TAIWAN: Activism and Organizing Through Social Media

Two issues ago, Asia Media covered the media monopoly in Taiwan. To combat this monopolization, many college students, activists, and opposition politicians are taking action to create an anti-media monopolization campaign through the usage of social media.

This on-going protest campaign started in July of last year. With the acquisition of several cable TV services, “student activists and critics have raised concerns about a media monopoly and…China’s influence over Taiwan’s media”. The Taipei Times, a newspaper based in Taiwan that writes English articles, has been following the campaign’s movement extensively .

One article in particular highlights the use of social media by college activists, making mobilizing and organizing protests or sit-ins far easier. Liu Tzu-feng, one of many student activists, even “added internet service to [her] cellphone so as to take pictures during the protests and upload the images onto Facebook immediately. The point being to let people know what was happening here and now.”

The rest of that article continues to follow how student activism has been rising thanks to the different social networks and media that is at their dispense. Topics of injustice such as the monopolization of Taiwan media, can now be approached more rapidly than how organizers decades ago did. Through the use of Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, groups such as the Youth Alliance Against Media Monsters can mobilize faster and thus create a bigger impact.

But will these protests work and force Taiwan’s government listen to the pleas of anti-media monopolization activists? Or will they bother to do anything at all? Only time will tell … assuming it does have something to say!

Go to:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2013/02/14/2003554849/2
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2013/02/04/2003554169
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/02/12/2003554772

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