What else can we say about the paparazzi-style media and culture? A photographer from Next magazine once seriously asked for my opinion about their news-gathering style. For him, criticisms of the magazine are not convincing. Instead, boss Jimmy Lai's (
Some have criticized the paparazzi -- known in Chinese as "doggy teams" (
Some think the paparazzi help reveal the true nature of some hypocritical politicians and celebrities, and praise Next for "enforcing justice on behalf of the heavens" (替天行道) and forcing those hypocrites to haul in their sails. But the idea of enforcing justice on behalf of the heavens is a product of the old society. Just like mudslide victims complaining tearfully on their knees to the president while he was visiting the disaster areas, or the public describing the bravery of Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) as "Chen Ching-tien" (陳青天, a metaphor deriving from a historical figure Pao Ching-tien [包青天] -- the most famous judge in Chinese history), all this reflects the fact that Taiwan essentially remains an old feudal society.
Since it took Taiwan tremendous effort to depart from the status of a police state, we are loathe to develop a civil society in which the supervisory functions are transferred directly from the state apparatus to Next and all the other media which have done a poor job of imitating its paparazzi style. We do not want another moral police state built under a new "sleaze terror," in which society consolidates the privatization of the police system through the purchase of paparazzi-style publications. This is a serious crisis that may block Taiwan from becoming an advanced society.
In light of the importance of establishing a civil society in Taiwan, I want to discuss the problem of paparazzi culture spinning out of control. Some think that prying news reports are a necessary evil in a democracy. Still others believe that paparazzi culture cannot be uprooted, even in highly democratic nations with highly developed media cultures such as the UK, let alone Taiwan. But these are only superficial statements.
The US, UK, Hong Kong and Taiwan have thriving paparazzi cultures, but they differ widely in terms of history, culture, media structures and development when it comes to the reasons why they need tabloids. The US mainstream media has been business oriented, and American democracy remains at the level of one vote for one person. The public can do nothing to the capitalists who monopolize politics, so they can only turn their focus to spending money, including purchasing supermarket tabloids.
Then look at the UK. British culture has a highly suppressed, punctilious collective character. Moreover, the UK has a high proportion of laborers, who do not have enough knowledge to receive information from elite-style newspapers. That is why tabloids have a large market. Even though the tabloid paper The Sun has a circulation more than 10 times that of the mainstream newspapers -- such as The Times, The Independent and The Guardian, all of which have a circulation of around 200,000 to 300,000 daily -- the latter have never followed the lead of tabloids to cover trashy news.
The tabloids have never caused disorder or panic in British society because their readers can clearly distinguish the respective significance of different classes of media -- their civil society has been firmly established. British tabloids can only function within certain scopes and cannot go so far as to become a cultural catastrophe.
In addition, prying news reports are not necessarily related to democratic politics. From its inception, the Prime Time Live program on the ABC channel in the US has followed a model of commercial packaging and pursued high viewership ratings. Its style is different from that of 60 Minutes on CBS. They simply cannot be discussed within the same frame of reference.
The BBC often features "investigative reports." But there are important issues and public concern behind their intrusions into private lives. Hence, when facing professional and moral disputes, they have a leg to stand on. Where are the issues and main concerns in Next magazine?
As for Hong Kong, its citizens have never had one day, from British colonial rule to the communist regime, when they could truly decide their own destinies. With a wealth of talent, Hong Kongers have an international vision, but they find nowhere to give vent to their depression of being unable to be their own master. Due to such a deep sense of emptiness, most Hong Kongers can only seize the present and indulge in sharing gossip.
How about Taiwan? Our society has not been capitalized as thoroughly as the US. Although Taiwanese culture also has a suppressed personality, I believe it is different from and less serious than the situation in the UK. In a developing, transforming society, we have too many ways to relieve the suppression.
Compared with Hong Kong, the people of Taiwan face depression from the loss of international status as well as pressure from across the Taiwan Strait, but we can still decide the shape of our society and its future direction. In the eyes of the people of Hong Kong, Singapore and China -- other ethnic Chinese societies -- we are lucky.
Taiwan is different from other societies that have paparazzi-style cultures because it enjoys many opportunities and possibilities to establish a rational civil society. If we are lazy and ignorant to such an extent that we let Hong Kong's commercial culture trample on our own society, we won't be able to complain about the paparazzi.
As a member of the Campaign for Citizens' TV (
Only with such a space can Taiwan's gossip-lovers gradually become "citizens" and people's enthusiasm for participating in politics be powerfully injected into society. Otherwise, people's energies will only turn into populist emotions in the form of call-in shows and the zest for paparazzi-style media.
Kuo Li-hsin is a lecturer at the Department of Radio & Television in National Chengchi University.
Translated by Jackie Lin
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