The communication research in Taiwan has increased dramatically as a result of the increasing number of communication programs. As today, there are 36 communication related undergraduate departments, 18 graduate programs and two doctoral programs. The increasing number of people in communication research has contributed to the growth of communication research.
This study adopts Potter, Cooper, & Dupagne’s (1993) three-paradigm aspect to describe communication research development in Taiwan during the past ten years (1989-1999). This study analyzed 176 papers that were published in mass communication related journals with anonymous review system, national conference, books, dissertation, and National Science Council’s publication. These papers then were render for AEJMC and ICA’s domain categories; publication year; publication outlets; first author’s teaching institution; number of author; type of data; sampling method; source of data; research method; scope of research; research focus; theory; and paradigm analysis. Further cross-tab between paradigm and publication year; research focus; type of data; source of data; and number of author were rendered as well.
The results show that there is a steady increase in the number of publication for communication research in Taiwan. Other things are following Among various publication outlets, journals are the main publication outlets. As to the AEJMC & ICA domain categories; the mass communication (and society), communication policy, and communication technology are the three major categories. Most of the research has only research hypothesis without adopting a pre-existing theory perspective. Macro occupies a major portion in the research scope. Message and source are the two major focuses in communication research. The leading research method shows to be literature review. Over 40 percent did not involve sampling. Qualitative data out weights quantitative data. Over 75 percent of the research is done by one first-for these papers author. National Cheng-Chi University is the school with the largest number of author. Finally, among the three paradigms, over 40 percent of research belongs to social science paradigm.
Finally, cross tabs between paradigms and some variables show there is a the dramatic publication increase in 1997,and most the increse belongs to social science paradigm; source is the highest focus of research in social science paradigm; regulation and policy is the least focus of research in social science paradigm; audience analysis is the least study focus in interpretative paradigm; message is the major study focus in critical paradigm; the qualitative and quantitative data are about the same in social science paradigm; qualitative data occupy more than 70 percent in both interpretative and critical paradigm; direct contact of people is the highest source of data in social science; interpretative and critical paradigm tend to obtain source of data through analysis of existing qualitative data; and one author seems to dominate all three paradigms.