On Monday, the print version of the Taiwanese edition of the Apple Daily flew off the presses for the last time.
The Chinese-language newspaper, owned by Hong Kong-based Next Digital Ltd, began publishing in Taiwan on May 2, 2003. At the time, Taiwan had just been through the SARS epidemic and the nation was still in a state of shock; today the newspaper has pulled the plug on its print edition just as Taiwan is battling a resurgence of COVID-19.
Born out of one coronavirus outbreak and finished off by another, the demise of the print edition of the Apple Daily is a sad event.
Traditional media are under attack from new media on a scale unprecedented in the industry’s history. New media, born of the Internet, have affected not only newspapers, but also the television and film industries.
Taiwan’s first newspaper, the Taiwan Daily News (台灣日日新報), was established in the Meiji era, when Taiwan was under Japanese rule. Later on, magazine periodicals introduced during the Taisho era and the advent of radio broadcasts during the Showa era failed to knock Taiwan Daily News off the top spot as Taiwan’s leading source of news.
It was only when television came to Taiwan in 1962, and China Television Co and Chinese Television System began broadcasting, that the nation’s media landscape began to undergo significant change.
At first, not many people tuned in to the broadcasts or watched films, and newspapers still had the widest following, the greatest influence and the most advertising revenue. It was only in the 1990s that a tipping point occurred and television began to receive the lion’s share of advertising revenue.
The interplay between new tech and “old” industries has produced four outcomes: replacement, sudden takeover, disappearance and coexistence. Which of these phenomena occurs, in addition to being shaped by social factors, is primarily determined by the interplay between new tech and the “old” industry.
A classic example of replacement is the self-replacement — or cannibalization — of television. Color television replaced black-and-white television, and standard definition was replaced by high-definition television, which itself is in the process of being replaced by 4K television.
A sudden takeover occurs when a smaller company is overtaken by one that is larger. The smaller company does not disappear, but instead is subsumed into the larger and must strike out on a new path.
The birth of television changed the film industry. Film audiences declined and the function of going to the cinema changed from being an entertainment activity to a form of social interaction.
Coexistence refers to the old and the new existing side by side. During the Meji era, magazines became popular, but failed to knock Taiwan Daily News off its pedestal.
In 1931, Taiwan Hoso Kyokai (Taiwan Broadcasting Corp) made its first wireless broadcast, bringing radio to Taiwan. Despite this, Taiwan Daily News still maintained its position as Taiwan’s leading media organization. When television broadcasts began, Taiwan’s radio industry was worried, but it soon became apparent that television had no effect on radio and advertising revenue did not go down.
Disappearance occurs when the new technology is weak and the old media is strong: The new pretenders disappear from the industry altogether. Taiwan’s first digital-only newspaper was the Tomorrow Times (明日報). The Web site went live on Feb. 15, 2000, and traditional newspapers were suddenly faced with a new kind of threat: a rival that could update its “front page” hourly with breaking news.
After just one year, on Feb. 20, 2001, the Tomorrow Times reported that it had burned through NT$190 million in capital and exited the market with its tail between its legs. It seemed that “new media” would not necessarily have a clear path to victory.
In addition to the subjective will of an online media organization’s management board, there are also objective social factors at play that cannot be ignored.
The rise of the Internet is a reflection of modern society’s drift toward superficiality, a society that demands easy everything: ease of viewing, ease of understanding and ease of emotion, which fades almost as soon as it has been whipped up. Because emotion is so easily stirred up in cyberspace, it is highly broadcastable. No deep reflection is required, it can simply be transmitted into the ether on a whim.
On the other hand, newspapers have more depth. Reading a newspaper requires practice due to the unique way Chinese-language news articles are composed. To appreciate the beauty of the written language requires a person’s linguistic skills to be of a certain level, so there is a threshold that must be overcome.
During the fast-food age in which we live, readers who are prepared to ruminate over a newspaper are increasingly few and far between. However, the good news is that written language is symbolic of civilization: A civilized society cannot totally detach itself from the written word.
Furthermore, newspapers have over more than 100 years evolved the process of selecting and editing articles, and along the way developed a set of rules that must be adhered to. Journalistic ethics requires adherence to exacting standards.
Online media, while ostensibly the same, differs in this one vital respect. More important still, most newspaper reports pass through multiple tiers of editorial checks before they are published — another night-and-day difference between “old” and new media.
Media organizations must evolve continuously to survive: They will be constantly challenged during different phases of their lives and be faced with replacement, sudden takeover, disappearance and coexistence as new technologies emerge.
If the public, brought up on a diet of fast food, ends up abandoning written language at some point, newspapers will be in imminent danger.
Print news will not die out, nor wither on the vine; instead, the weakest will fall by the wayside and the strongest will survive. Those publications left standing will become the outstanding periodicals of the future.
Cheng Tzu-leong is a part-time professor at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Edward Jones
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