Abstract
This study aims to explore the internal politics of production of C Times and its news content of the human rights in China after being merged into the W Group in order to explain how the external capital/power structure affects the operation mechanism of Taiwanese news content. The capitalists master the ownership and control of the Newspaper by utilizing the power of capital and the authority of dictatorship. With almost dictatorial governance logic, the new boss of the Newspaper controls the whole office of C Times through the intervention of the production processes of the two major areas, “China news” and “Self-related affairs”, and the limitation of the autonomy of news reporters. The Chinese government and the Taiwanese capitalists use the strategies of “product placement” and “political red-line news” to trade interests and form a specific “political relationship” between each other, which not only results in structural damage to the media production field, but also causes damage to press freedom. From 2008 to 2013, the number of China’s human rights news reported by C Times had decreased continuously, and it presents a mixing yet contrary characteristic of being trying to cater to Taiwanese readers but also being eager to move closer to the Chinese government’s position at the same time. This phenomenon is generated from the process of the exploitation of Taiwan’s news by the “power/capital alliance” that is consisting of the capitalism China and Taiwanese capitalists. With the intention of exploiting Taiwan’s news, the China factor has aligned with Taiwanese capitalists. Because of the similar frequency, the two forces has created a resonance effect, causing a lingering effect inside the organization and further dominating the rules of the operation in the news area. As a result, the news journalists within the area choose a variety of actions to compete, defend, boycott, comply or avoid the lingering control from the China factor/capitalists, showing their autonomous power. Actors in different positions and conditions are all affected by the changes in the external structure, the characteristics of journalistic work, and the authority deferred in the hierarchical organization. The various political strategies and actions they have taken just explain that the production of news inside C Times is actually a highly complex political process. The external impact and the internal autonomy-fighting action both can provide the possibility of revolution for the organization’s system and the overall media structure. Despite that the limitation of power/capital structure leads to failure, the resistance has remained constant. People’s actions have accumulated the strength for the future movements in Taiwan society.