The Changing Roles of Media in Taiwan's Democratization Process

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the role of the media in Taiwan's democratization process and to provide a proposal for the media to play a more positive role in improving the consolidation of Taiwan's democratization. On July 15, 1987, then-President Chiang Ching-kuo lifted...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Policy File 2009
Main Author: Ching-Lung, Huang
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
Democratization
Elections
Media coverage
The Brookings Institution
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the role of the media in Taiwan's democratization process and to provide a proposal for the media to play a more positive role in improving the consolidation of Taiwan's democratization. On July 15, 1987, then-President Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and new political parties were allowed to form. In January of the following year, the ban on new newspapers was also lifted. Since then, Taiwan and its media have entered a whole new era. Now, two decades after the end of martial law, the people of Taiwan enjoy many fundamental rights: freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, among others. Taiwan is widely considered a free and democratic country, with the same political rights and civil liberties as those in the United States and many European nations. In fact, in its global Freedom of the Press Survey released on April 28, 2008, Freedom House ranked Taiwan as having the 32nd freest media, among 195 countries--and it was ranked higher than any other Asian nation in both 2007 and 2008. However, in 2009 when Taiwan experienced its second change in ruling party, its ranking in the Freedom House survey fell from the first place in Asia to second, and its global ranking fell to 43rd. Freedom House reported "Media in Taiwan faced assault and growing government pressure." This shows that in Taiwan political factors are difficult to avoid in the development of the media and freedom of the press, especially at sensitive times of political transition.