Navigating through the mist: Media literacy education in Taiwan

In Taiwan, media literacy education (the official title employed by the Ministry of Education) has been booming over the last decade. An official white paper expressing the determination of the Taiwanese government to promote media literacy education was issued by the Ministry of Education in 2002 representing the growing interest in the subject among academics, media professionals, consumer activists and non-profit organisations. Owing to the comparatively short history of practising media literacy education in Taiwan and the fact that there are only a limited number of schools currently practising media literacy within their curricula, this chapter does not attempt to provide an historical overview. In this circumstance, it is more important to explore the possible directions-that is, of the discourse of media literacy education-which are going to influence its future implementation. This chapter aims to analyse the discourse of media education in Taiwan constructed by different social agents such as private foundations, the Ministry of Education (MoE) and policy makers. The assumption underpinning this methodological choice of analyzing the discourse is that social change is caused by a change of discourse.