On Friday, April 13, Professor York (Yue) Qiu, a professor at Shih Hsin University in the Department of Radio, Television, and Film, gave a talk at ICLP entitled "Media and Taiwan Culture." Professor Qiu, a highly regarded expert on Taiwan's media, was formerly the vice director of Taiwan Television Enterprise, Ltd. (台灣電視公司, TTV). He has also been an editor at The China Times.

　　Professor Qiu began by giving a brief overview of the media landscape, particularly with respect to TV news. He noted that Taiwan has a unique and highly competitive media environment, with eight 24-hour TV news stations competing for viewers among a population of 23 million people. In contrast, the United States, with a much larger population, has just three 24-hour TV news stations; the United Kingdom has three as well, while Japan has no TV stations devoted to 24-hour news coverage.

　　He also noted that the landscape is also very rich and diverse for other forms of media, with Taiwan having approximately 4,000 magazine publishers, 200 radio stations, 2,500 newspaper publishers, and 4 major daily newspapers.

　　Professor Qiu encouraged students to take the time to explore Taiwan culture, and noted that Taiwan's culture is uniquely influenced by Han, Hakka, aboriginal, and Japanese culture. 

　　In an interview, he discussed a range of topics, including media freedom in Taiwan, how the media has evolved in recent decades, and his hopes for the media in the future. Professor Qiu believes that the media environment in Taiwan is quite free. However, he believes it is possible that the extreme amount of competition in Taiwan leads media outlets to take a less serious and more entertainment-oriented approach to news. He noted that international news coverage has been declining in recent years, and that ever fewer media outlets are dispatching ever fewer reporters abroad as foreign correspondents. Reports from wire services are an inadequate replacement because they cannot provide a Taiwanese perspective on important events occurring elsewhere in the world or explain their significance to a Taiwanese audience. Professor Qiu hopes that Taiwan will eventually see a media landscape with fewer media outlets, which he believes would enable those outlets to focus less on how to out-compete each other for ratings and more on serious journalism.