If you've been reading the China Times and the United Daily News over the past few days, you have probably been left with the impression that the mass gathering in front of the presidential office was both calm and controlled, and more like a democratic festival. Indeed, most of the protesters were not what the green camp has been calling "violent people" (I object to this expression and
its inherent riot control logic). Maybe a minority of those gathered were overly excited, but the media will automatically help balance and adjust the image.
Compared to the electronic media that rely fully on their SNG teams, these two newspapers are quite adept at scheming and trickery. As I see it, these two media outlets were a hundred times smarter than the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) have been over the past four years and in the run-up to the presidential election, as they are in the current situation. This is also the reason why I have always believed the green camp's most difficult enemy has been not the pan-blue camp, but rather the cultural-political power bloc led by these two newspapers.
These media outlets are clearly aware that even if they "lose" this battle (the "objective neutrality" of the Taiwanese media is a joke), they only have to continue their agenda-setting to be able to stay on top of this discourse and perpetuate the legitimacy of their politico-economic and cultural ideology. This will also allow them to continue their compound mobilization based on identification with metropolitan Taipei/Mainlanders/middle class/pseudo-intellectuals.
When KMT and PFP politicians went too far in the heat of competition, these two papers were smarter, immediately sensing that the views of public opinion were detrimental to their political future. So, since it was impossible to immediately push Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
They then began giving much space to interviews with various protesters. Looking back at the period of student and social movements, participants were not given this kind of direct attention, with journalists and writers making an effort to use emotional and slightly frightening language when describing such people. It's probably better to call that material "propaganda" rather than "reports" or "commentaries."
The two papers constantly describe the protesters as being very mild, rational and intellectually trained people from the urban middle class -- career people, students and housewives -- and as not caring about ethnicity but only about restoring justice, and saying that they are in the right and simply have had enough.
The two papers also say that many protesters hold up protest signs in English, that many young girls bravely want to distinguish themselves and that many working people and students hurry to the protest after work or school, not caring about the trouble they have to go through to do so.
These media workers have even made comparisons to social movements over the past 10 years, defining participants in those movements as mostly poorly educated lower- and middle-class Taiwanese from central and southern Taiwan. Based on this definition, they have also announced the great historic significance of the current "mass movement" (for a representative piece, see the editorial by Yang Tu [
In this newly developed discourse, the scheming faces and provocative language of KMT and PFP politicians have mysteriously and gradually faded, only to be slowly replaced by mild and rational middle-of-the-road voters and their "festival movement." Excuse me for being blunt, but can you think of anything more nauseating?
As if it weren't enough for those with the ability to use their right to expression to do their utmost to instigate ethnic hatred, they also simulate humility in an attempt at gaining an even greater advantage over their opponents. They have even said, pretending to take the high moral ground, that "[Former DPP chairman] Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) is currently on a protest hunger strike in the square, but where is the generation that went on a hunger strike during the 1990 Lily Student Campaign today?" (United Daily News, March 26).
This kind of analogy certainly confuses the historical record. Even my Mainlander middle-class intellectual friends from Taipei City cannot take it anymore and express their anger to me, saying that, "If they want to protest, create a mess and stir things up, let them. These days, what can we do but endure? But isn't our tolerance and waiting enough? Why do we have to suffer their blame just because they don't want to admit their own faults?"
We can imagine the pent-up anger that must be felt by those whom the media call "mostly poorly educated lower- and middle-class Taiwanese from central and southern Taiwan." This self-legitimization and bestowing of high standards and the unassailable moral high ground thus created by these newspapers leads to a social problem -- the silent majority is once again heavily slandered.
A social researcher faced with this kind of media manipulation can do nothing to stop it. What is really worrying is not the Chen government's social credibility or legitimacy or the division and confrontation that political parties tend toward, nor is it only the tension resulting from ethnic or urban-rural differences.
What is worrying is this. The media sets the direction and politicians call for mobilization, continuously building a deeper class prejudice. This kind of multi-faceted class prejudice is shaped by the aforementioned multi-hegemonic identification with metropolitan Taipei/mainlanders/middle class/pseudo-intellectuals and a corresponding narcissism and feeling of power loss.
In what sense is a discourse built on such narcissism, vainglory and smearing of others "progressive?"
And how can a civic society built on empathy, which confines itself to dealing with facts as they stand, and where dialogue is fair, be possible under the constraints of such a hegemonic media structure?
Apropos of the media structure, media reform is certain to be the main and crucial target of the next wave of democratic reform.
The core problem is certainly not as simple as the green-friendly media claims when they summarize it by saying that "both papers belong to the unification media."
In this country's free and unrestrained media environment, it is not very remarkable, nor is it the worst vice, to have media being blue and pro-unification or green and pro-independence.
I believe that the true whip lashing the back of Taiwanese society is in fact the media's use of its cultural capital and discourse dominance to continue to create cultural, economic and class prejudice.
We must face this sensitive issue head on if we wish to see true ethnic equality and reconciliation between north and south anytime soon.
Lee Ming-tsung is a doctoral candidate in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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