Taiwan’s lingual media environment

Taiwan is a Chinese speaking society that is currently home to three English daily

newspapers that serve a small but influential audience both domestically and internationally.

Due to its modest size, these English newspapers are in effect circulated nationally. In comparison, Canada a predominantly English speaking country, excluding French-speaking Quebec, there are only two national English newspapers. When comparing Canada‘s national newspaper market with Taiwan‘s it is important to note the similarities between these two

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countries. Canada‘s population of 33.7 million is similar to Taiwan‘s population of 22.8 million in that they are relatively modest (List of countries by population, 2010). Much larger socio-economic neighbors overshadow both Canada and Taiwan. For Canada, it is the USA and for Taiwan, it is China. Both Canada and Taiwan share similar linguistical, cultural and economical linkages with their larger neighbors. The issue of trying to maintain a unique cultural identity, while also allowing for separatist ideologies can also be found within both countries. For Canada it is clear that its vast geography makes launching a national daily a challenging venture. Currently, one of Canada's national dailies The National Post has entered bankruptcy protection due to the tough economic climate, and this is mainly because of the erosion of its advertising revenue (CBC, 2010). This means that Canada is better served by regional newspapers and their online counterparts that play the role of informing the public on local issues. Taiwan does not face the same geographic challenges as Canada, but it does have greater obstacles in maintaining three ‗national‘ English news organizations.

These obstacles include the language barrier of its Chinese speaking society and the overall market viability of the English newspaper industry.

According to the Government Information Office (GIO) newspaper readership in Taiwan peaked in 1991 at 76.3 percent, and since 2008 has fallen by 30 per cent (Mass Media Chapter 15, 2010). However, what is surprising and somewhat contradictory is that as of June 2010, there were 2,091 newspapers registered in Taiwan, but that advertising revenue has largely migrated to the TV and Internet (Mass Media Chapter 15, 2010).

To what amount do Taiwan‘s three English newspapers differentiate their news content?

Previous studies during Taiwan‘s authoritarian era have established that their content was nearly identical. However, there have been no recent studies since end of the authoritarian era (Bishop & Hansen, 1981). Likewise, there has been very little research done in measuring Taiwan‘s newspaper market diversity (Lee, 2007). However, it has been clearly established

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that English newspapers published in China have a clear goal, and this is to influence their Western audiences with political themed messages (Kenney, 1993; Wang 2009). In China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses advanced Western methods and theories of media production to target their foreign audiences (Brady, 2007). This is also consistent with previous research that has correlated the mass media's role in building and developing national identity (Billig, 1995; Lewis, 2008). Wang (2009) argues that ‗media institutions in China and Taiwan manipulate language to represent politically significant events in the ways that are compatible with their political or ideological standpoints‘ (p. 180). According to an American study, regardless of a newspaper's ownership structure, it appears that newspaper content is becoming a uniformed and a generic commodity (Beam, 2008). Moreover, in comparison based on research done on Taiwan‘s Chinese language newspapers, it appears that the more developed the media concentration, the more widespread the content diversity (Lee, 2007). Once again these differences show that Taiwan is indeed a diverse and unique place and its media systems deserve to be studied to understand the role they play in both regional and international developments.

Taiwan‘s main language groups are Mandarin Chinese (official), Taiwanese and various Hakka dialects (CIA Fact Book, 2009), and English is still somewhat restricted to the island's elites and expats, overseas Taiwanese. Tsai (2010) contends that Taiwan has implemented many comprehensive English education polices since 1949, and is now required for students at all levels of Taiwan‘s public school system, however English is still not widely used in daily communication (Tsai, 2010). Taiwan is well served with a wealth of popular ESL (English as a Second language) publications (Mass Media Chapter 15, 2010). One simple way of judging if these Taiwanese students are the target audience of the English newspapers is by looking for corresponding advertisements. In my five years of reading all three

newspapers on a near daily basis, there appears to be no ESL or youth demographic targeted

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advertising. Therefore, it is realistic to assume that Taiwanese students are not the audience that is consuming these publications. Because of Taiwan‘s limited market size it seems implausible that the residing English speaking expats could financially support all three national English dailies in either Internet or print form. In a market study of the Chinese-language newspapers in the U.S, Chinese readers have been satisfied as long as they received news from their homelands (Lau, 1989). Due to the diverse nationalities of the expats

residing in Taiwan this source of information is better serviced by the Internet. However, it is clear that the Taiwanese disapora is one of the most successful communities in the world and they are heavily concentrated in English speaking countries, predominantly the United States (Lin, 2010, July 31). This area deserves further research as Taiwan‘s English newspapers are a unique blend of regional news reflecting human-interest stories, civic and national politics.

Here it should be noted that the political news emphasizes heavily on geo-political

developments concerning Taiwan and its relationship to China and the United States. The present research will allude to the possibility that these online newspapers are part of the identity construction process necessary to create Billig‘s (1995) ‗banal nationalism‘ and Anderson‘s (1991) ‗imaged community.‘ Due to Taiwan‘s unique historical development it is still unclear how it will eventually define its national identity. As previously mentioned ECFA is trade agreement in theory, but represent much more to the newspapers that are discoursing about its long-term economic impact and political consequences.