台灣報紙轉型的問題與挑戰──提供讀者更好的選擇？

Abstract

台灣報業環境自民國77年開放報禁後，產生明顯改變。包括所有權更替，報紙內 容不斷進行遞變調整，其中以傳統西方新聞學著重新聞道德和客觀中立等觀念，及報 紙以社會第四權力自居，追求社會理想和責任的角色最受市場力量的衝擊。美國報界 從一九七年起探討市場導向思維發展，及其對報業與新聞事業產生的深遠影響，也 對「新聞」質變的意涵進行辯證討論。本文即從市場導向新聞學的概念和特質，提出 報業運作時產生三種看似極端卻彼此矛盾的命題，藉以釐析台灣報業環境從民國77年 至88年間的變化，接著描繪台灣主要報紙在這段期間的調整策略，並討論市場法則在 其中產生的微妙轉變，最後討論這些改變對台灣報紙重新建構「新聞」意涵的影響及 問題。

Since the lift of ban on Taiwanese newspapers in 1988, evidence has been accumulating that journalism is undergoing a critical transformation-a move away from reliance on professional norms defining what in newsworthy and how to report, toward a journalism based observing the marketplace. A market-based model of news production argues that primary news decision-about how to learn what is going on from the outside environment-are quite complex. This research uses market-based model of news production to analyze the changing editorial policies and format of major newspapers in Taiwan from 1988 to 1999. Take together, news selecting and decisions-making take places both in a specific organizational context, combining some mixture of a competitive market-based environment. The current analysis finds out there are many content adjustments and newsroom management policies changing in response to the changing relationship between the economic order of market and newspaper industry. Thus news becomes a commodity shaped by a collection of markets, an elaborate compromise.