The outcry over the decision by TVBS and nine other cable TV stations to broadcast a fabricated video of a gangster threatening his former boss may have unexpected positive consequences.
In the debate that has followed the incident, many so-called "media experts" have said that any form of self-discipline that might have been practised by the media in Taiwan has disappeared and that government controls have failed.
I believe, however, that government media policies can encourage media self-discipline, or, to put it more succinctly, that without appropriate media policies, the media will not have the stable environment required to be able to develop self-discipline.
An examination of media policies in Germany, France and the UK may help to clarify things.
Surveys have show that 70 percent of Germans feel that newspaper reports completely or almost completely reflect the actual situation, while 74 percent feel that TV news reports do so.
In France, 47 percent believe in the accuracy of newspapers and 49 percent in TV news, but in the UK the figures are 49 and 85.
The statistics indicate that the Germans trust the media the most, the French distrust the media the most and that in the UK, there is a huge difference between the public's trust in newspapers and TV news.
One explanation for the variation in trust in the media could be that Germans are credulous, the French are skeptical and the British sometimes credulous and sometimes skeptical. While this explanation plays heavily on national stereotypes, it also contains some truth.
If, however, we want to be more scientific in our approach, we need to question whether the British "sometimes" can be objectively defined.
The answer is "yes," because the UK's newspaper and television markets are structurally very different.
The newspapers' paparazzi style of prying into the private lives of celebrities is a reflection of the UK's lack of proactive newspaper policies. At least, the British government does not intervene in newspaper operations to the same degree that other European governments do.
On the other hand, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was the world's first public broadcasting organization. Although the company has its shortcomings, its operations are effective and it is relentless in supervising its stations in both the private and public sectors.
British government media policy not only regulates the BBC, it also imposes strict regulations on advertising revenues received by private stations such as ITV, the UK's first private station. The British government imposes corporate taxes and a special license tax on ITV.
When Channel 4, the UK's second privately funded public service channel, went on air in late 1982, ITV took charge of all the new station's advertising. While this practice was ended in 1999, ITV will continue to be taxed until 2010.
The UK's policies cannot be reproduced in Taiwan, but looking at the examples of Germany, France and the UK clearly shows us that appropriate government policies regulating television news create room for self-discipline.
In Taiwan, the executive and legislative branches are too slack in their regulation of the media at the same time that the public places an overly high degree of trust in television news.
These problems are interrelated. I hope that the Cabinet will consider the interests of the public and ask the Government Information Office and the National Communications Commission to cooperate to create a national television policy that deserves the public's trust.
Feng Chien-san is a professor in the Department of Journalism at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Daniel Cheng
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS