, majority of netizens spend a lot of time to video consumption in a huge amount of numbers confirmed by triple digit growth in digital platform and applications downloaded. In order to deepen our understanding about media effects, this research proposal aims to study how Chinese TV series consumption shapes Thai netizens cultural knowledge and attitude on the basis of cultivation and gratification theory. Both quantitative and qualitative paradigm are designed as methodology to study among netizens in Thailand. Keywords— Chinese TV series, cultural digital product, Chinese culture, cultural acceptance. _________________________________________________________________________________ 1. INTRODUCTION The development of Chinese communication channel is very rigorous recently with high effort to enter international market (Keane, 2019), more than a billion of internet users all around the world reach Chinese application via smart phone. In Thailand, Chinese TV series as cultural digital product are getting more and more popularity among internet users, especially, teenager which is the major part of netizens. On average, Thai internet users spend 3 hours and 44 minutes to consume online content, 98% spend these times on online video 1 . Tencent Video, one of the biggest platforms online streaming video providers chose Thailand as the first place to expand their service via We TV, the online streaming video application which has grown up more than 700% within less than two years 2 . More than 500,000 users are expected to subscribe and watch Chinese TV series via online channel daily, famous TV series could even drive total number of application download from only one story. For example, Por ra ma jarn rat ti marn (The master of devil clan) has attracted total number of application download grew about 250% 3 . These digit data show that how Chinese TV series popular in Thailand. The dissemination of Chinese TV series does not only convey entertainment to internet users but also convey the attitude, value, viewpoint, culture, behavior including motivations in many aspects to internet users, there are some comments from Chinese TV series watchers suggested that the content of TV series should give a full dimensions of cultural aspects (Fu et al., 2020). Currently, China can be realized as new trend fashion in many aspects particularly to Thailand, there is a long-time history relationship between China and Thailand, a lot of citizens have their ancestor as Huaqiao (the people who moved from China to settle down in Thailand). Accordingly, it is undeniable that the Chinese 1 https://thestandard.co/wetv/ 2 https://brandinside.asia/key-success-of-wetv-thailand/ 3 https://www.blognone.com/node/112591