The Development And Dilemma Of Media Literacy Education In Taiwan

With the removal of restrictions in 1988, especially the opening of cable television marketing in 1993, the power of politics and capital in Taiwan rushed into the market of mass media. The fierce competition of political and capital power led directly to the deformity of media ecology ,even vulgar and political contents in the mass media. As a matter of fact, the awareness of literary education in Taiwan media circle resulted from the repudiation of the excessive commercialized and politicalized mass media.The people's expectation that mass media should be the Fourth Right and ordinary citizen should have the right of communication promoted the sprouting of the theory of media literacy education in Taiwan, and theories of media literacy education in western countries were the direct origin of the theories in Taiwan. Since 1993, with the efforts of academic associations and social organizations, the media literacy education in Taiwan has made great progress not only in investigation , evaluation, teacher-training and curriculum design, but also in pushing the Ministry of Education in Taiwan to set out some related policies, such as the White Book of Media Literacy Education Policy and the Implement Main Point of Subsidizing Media Literacy Education Practice.Considering the special environment, the media literacy education in Taiwan not only deemed the improvement of audience's literacy as the basic objective, but also put much more emphasis on the transformation of adverse media environment and the construction of healthy media environment. However, because the media literacy education was based on the theories which derived from western countries, it has turned out to be something unsuitable in Taiwan. The practice based on these theories inevitably had a great impact on the competitive structure of political parties and groups and the vital interests of capital forces, which were hiding behind the media ecology in Taiwan. All in all, the media literacy education in Taiwan faced, face and will face up with the strong obstruction and challenge.As far as Chinese Mainland is concerned, it is the first time to research systematically the theory and practice of media literacy education in Taiwan. The main creativity of this paper is to unveil the development of media literacy education in Taiwan and to reveal the influential factors---the competition and contest of political and capital forces----with a more macroscopical perspective. Meanwhile, this paper puts emphasis on the perspectives of communication system and political communication to analyze the lingering obstruction.