TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A new exhibition at the National Taiwan Museum explores Taiwan’s path from authoritarian rule to democracy through the role of communication technology, highlighting how media and information networks amplified dissent and challenged political power.
According to a museum press release, the exhibition, “Signals of the Times: The Impact of Communication Technology on Democracy,” features nearly 200 artifacts and historical materials tracing the role of communication technologies in Taiwan’s democratic development.
The exhibition examines how evolving forms of communication, from printing presses and banned publications to video cameras, underground radio stations, and the internet, helped loosen power structures and expand public participation in political life.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠) said communication technologies played a crucial role in guiding Taiwan from martial law and authoritarian rule toward democracy. He reflected on growing up in what he described as an era of restricted information, recalling how he was encouraged to join a political party while studying at National Taiwan Normal University and later cautioned against discussing Taiwan openly while working in the film industry.
Throughout his career, from filmmaking at the Central Motion Picture Corporation to producing advertisements for opposition political parties and hosting underground radio programs, Li said he witnessed firsthand how alternative channels of communication challenged official narratives. “Truth exposes lies, and resistance debunks myths,” he said.
Li added that Taiwan has transitioned from information isolation to an era of unprecedented openness, but warned that the spread of disinformation now poses a new challenge to safeguarding the freedoms achieved through decades of democratic struggle.
The exhibition is organized into four chronological sections. It begins with advocacy efforts during the Japanese colonial period through print media, films, and public gatherings, before examining postwar critiques of the political system through magazines and mimeographed publications.
Subsequent sections explore the role of opposition magazines, overseas answering-machine networks, and video documentation in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by the rise of underground radio stations in the 1990s and the emergence of internet-based public discourse.
National Taiwan Museum Director Chen Teng-chin (陳登欽) said Taiwan’s democratic development is inseparable from advances in communication technology. Each new medium served as a tool for overcoming barriers to information exchange, he said, allowing people to share ideas and organize despite limited resources and government restrictions.
The exhibition includes a wide range of artifacts, including early newspapers, folk communication tools, handheld video cameras, film projectors, footage from the 520 Farmers’ Movement, banned books, original manuscripts, and broadcasting equipment from underground radio station TNT Baodao Radio.
Former Green Team activist Li San-chong (李三沖) recalled that social movements flourished in the 1980s, but mainstream media often ignored or distorted coverage of protests and demonstrations. To counter that, activists used newly available video cameras to document events and distribute recordings through underground screenings and videotapes.
In 1989, the group even imported wireless television transmission equipment from overseas and briefly operated an alternative broadcaster known as Green Television, challenging what activists viewed as a monopoly on information.
Chen Kuei-hsien (陳貴賢), founder of Baodao Radio, said underground radio stations emerged as an important means of bypassing government control over media channels during the martial law era. “Information transmission is one of the most important foundations of democracy,” he said, adding that media literacy remains essential in an age of information overload and online misinformation.
Photographer and former magazine art editor Chiu Wan-hsing (邱萬興) recalled how opposition publications in the 1980s often operated under the threat of censorship, with editors racing to complete printing before authorities could shut them down. He said magazines frequently had to be edited, typeset, photographed, and printed overnight so they could circulate before being banned or seized by authorities.
Chiu described the exhibition as “the most complete and exciting exhibition on the history of the dissemination of Taiwanese democracy that I have seen in recent years.”
By tracing the evolution of information sharing from oral traditions and print culture to broadcast media and digital networks, the exhibition highlights how communication technologies helped shape Taiwan’s modernization and democratic transformation.
The exhibition also shows how activists and ordinary citizens used low-cost and flexible technologies to circulate information and build resistance networks, often operating outside official channels. The exhibition is on display at the National Taiwan Museum until Feb. 21, with more information available on the museum’s website.
