The sudden and unexpected announcement that the Global Views Monthly Survey Research Center will no longer conduct or accept commissions for polls on elections and political issues — with a presidential election looming — is suspicious and places a dark cloud of conspiracy over the upcoming election.
The move was unexpected because when Global Views released their latest poll that showed that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was holding a small lead over President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), they said they were planning to increase the frequency of their polling in the run-up to the election.
Those very words were still fresh when the person in charge of the center quietly resigned. The eerie part about all of this is that the polls Global Views has conducted for so long have often shown Tsai doing better than Ma, and the support rates for the two candidates in their polls have often been much closer than polls conducted by other media companies.
The disappearnce of Global View’s polls, coupled with the majority of the remaining polls being favorable to Ma, it will make for a textbook example of Noelle-Neumann’s “spiral of silence” theory — the minority fails to voice their opinion out of fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority. Any need for false polling is eliminated, because the negative polls naturally suppress Tsai’s support and predictions about who would win the election simply add insult to injury.
Closing a polling company to create an aberration should be added to all the upcoming editions of media studies textbooks as a prototypical example of a regressing democracy. Perhaps it is even the byproduct of a meticulously designed media studies experiment.
On one hand the survey program is expanded, enhancing the aberration, while on the other hand, a polling company is closed to suppress differing opinions, maybe even creating a chilling effect throughout the polling industry so that professionals producing opinion polls with differing numbers will have to take unpaid leave or maybe even lose their jobs.
In the short term, the spiral of silence would serve to enhance the strategic voting effect if People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) decides to participate in the presidential election because so many polls show Tsai and Soong’s combined support ratings are far higher than those for Ma. This means the number of people opposed to Ma far exceed the number of his supporters and the tipping point between Soong and Ma is not found in the distance between them in the polls, but rather in whether Tsai can beat Ma. As soon as this news gets out, Ma will be in a precarious situation.
However, the result of heavy manipulation would be the victory predicted by the polls not matching the victory in the actual election results. For example, in the 1948 US presidential election all the polls had the Republican Party candidate Thomas Dewey defeating then-US president Harry Truman and most media headlines referred to Dewey as victor. However, Truman defeated Dewey.
Look at DPP vice presidential candidate Su Jia-chyuan’s (蘇嘉全) narrow loss to Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) by less than 3 percentage points in the special municipality elections in November last year, when media polls predicted that Hu would win by 10 percentage points or more. Simply looking at the numbers, it would seem that Su benefited from the shooting of KMT Central Committee member Sean Lien (連勝文) on the eve of the election.
Whoever is generating spirals of silence will not only hurt society, they are also committing a heinous crime against Taiwanese democracy.
Hsu Yung-ming is a political science professor at Soochow University.
Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat
Speaking at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on May 13, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that democracies must remain united and that “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism.” Earlier that day, Tsai had met with a group of Danish parliamentarians led by Danish Parliament Speaker Pia Kjaersgaard, who has visited Taiwan many times, most recently in November last year, when she met with President William Lai (賴清德) at the Presidential Office. Kjaersgaard had told Lai: “I can assure you that ... you can count on us. You can count on our support
Denmark has consistently defended Greenland in light of US President Donald Trump’s interests and has provided unwavering support to Ukraine during its war with Russia. Denmark can be proud of its clear support for peoples’ democratic right to determine their own future. However, this democratic ideal completely falls apart when it comes to Taiwan — and it raises important questions about Denmark’s commitment to supporting democracies. Taiwan lives under daily military threats from China, which seeks to take over Taiwan, by force if necessary — an annexation that only a very small minority in Taiwan supports. Denmark has given China a
Many local news media over the past week have reported on Internet personality Holger Chen’s (陳之漢) first visit to China between Tuesday last week and yesterday, as remarks he made during a live stream have sparked wide discussions and strong criticism across the Taiwan Strait. Chen, better known as Kuan Chang (館長), is a former gang member turned fitness celebrity and businessman. He is known for his live streams, which are full of foul-mouthed and hypermasculine commentary. He had previously spoken out against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and criticized Taiwanese who “enjoy the freedom in Taiwan, but want China’s money”
Last month, two major diplomatic events unfolded in Southeast Asia that suggested subtle shifts in the region’s strategic landscape. The 46th ASEAN Summit and the inaugural ASEAN-Gulf-Cooperation Council (GCC)-China Trilateral Summit in Kuala Lumpur coincided with French President Emmanuel Macron’s high-profile visits to Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore. Together, they highlighted ASEAN’s maturing global posture, deepening regional integration and China’s intensifying efforts to recalibrate its economic diplomacy amid uncertainties posed by the US. The ASEAN summit took place amid rising protectionist policies from the US, notably sweeping tariffs on goods from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, with duties as high as 49 percent.
RSS