ABSTRACT
From the time when the Republic of China (ROC), ruled by the authoritarian Kuomintang (KMT), took over the government of the island of Taiwan in 1945, the control of the media played a decisive role in controlling the island population. The main ethnic groups, particularly the Hokkien, were regarded as too ‘Japanized’ and not necessarily loyal to the new Chinese rulers. In the years after 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) arrived with the remaining KMT troops, the idea of a new nation-building effort, with the nation now consisting of the Republic of China reduced to the island of Taiwan, became firmly embedded in the media politics of the government. Any opinion opposing that of the government was strictly suppressed although, officially, the democratic rights enshrined in the ROC constitution were still valid. Martial Law, with its censorship measures and restrictions on newspapers (e.g. the numbers of published pages; strict control of the content) shaped the Taiwanese media for decades and also restricted the use of Taiwanese (Hoklo), the language spoken by a large majority (almost 80 per cent) of the population. Only a limited number of news providers were allowed to operate and these were placed under the strict control of the authoritarian KMT government. Even when ‘private’ ownership was allowed, the owners had to belong to the ruling circle of the KMT. In the late 1970s, things slowly began to change, and even more rapid transformation then started to take place in the early 1980s. Although still under authoritarian rule, the press began to liberate itself from the state apparatus, and ‘grey’ journals appeared which focused on pre-censorship measures and helped to pave the way for the reform of the entire media system. This, and internal pressure from various opposition groups (mainly formed among the still oppressed ethnic minorities), contributed substantially to Taiwan’s democratic transformation. In addition, the shifting international landscape was no longer trapped in a Cold War mind-set, and other authoritarian rulers such Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines or Park Chung Hee in South Korea were also ousted with the support of the United States, which ceased to offer unconditional support for anti-communist authoritarian rulers. Most of the restrictive regulations were lifted at the same time as Martial Law in 1987.
