The Research On Taiwan’s Alternative Newspaper "Pots Weekly"

The self-proclaimed left-wing cultural publication “Pots Weekly” is a freeweekly newspaper belonging to Taiwan’s “Lihpao Daily” newspaper office. It hadceased publication for three months in1998since it was issued in1995; afterresuming publication and adopting the fixed-point open access scheme, till now it hadissued for more than15years.Its founders Lucie Cheng(成露茜) and Te-Chen Chiu (邱德貞) optimisticallypointed out that:“Pots Weekly” challenges, subverts or escapes the mainstreammedia to rally an prefigurative community; first of all is the subversion of the“perfection”, in that “pots”(in Chinese means “breaking”) implies not “degradation"but “innovation”,"breaking" is the beginning and end to all "making","The makingcannot do without breaking, and there’s no making without breaking", the dialecticalrelationship between "breaking" and "making" is the dynamism in social progress.[1]In Lucie Cheng’s thinking, the media that resist the mainstream is alternative media.She particularly stressed that “to resist” means not only the difference of contentorientation, but the purpose, operation, production processes and organizations of themedia as a whole are at odds with the values upon which the mainstream media werefounded.[2]"Pots Weekly" is a youth publications dedicated to young intellectuals as itsprimary readers, and located itself as the voice for the city’s alternate culture,emphasizing the position resisting the mainstream but speaking for the disadvantaged."Trying to establish an independent and autonomous attitude of living and broadvision to create a culture belonging to Taiwan’s youth in this era."[3] Its editorial staffresponsible for contend production is composed of a group of people with ideas,caring less about material things, firmly independent, and devoted to media jobs.Political issues have always been Pots Weekly’s concerns, especially the politicalissues in cultural expressions usually made the topics of discussion in this newspaper.On the agenda-setting of cultural issues, the categories of "music","art" and "drama/movie" took up a large percentage of the main pages,"gender" issues as wellreceived considerable attention, which was far more open in range and themecompared with the mainstream media. Pots Weekly intends to break through thetraditional framework of journalism on gender issues, assuming the feminist stance inthe discussion of the autonomy of female body, and unwilling to subjugate itself to theprinciple of balancing reporting which requires the coverage of both positive andnegative opinions and considers the body autonomy as a "problem" to deal with.It has also planned a lot of alternative subjects regarding content and style, whichin varying degrees influenced the current generation of young people in Taiwan afterthe student movement in1990s. For examples,"One hundred attitudes of abortion","Anti-anti-drug campaign","Spring scream","Beijing rock generation","Anti-globalization","Homosexual/transgender","Migrant workers/foreignbrides",…etc, which taking all in reveals its clear-cut alternative stand.In addition to a wide range of agenda-setting and the oriented reporting, PotsWeekly as a free alternative newspaper with viewpoint is concerned about the arts,cares for the disadvantaged groups, and readily gives voice to the venerable. Bymarching towards a broader cultural action from the narrow political route, anddealing with the social effects of the cultural movement, it is extremely sociallyinvolved and explicitly expressive of its position. With such a sharp critical tint andleft-leaning stance, the discourses of Pots Weekly has successfully put itself at thefront of Taiwan’s media which has long been lack of left-wing voice; what is more, itsdedication to public issues carry a profound, positive effect on the public life inTaiwan.