| 摘要: | 貧窮是人類歷史中關於不平等的古老故事之一，貧富差距也從未在任何國家消失，但在廿一世紀的一開始，台灣媒體彷彿發現新大陸般追逐各種與貧窮相關的議題。「你就是下一個新貧族」的不祥召喚迴盪在整座島嶼;「M型社會來臨」像是即將成真的末世預言。貧窮，真的隨著全球性經濟衰退在台灣重現了嗎？為何貧窮在國民所得更低的時代反而不見其嚴重性呢？ 一向被忽視的窮人也在此時成為新聞媒體報導的對象：人們突然關心起在山上種水蜜桃的原住民阿嬤和七個孫子如何生活，被三個孩子共食一碗麵的故事感動。貧窮在這些人身上似乎又化為道德的象徵，而與經濟領域無關。 Zygmunt Bauman曾說：「窮人總是與我們相隨，但是怎樣才算貧窮，卻取決於和他們『相隨』的『我們』是何種人物。」這句話顯示了貧窮最容易被忽視的社會建構層面。當『我們』指的是國家，窮人是顛覆社會秩序的潛在威脅;當『我們』是中產階級，窮人代表的是未符合現代文明的生活方式;當『我們』是坐在電視機前充滿同情心的觀眾，窮人又是可憐、需要幫助的一群人。在媒體悄悄地接管貧窮論述的主導權之時，探討當代媒體發現了什麼樣的貧窮，以及透露出哪種『我們』的觀點，將有助於我們開拓出思考貧窮議題的另類觀點。 本文意圖跳脫傳統社會科學對貧窮的實證化分析，而將貧窮視為某種媒體產物，透過分析以下三種新興的媒體再現：（一）中產階級的新貧化;（二）省錢大作戰及窮人商機的崛起;（三）窮人的道德形象，嘗試解讀其在此時出現的社會意義，以及了解其如何間接的鞏固了台灣資本主義社會的既有階級結構。 Poverty is one of the oldest stories in human history of inequality, and the contrast between the rich and the poor has never disappeared in any country. However, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Taiwanese media began to treat poverty as stunning news, as if a new discovery has been made. From the ominous interpellation “You are the new working poor” to the imminent arrival of “M-shape Society”, the poor and poverty in recent media representations are markedly different from the notion of poverty as we had known it. In the present thesis, I will examine the social meaning and class implication in these representations through analyzing selected media texts. I would like to discuss the way in which they contribute to the manufacture of poverty in Taiwan during the 2000s, including the manner in which pauperization of the middle class, the myth of consumerism, and the moral construction of the poor work together to create a reality that seemingly smoothes over the growing distance and contradiction between classes while keeping the poverty problem in the private realm instead of the public sphere. Chapter 2, “The Changing approach to poverty: a historical review”, will show how poverty has been constructed as a social problem in political and academic domains since the KMT regime took over Taiwan in 1949, and moreover, why the poor gradually became invisible under the prevailing discourse of Taiwan’s “economic miracle”. This chapter will help explain why poverty has never been merely an economic problem nor an objective fact. In chapter 3, “The media construction of the poor in Taiwan”, I will analyze three significant new faces of the contemporary poor through selected media texts, including newspaper reports, features in popular magazines, and television commercials which mainly appeared after 2001, the watershed of “discovering” poverty in Taiwan society. In chapter 4, “Theoretical reflections on poverty”, I will take examples of “rediscovery of poverty” in the United States and Britain in the 1960s to review some underlying poverty theories which could shed some light on readings of the Taiwanese poverty phenomenon. And in the final chapter, I will attempt to present my own perspective on the construction of poverty in contemporary Taiwan. |
