| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 產業經濟研究所 === 105 === Based on the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas, the school of structuralism argues that a market structure which encourages competition is definitely superior to the oligopoly or monopoly of few news media companies in terms of facilitating the realization of diverse perspectives. However, after cable TV companies joined in the market in 1993, the growing competition in the Taiwanese TV industry has rendered TV news broadcasting a battlefield for every TV company to fight for audience ratings. The content of TV news began to resort to stimulating audiences’ sensual excitement. In order to reduce costs, TV news greatly relies on the same source and gradually takes on the same style. These tendencies increase audiences’ interest in watching TV news; however, in terms of the special role of the news media as the fourth estate, the chaos of TV news is detrimental to the media diversity, and it even brings negative externalities to the society.
Ironically, the TV news companies in our country still cannot fully manifest the values and functions needed for a democracy to succeed even after the companies went through the competition expected by the school of structuralism. Examining the paradox in the design of the structure and in the current situation of the competition and focusing on the competitive behaviors of news media, this study goes through historical and empirical research to explore the main reasons for the news media to go astray. It also elaborates the mechanism for the nature of media to cause market failure. Furthermore, with the analysis of a static strategy game, the study presents that a competitive relationship exceeding a certain extent will impel news media to adopt the behaviors of dominant strategies that cast negative effect upon democratic values. Finally, this study proposes new policy suggestions concerning the regulative goal for a market structure that advocates “the more news media, the better.”
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