Public television and empowerment in Taiwan

Pacific Affairs

Volumn 78, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 23-38

  Rawnsley, Gary D ^a   Rawnsley, Ming Yeh ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL SOCIETY; EMPOWERMENT; MEDIA ROLE; STATE ROLE; TELEVISION;

ASIA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; FAR EAST; TAIWAN; WORLD;

EID: 23644454096     PISSN: 0030851X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5509/200578123     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. Gary D. Rawnsley is Senior Lecturer in the School of Politics and Director of the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, University of Nottingham. Dr. Ming-Yeh Rawnsley is Associate Research Fellow in the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, University of Nottingham.
2. See for example, Elizabeth Fox, ed., Media and Politics in Latin America: The Struggle for Democracy (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1988);
3. Thomas E. Skidmore, ed., Television, Politics and the Transition to Democracy in Latin America, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993).
4. See, for example, Frances Millard, "Democratization and the Media in Poland 1989-97," in Vicky Randall, ed., Democratization and the Media (London: Frank Cass, 1998), pp. 85-105.
5. For example, Duncan McCargo, Media and Politics in Pacific Asia (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002);
6. Philip Kitley, ed., Television, Regulation and Civil Society in Asia (London, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003);
7. Stephanie H. Donald, Michael Keane and Yin Hong, eds., Media in China: Consumption, Content and Crisis (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003);
8. Gary Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh Rawnsley, Political Communications in Greater China: The Construction and Reflection of Identity (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003).
9. Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley, "Regime Transition and the Media in Taiwan," in Vicky Randall, ed., Democratization and the Media, (London: Frank Cass, 1998), pp. 106-24.
10. Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1991), pp. 209-31.
11. Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley, Critical Security, Democratisation and Television in Taiwan (London: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 45-62.
12. McCargo, Media and Politics in Pacific Asia.
13. Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratisation in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), pp. 266-267; Huntington describes consolidation as acceptance and routinization of power from one party to another. The violence that occurred on the streets of Taipei following the 2000 presidential election was directed at the KMT for having lost power; it was not designed to protest the result of the election. We can therefore conclude that Taiwan (including the military) accepted the result of the election, even though a significant number of voters (in fact, more than half of the electorate) were not happy with it. The legal challenge initiated by the KMT and People's First Party against the 2004 election result (in which Chen Shui-bian remained president with a mere 0.2 percent majority) demonstrates the vulnerability of consolidating political systems.
14. As of April 2000 there were 3,435 "civic organizations" in Taiwan. See Statistical Data on the Republic of China (Taipei: GIO, January 2001), available online at , last accessed 24 June 2003.
15. Graeme Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization: Elites, Civil Society and the Transition Process (London: Macmillan, 2000).
16. Nicholas Garnham, "Political Economy and the Practice of Cultural Studies," in Peter Golding and Marjorie Ferguson, eds., Cultural Studies in Question (London: Sage, 1997).
17. John Keane, "Democracy and the Media: Without Foundations," in David Held, ed., Prospects for Democracy (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1993).
18. Paddy Scannel, "Public service broadcasting and modern public life," Media, Culture and Society, no. 11 (1989), pp. 135-166.
19. Scannel, "Public service broadcasting and modern public life," pp. 135-166.
20. Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley, Public Service Television in Taiwan, doctoral thesis, University of Leeds, 1998, p.277.
21. PTS, Taiwan Public Television Service Foundation Annual Report 2001, Taipei.
22. Keane, "Democracy and the Media: Without Foundations," p. 238.
23. The debate has been particularly spirited in the United States. See Judith Lichtenberg, ed., Mass Media and Democracy (Cambridge, UK: CUP, 1990).
24. Their ideas have also found champions on the other side of the Atlantic, where the British Broadcasting Corporation continues to defy the sanctity of commercial broadcasting. In particular, see Cento Veljanovski, "Competition in Broadcasting," in Veljanovski, ed., Freedom in Broadcasting (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1989).
25. John Keane, The Media and Democracy (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1991), p. 118.
26. Ming-Yeh Rawnsley, Public Service Television in Taiwan, pp. 30-86. The BBC is financed through a non-competitive system of funding. The BBC receives the whole of the compulsory licence fee levied on the mere possession of a television set.
27. Scannel, "Public service broadcasting and modern public life," pp. 135-66.
28. Ralph Negrine, Politics and the Mass Media in Britain (London: Routledge, 1994) pp. 81-99.
29. Keane, The Media and Democracy, p. 154.
30. The other stations were the Taiwan Television Company (TTV) and China Television Company (CTV). Along with CTS, these stations were owned by the government, the KMT and the military (i.e., the KMT-controlled party-state).
31. However, this was not the kind of competition that is associated with pure market forces. The television market was distorted by political control of the three stations, which were owned or controlled by the various agencies of the state.
32. C.K. Chang, "Why do we need a public television station?" United Daily News (in Chinese), 14 April 1992.
33. Donald R. Browne, Comparing Broadcasting Systems: The Experiences of Six Industralized Nations (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1989), p. 12.
34. Min Sheng Pao, 7 March 1987.
35. R.C. Cheng et al., ed., Deconstructing Broadcasting Media: Establishing the New Order of Broadcasting Media (in Chinese) (Taipei: Cheng Society, 1993).
36. Quoted in Cheng et al., Deconstructing Broadcasting Media, p. 372.
37. Global Views Monthly editorial, 1991, p. 60.
38. Min Sheng Pao, 17 May 1984.
39. Min Sheng Pao, 25 December 1986.
40. Min Sheng Pao, 2 February 1989;
41. China Times, 17 December 1990.
42. S.S., "Does Public Television still Exist?" China Times (in Chinese), 18-19 May 1992.
43. According to Fang Chien-San, the CPTV spent an estimated NT$200 million (around £4 million) between 1986 and 1993, providing more than 5,000 hours of programmes (including those purchased from abroad and co-produced with domestic production companies). However, we cannot verify these figures because, just like its commercial counterparts, CPTV did not reveal any official data. See Cheng et al., Deconstructing Broadcasting Media, pp. 347, 388. In contrast, CPTV has published a greater number of research papers about programming and audience analysis.
44. C. B. Chu, Public Television: Programme Quality Research and Analysis of Audience Interest (in Chinese) (Taipei: National Taiwan Academy of Arts, 1987).
45. United Daily News, 5 September 1988.
46. Min Sheng Pao, 8 July 1990.
47. "Written and produced by six intellectuals... River Elegy was broadcast by the Chinese national television network in June 1988. It immediately caught fire, in terms of both popularity and controversy. The 'River Elegy' reformists, in powerfully emotional words, called for the total refutation and rejection of traditional conservative authoritarian Chinese culture...." Chui Liang Chiou, Democratizing Oriental Despotism: China from 4 May 1919 to 4 June 1989 and Taiwan from 28 February 1947 to 28 June 1990 (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 52-57. River Elegy was then banned.
48. C.C. Lin, "How Long the Chinese History Is!" The Journalist (in Chinese), 11 November 1991, pp. 65-68;
49. Cheng et al., Deconstructing Broadcasting Media, pp. 347-349.
50. Min Sheng Pao, 7 March and 12 September 1987;
51. China Times, 26 August 1987.
52. Min Sheng Pao, 7 March 1987.
53. Min Sheng Pao, 24 May and 3 October 1989.
54. Independent Evening Post, 15 February 1990.
55. China Times Express, 5-9 June 1990.
56. Central Daily News, 14 June 1990.
57. PTOC, The Direction of Programming (in Chinese) (Taipei: unpublished manuscript, 1993).
58. Cheng et al., Deconstructing Broadcasting Media, p. 341.
59. Han is the dominant nation among the Chinese - over 90 percent of Chinese are Han people. The six major non-Han minorities in China are Manchus, Mongols, Uighurs, Tibetans, Miaos and Yaos. In Taiwan, over 98 percent of the population also come from the Han Chinese. But there are also Aborigines and an increasing number of foreign labourers.
60. According to an official population investigation in 1990, 73 percent of people in Taiwan claimed Taiwanese as their mother tongue, 12 percent Hakka, 13 percent other dialects from Mainland China, and 1.7 percent Aborigines. See Cheng et al., Deconstructing Broadcasting Media, p. 223.
61. Hsiao-Hsiang Wang interview with authors in Taipei, 14 February 1995.
62. Dr. Chung-Gen Chang interview with authors, Taipei, 8 December 1993;
63. Dai-Hung Tseng interview with authors, Taipei, 10 December 1993;
64. Dr. Chien-San Fang interview with authors, Taipei, 13 January 1995;
65. and Dr. Fu Hu, interview with authors, Taipei, 25 April 1996.
66. China Times, 16-19 March 1993.
67. Keane, Democracy and the Media, p. 117. Keane here cites an interview with Jonathan Powell, former controller of BBC1, 2 November 1989.
68. According to the original Public Television Act passed in 1997, the annual government grant to PTS should be decreased by 10 percent each year. However, since the change of government in 2000, the new Executive Yuan passed an amendment after third reading on 4 October 2001, which has dictated that the decrease shall stop after the third accounting year. In other words, starting in 2002, the government grant to PTS will be maintained at US$26,239,067. See PTS, Taiwan Public Television Service Foundation Annual Report 2001, p. 10.
69. The Union of Democratising Non-Cable Television demanded that TTV and CTS must be re-organized and become public stations. This is part of their effort to reform the national television industry in Taiwan. See Center for Media Literacy, Reform Television, Heated Debate? (in Chinese) (Taipei: Center for Media Literacy, 2002);
70. United Daily News, 11-16 October 2002.
71. Keane, Democracy and the Media, p. 126.