In all his years of social activism, nothing had been more shocking to him than his first experiences in 1988, when he first felt that the mainstream media’s portrayal of social activism was not truthful and indeed often maligned such activities, National Chung Cheng University associate professor Kuang Chung-hsiang (管中祥) said.
Kuan said his civil media archive project initiated six years ago has helped students record more than 1,500 pieces of news.
“It is an effort to preserve the real sounds and actions of the civic activities that have been passed by, or misrepresented, by the mainstream media,” he said.
Photo provided by Kuan Chung-hsiang
Media reform is not just about changing the current circumstances of the media industry, it is also about letting society’s diverse voices be heard in order to have more dialogue, Kuan said.
Unwilling to become simply an academic that talked of grandiose schemes, but did not turn them into reality, Kuan said he took part in numerous protests and rallies appealing for media reforms, and had also worked closely with civic organizations during the six years when he was president of Taiwan Media Watch.
Giving an example of his actions, Kuan singled out an incident in 2006 when the organization protested the headline of an article in the Chinese-language United Daily News for discriminating against psychiatric patients.
“We hired buses to transport patients and staged a protest in front of the United Daily News building, and though the news company did not apologize, the protest prompted organizations for physically handicapped individuals to pressure the Legislative Yuan into amending the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act (身心障礙者權益保障法) and write into law anti-discrimination regulations for the first time,” Kuan said.
“I was very happy that day, because my efforts had helped people regain their rights, and it also shows how citizens truly have [the] power [to affect government policy],” he said.
Media reformation is only a means to an end — a way to implement basic democratic values such as social diversity and promote social equality, to let people see each other for what they are and accept each other, Kuan said, adding that civic organizations and non-governmental organizations needed to make media reform a top priority.
Without media reform, organizations’ voices and opinions cannot be heard, and thus society will not advance, hence leading to an undemocratic society that speaks in a monotone, Kuan said.
In order to implement his ideals, Kuan works with the civil media archive so that social activists may rest assured that their activities would not be edited out and left to be forgotten.
“Today’s news is tomorrow’s history, but while the mainstream media records the history of prominent figures and significant issues, civilian history is being ignored,” Kuan said.
For example, he said, in the 80-second TV news coverage of the massive protest on Aug. 18, during which protesters held an overnight demonstration in front of the Ministry of the Interior building in Taipei over its handling of the Dapu Borough (大埔) incident, almost every news channel only replayed footage of how students climbed over the walls, how they pushed against the police or how Deputy Minister of the Interior Hsiao Chia-chi (蕭家淇) was drenched in water, Kuan said.
However, there was not one channel that reported on the footage of how the event organizers asked participants to lower their voices and not to shout slogans in fear of disturbing patients in the nearby National Taiwan University Hospital, he said.
“Civil media archives recorded those scenes and preserved the chance for all sides of the story to be heard by society,” Kuan said.
According to Kuan, the archive is only able to hire two full-time staff who are tasked with both editing and filming, adding that he hopes to raise more funds so special correspondents can be hired to work with the archive in central and southern Taiwan.
“The media needs to be reformed and society needs to be reformed, but this cannot just be a solitary effort by media organizations and civilian organizations; it’s an effort that must involve every citizen,” Kuan said.
“We also hope to spread our knowledge to more civilian organizations and in the process churn out more citizen reporters — reporters who will be able to record the true voices of civil society,” Kuan added.
Four factors led to the declaration of a typhoon day and the cancelation of classes yesterday, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. Work and classes were canceled across Taiwan yesterday as Typhoon Krathon was forecast to make landfall in the southern part of the country. However, northern Taiwan had only heavy winds during the day and rain in the evening, leading some to criticize the cancelation. Speaking at a Taipei City Council meeting yesterday, Chiang said the decision was made due to the possibility of landslides and other problems in mountainous areas, the need to avoid a potentially dangerous commute for those
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
PRO-CHINA SLOGANS: Two DPP members criticized police officers’ lack of action at the scene, saying that law enforcement authorities should investigate the incident Chinese tourists allegedly interrupted a protest in Taipei on Tuesday held by Hong Kongers, knocked down several flags and shouted: “Taiwan and Hong Kong belong to China.” Hong Kong democracy activists were holding a demonstration as Tuesday was China’s National Day. A video posted online by civic group Hong Kong Outlanders shows a couple, who are allegedly Chinese, during the demonstration. “Today is China’s National Day, and I won’t allow the displaying of these flags,” the male yells in the video before pushing some demonstrators and knocking down a few flagpoles. Radio Free Asia reported that some of the demonstrators
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with