Perhaps it was the tears to protest Taipei mayoral candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) alleged mudslinging, all the while gripping a microphone and fixing her hair. Or maybe it was her grasping a staffer's breasts in a "re-creation" of the alleged abuse that she had suffered at Hsieh's campaign headquarters.
For whatever reason, independent Taipei mayoral candidate Clara Chou (周玉蔻) has slid to last place among the six mayoral candidates, according to recent polls.
Despite, or because of, generous media attention, Chou now trails even Ko Tzu-hai (柯賜海), a relatively obscure candidate, following her on-camera barrages against Hsieh.
"She was a media professional for many years. I don't understand how she couldn't have known that her tantrums would hurt her image," said Lee Ming-tsung (李明璁), a sociology professor at National Taiwan University (NTU).
Nonetheless, over-the-top antics are par for the course among politicians and would-be incumbents, Lee said. He blamed the "mainstream media" for encouraging such behavior, saying that print media and TV networks hardly ever focus on policies and platforms during elections.
"Candidates think `I just need coverage. It doesn't matter what it's about.' So they feed the media's appetite for sensational news," he said.
Such sensationalism has fueled cynicism among voters, which in turn has led to decreasing voter turnout rates, he added.
According to figures compiled by National Chengchi University, the voter turnout rate for the Taipei mayoral election in 2002 was 70 percent, which, while still high, was 10 percent lower than the rate for the 1998 mayoral election. The turnout for the legislative elections in 2004 was the lowest ever, with less than 60 percent of registered voters casting ballots.
Media watchers were quick to point out yesterday that even a 60 percent rate was high.
But, they added, the turnout rate was generally decreasing over time.
"Public confidence in the electoral process is shrinking, with more and more voters feeling like they can't make a difference," said Liou Kuei-lan (劉桂蘭), general secretary of the Association of Taiwanese Journalists.
Liou claimed that the media's "gimmicky" coverage was behind voters' increasingly tuning out politics.
Both Lee and Ku Lin-lin (
With mainstream media reports increasingly devoid of substantial content, Internet-savvy voters are especially reliant on blogs to understand candidates and their platforms, said Kuan Chung-hsiang (管中祥), president of Media Watch, a non-government organization that promotes ethical journalism.
"Only front runners and big parties get any media coverage," Kuan said, adding that voters had little choice but to turn to blogs to find out who else was running in an election.
Kuan cited Green Party Taiwan (GPT), a little known party whose main platform is environmental protection, as an organization that maintains a heavy presence in the "blogosphere."
"These little parties can't get any coverage [by the mainstream media]. So, they use blogs and other Internet mediums to get their message out," Kuan said, adding that although other big-name parties ran blogs, "bloggers can tell that their candidates haven't personally contributed to them."
GPT member Linda Arrigo said yesterday that "the media ignore all of the concrete issues, and don't offer up any background on what candidates are proposing."
GPT candidate for Taipei city councilor Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) told the Taipei Times that his party had cultivated a small but growing group of supporters in cyberspace by operating various blogs and Web sites.
"TV news is about shocking and stimulating audiences. Elections should be about dialogue, not hate and revenge," Pan said, referring to candidates' mudslinging.
"If we must go to blogs to foster constructive dialogue because the mainstream media are too sensational, so be it," Pan said.
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