The battlelines in the war to preserve Taiwan's indigenous culture will likely spread to the Internet and other electronic media, an Aboriginal writer said yesterday.
"It has been and will continue to be a hard-fought battle for indigenous people to gain access to mainstream media," said Yoshi Dagun, better known as Kung Wen-chi (
Kung made the comments yesterday during the launch party for a new book, in which Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
The 405-page book, Indigenous Peoples and the Press: A Study of Taiwan is written in English. The work is a modified version of Kung's 1997 doctoral thesis at Loughborough University in the UK.
The book is Kung's third publication. His first book, Let My People Know, was published in 1993. The second, Loyal to Indigenous Taste: Aboriginal Media, Culture and Politics, was published last year.
The new book focuses on three dimensions -- the representation of indigenous minorities in mainstream news stories, the efforts of indigenous people to gain access to the news media and Aborigines' struggles to establish an identity and ensure self-determination.
Kung chose seven Han Chinese-owned dailies and analyzed their coverage of indigenous issues between January and June in 1994.
His findings concluded that Aboriginal affairs were considered significant among the chosen newspapers, and that indigenous cultural and artistic activities received the most coverage.
The study also found that nearly 90 percent of the stories that reported on indigenous affairs were written by non-indigenous Han Chinese.
"The findings show that the problem with the mainstream Taiwanese newspapers' coverage of indigenous issues is not a lack of attention nor negative reporting, but the virtual absence of indigenous staff" being employed by the newspapers, Kung said.
Although the mainstream media have paid increasing attention to indigenous affairs, Kung said, indigenous voices remain marginalized because they are unable to access or own the tools of communication.
In 1995, Kung examined the content of mainstream newspapers' coverage of an Aboriginal ceremony called the Tsou Mayasvi.
He found that a few media outlets reported the story wrongly, covering the event as a harvest celebration, when it was actually a ritual to related to warfare.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2