Abstract EN:

This study will present the building process of Taiwanese identity in society and in the press through the analysis of the case of one newspaper : The Liberty Times. Firstly, the general socio-historic setting of the country will be presented. In short, Taiwan is a region long dominated by archaic States, then by a nationalist dictatorship, with civil societies in the grips of sporadic and deep social movements. Secondly, the relationship between the political field and the media field will be examined according to three historic periods : the hardline authoritarian regime, the tolerant authoritarian regime, and the democratic transition. This process is a slow evolution towards democracy, with an emancipation of the media world. Thirdly, the organisation of the journalistic world into three concentric circles will be examined : the State-run newspapers, the hybrid state-private national newspapers, and the marginal private newspapers. Within each circle, internal competition will be discussed. But the historic reversal of this structure (with the disappearnce of the State-run papers and the victory of the private press) will propell the low-visibility Liberty Times to the front row of the big national papers by virtue of its tone of Taiwanese identity. Fourthly, the method by which this newspaper constructs an identity discourse (which is its unique selling point in the political field) will be analysed. This construction of identity depends upon the judgements and connotations embedded in the vocabulary, and upon the categorisation of opponents according to ideological standards. This discourse has three critical moments : the political struggles of 1990, the Taipei mayoral elections of 1994, the Chinese missiles of 1996. Each period adds an additional degree of intensity to the aggressive affirmation of identity-related discourse. In a last part, the interviews conducted with the newspaper staff will be studied. These teams include the political desk, as well as journalists from other newspapers and politicians of various horizons. A typology of the opinions of the journalists at The Liberty Times (believers, followers, deviants) through three lines of questioning (submissiveness of the employees, whealing and dealing of the boss, the belief in Taiwanese identity), is drawn up. The result of this is an authoritarian identity-related discourse that deforms, manipulates and applies censorship tactics. The conclusion points out that the Taiwanese identity discourse is not based on anthropological grounds, but on classical mechanisms of journalistic writing.