Study On The Symbol Transition Of Taiwan Political Culture

With the symbol of political culture as the starting point, the present paper aims to reveal the vicissitudes of the political culture of Taiwan, probe into the interactions between Taiwan public opinion issues and its political culture, and finally abstract the general model of interactive frame between public opinion and political culture through studies on the evolution of Taiwan public opinion issues since the Recovery of Taiwan.The object of study this paper will pose is Taiwan public opinion issues and its political culture. The public opinion, as the surface-flow of social consciousness, reflects the profound essence of Taiwan's social phenomena. Political culture, as the psychological orientation of political system, contains the cultural code of Taiwan's historical process. Studies on Taiwan public opinion and political culture, from a historical perspective, will help us understand profoundly the interactive model between the superficial phenomenon and the deep structure of the social history of Taiwan, and therefore be valuable academically to the study of Taiwan, and to the study of the history of Taiwan in particular.From a perspective of academic history, few of previous studies on this topic have ever touched the theoretical basis on the combination of history and public opinion sciences. Four weaknesses have been traced in the field of study, that is, in the study of Taiwan political culture from a perspective of public opinion study, in the overall study of Taiwan public opinion, in the historical study of Taiwan public opinion, and in the study of Taiwan public opinion from a perspective of Taiwan political cultural study. Furthermore, the classification of given topics concerning Taiwan public opinion is ambiguous and confounding. Therefore, this paper, based on the previous research results, aims to overcome these weaknesses, and presents new academic theory.The issues of Taiwan public opinion can be divided into two types: short-term issues and long-term ones. Most issues of the first type, which are shot-term, belong to issues of appeal while most issues of the second type to issues of identity. The reason why the second type remains long-term is that most of the issues of this type are related to the political culture of Taiwan. Over the recent sixty years, three main public opinion issues have emerged, accumulated, varied and have kept affecting Taiwan. They are the issue of provincialism, the issue of Taiwan consciousness or China consciousness and the issue of reunification or independence. The above three issues correspond respectively to the political culture of Taiwan: the most representative political emotion, namely the complex of provincialism; the most pivotal political cognition, namely the Taiwan consciousness or China consciousness, and the most significant political evaluation, namely the inclination to reunification or independence. Therefore, these three issues have become the most representative symbols of Taiwan political culture.In the light of the different characteristics of the three main public opinion issues, the paper studies respectively their historical roots, evolution process, current features and their impacts on political culture, elaborates the variations and characteristics of the three representative symbols of Taiwan political culture, namely, the symbol of political emotion, the symbol of political cognition, and the symbol of political evaluation. The paper proposes that Taiwan political culture is actually composed of political cognition, political emotion and political evaluation. Therefore, the respective studies on these three issues will outline the general pattern of the historical transition of Taiwan political culture over the past six decades.Moreover, this paper will deepen its research by combining the Taiwan public opinion issues and its political culture. The paper tries to reveal the transformation of Taiwan political culture through the changes of Taiwan public opinion issues, investigate the impact of Taiwan political culture on its public opinion issues, and finally with the media-politics as the indicator, study the transmutation of the interaction between Taiwan public opinion and its political culture.The results of this study indicate that over the past sixty years, the changes of Taiwan public opinion issues and its political culture have taken on unique characteristics in phases. The contents of Taiwan public opinion issues have experienced such changes as from being taboos to openness then to debauchery, while its structure from being one-dimensional to multi-dimensional and finally to dualistic, its subject from being uni-polar to multi-polar then to polarization, and its representative form from being editorial to political advertising then to TV talk shows. Meanwhile, the political culture of Taiwan has changed from authoritarian nationalism, democratization, liberalization, and localization to ethnicism and populism. Moreover, the interactive medium of Taiwan public opinion and its political culture has witnessed changes from media politicalization to politics medialization, and finally to media-politics. In addition, the evolution of Taiwan public opinion issues and its political culture also presents the features of key elements. Taiwan public opinion issues and its political culture change generally in tune but not entirely. The changes of Taiwan public opinion issues precede those of Taiwan political culture. Although the evolution of the three major Taiwan public opinion issues, or as the three major symbols of Taiwan political culture, is in the same direction and in similar phase, their starting points, turning points and highlights turn out to be different, indicating the complexity of the development process of Taiwan political culture. Finally through a case study of the interactions between Taiwan public opinion and its political culture, this paper summarizes the general pattern of their interactions.