The Political Economy Analysis Of The Press Transformation In Taiwan(1949-2003)

The newspaper in Taiwan has experienced different forms of challenges and crises in different historical stages. Throughout the history of the development process of Taiwan’s newspaper, we can see that from the KMT government control to the open market after the lifting of press restrictions, Taiwan newspaper suffer authoritarian control towards commercialization, privatization and market competition.This paper study the Taiwan newspaper content changes during the 1949-2003, and use the spread of political economy perspective to analyze the Taiwanese newspaper ownership, industry structure and market behavior, criticize the problems and the consequences in the authoritarian regime and the opening after the press ban. Before the ban lifted. The newspapers is interest tool of the Kuomintang government in its high-pressure control and incorporated. Newspapers faced with strong authoritarian control of the KMT government. In order to maintain power, the KMT to take control of hypertension in Taiwan newspaper. In order to survive, major newspapers had to toe the line, form a relationship of “protectionist” and “servant” with the government.The newspaper market become the two major party group oligopoly because of the ban. The government constraints the newspaper, lacking the spirits of freedom expression and independent oversight.With the changes in the international environment, and the developing of Taiwan’s economic, more and more opposition to the newspaper ban. After the ban lifted, the government chose the favorable market laissez-faire policy to both large newspaper group, leading to the market lack of industry standards, resulting in a vicious competition, concentration of ownership, news closer to competing business interests and business principles for profit, The owner use the newspaper as a tool to participate in the political struggle, and seriously damage the interests of news credibility and readers interests. Later, together with the rise of new media and competition, the audience’s pie is dividing, the newspaper environment in Taiwan is even worse.Taiwan newspapers developed into this kind of situation today, scholars are all sighed with regret. In order to build a healthy and orderly Taiwan newspapers environment, scholars offer their suggestions and ideas from the media self-regulation policy, government subsidies and other aspects. These suggestions provide a realistic plan for the development of Taiwan newspaper, but it can not fundamentally solve the problem from political and economic perspective.