2024 Taiwan Election: The Increasing Polarization of Taiwanese Politics — Reinforcement of Conspiracy Narratives and Cognitive Biases

Eric Hsu, Researcher, Doublethink Lab

Background

Past Doublethink Lab’s research reports and observations indicate that foreign information manipulation has shifted towards applying more conspiracy theory strategies and reinforcing ”cognitive biases” through “narratives.” This makes false and controversial information increasingly difficult to clarify and increases the cost of public discussion. In the long term, its main objectives not only include increasing distrust among citizens towards the government and democratic institutions but also exacerbate conflicts between supporters of different camps. This undermines the democratic resilience of Taiwanese society and fosters an overall skepticism towards international democratic allies.

In order to assess the extent and effects of foreign information manipulation on Taiwanese society and public opinion, Doublethink Lab conducted national telephone interviews prior to the election and exit polls in Taoyuan City on January 13th, 2024 (voting day) as a part of Doublethink Lab’s 2024 MHub project. In particular, we evaluated the scope and impact of certain conspiracy theory narratives.

This report is a series of comprehensive analyses which consists of cross-analysis, correlation analysis, and logistic regression analysis by using variables from the 2024 election survey. This data is used to delineate the profile of audiences inclined to believe conspiracy theory narratives and the correlation between different political leanings and perspectives on various conspiracy theory narratives and discourse. The report also aims to provide potential solutions for countering future domestic and international information manipulation.

Key Findings of Comprehensive Analysis

• Overall, supporters of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) expressed the highest satisfaction with the current state of democracy in Taiwan, with nearly 90% falling into the range of partial satisfaction. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) supporters expressed nearly 50% satisfaction with democracy in Taiwan. However, nearly 70% of supporters of the Kuomintang (KMT) expressed partial dissatisfaction with Taiwan’s democratic system. Regarding trust in Taiwan’s electoral system, 93.54% of DPP supporters were inclined to trust it, followed by over 65% of TPP supporters and only about 40% of KMT supporters.
• People with higher education levels more tended to feel challenged when others presented differing viewpoints with them. Regarding disappointment when close ones supported the most disliked political party, respondents with postgraduate degrees reported a significantly higher combined proportion of “quite disappointed” and “very disappointed” compared to those with lower education levels. Meanwhile, those with high school education or below and those with college degrees tended to choose “not disappointed” more frequently. However, the proportion of extreme responses (e.g., “very disappointed”) did not show significant differences across education levels. These aspects verified the findings of the 2022 local elections survey, which reported similar distribution trends.
• Respondents who were less satisfied with the current state of democracy in Taiwan and expressed less trust in Taiwan’s electoral system were more likely to agree with negative narratives about domestic politics and public affairs, such as “Taiwanese society has a very serious problem with judicial injustice,” “the Taiwanese government tolerates scam groups and scammers,” “the Taiwanese government benefits specific companies, providing citizens with subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs,” “the current ruling party (i.e., the DPP) is mired with political pork barrel scandals and corruption,” “the current ruling party (i.e., the DPP) is no different from the Chinese Communist Party, and Taiwan lacks freedom of speech,” and “the current government is the primary producer of misinformation/ disinformation in Taiwan.”
• Agreement with narratives of US skepticism showed similar trends to those negative of domestic affairs, with statements like “The US only wants to exploit Taiwan” or “The US definitely won’t send military support to assist Taiwan” having a moderate-to-high negative correlation with satisfaction of Taiwan’s democracy and trust in Taiwan’s electoral system. Notably, agreement with US skepticism had a higher negative correlation with satisfaction of Taiwan’s democracy. In other words, respondents who were less satisfied with Taiwan’s democracy tended to agree more strongly with US skepticism narratives.
• The nine narratives: “the Taiwanese government tolerates scam groups and scammers,” “the Taiwanese government benefits specific companies, providing citizens with subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs,” “the current ruling party (i.e., the DPP) is mired in political pork barrel scandals and corruption,” “the current ruling party (i.e., the DPP) is no different from the Chinese Communist Party, and Taiwan lacks freedom of speech,” “the current government is the primary producer of misinformation/disinformation in Taiwan,” “the United States only wants to exploit Taiwan,” “the United States uses Taiwan to provoke the PRC,” “the United States will definitely not send military support to assist Taiwan,” and “the ruling party’s defense policy treats youth as sacrificial lamb” demonstrated the most highly positive correlations. In other words, respondents who agreed with any one of these narratives also tended to agree to a greater extent with the other narratives.
• While the majority generally agreed with the following narratives: “living costs are drastically increasing” and “high housing prices and housing justice are important,” agreement differed slightly depending on political affiliation, but in general, KMT and TPP supporters showed a similar pattern. However, except the following narratives such as ‘’High housing prices, housing justice is important,” “Taiwanese society has a very serious problem with judicial injustice,” and “the government’s lack of military preparedness in defending against enemy countries.”, TPP supporters agreed more than KMT supporters, for the rest of narratives, TPP supporters agreed slightly less than KMT supporters, whereas the distribution is opposite when compared with DPP supporters.
• Among the three narratives of US skepticism, TPP supporters exhibited relatively less agreement with the assertions “The United States is using Taiwan to provoke PRC” and “The United States will definitely not send military support to assist Taiwan.” However, the narrative “the United States only wants to exploit Taiwan,” the agreement among supporters of TPP (68.15%) is closer to that of KMT supporters (81.16%), Although over 55% of TPP supporters still tended to agree with the rest two narratives, but the agreement and disagreement percentages were relatively balanced.
• Respondents who tended to agree with the narrative that the government is the main source of disinformation also tended to strongly agree with the US skepticism narratives.
• Respondents who were more optimistic about Taiwan’s future development under a Lai Ching-te presidency tended to be more satisfied and trusting of the current democratic and electoral systems in Taiwan. They also demonstrated a more cautious attitude towards the PRC’s United Front tactics and tended to strongly disagree with US skepticism narratives. However, the opposite trend was observed among respondents who were optimistic about Taiwan’s development under potential Hou You-yi or Ko Wen-je presidencies. Among them, compared with those optimistic about Hou You-yi, those optimistic about Ko Wen-je tended to agree less with the narratives regarding Taiwan domestic affairs and US skepticism narratives, falling within the range of mild-to-moderate correlation.
• Respondents who tended to agree with narratives related to Taiwan’s domestic policies and public affairs, US skepticism narratives, and Taiwan’s defense policies received a significantly higher percentage of their information about politics and public affairs from PRC social media platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, and Xiaohongshu, and followed closely thereafter by YouTube. However, it cannot be ruled out that respondents of certain political orientations may be more resistant to using Chinese social media platforms. Regarding respondents’ perspectives on political issues, respondents who relied on “internet video content creators” and “Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) or fan pages” on social media platforms reported significantly higher agreement levels with issues compared to other sources of information.

Cross analysis and correlation of National Telephone Survey data

The following data has been weighted according to the latest population statistics from the Taiwanese Ministry of the Interior. It has been adjusted based on variables such as gender, age group, education level, and region to ensure that the survey sample is representative of the population. The weighting method used was the Multivariable Iterative Proportional Fitting (RAKING) technique. The survey data can be used to estimate the overall social demographics in Taiwan, although it may not perfectly align with the demographic composition of the population who actually voted on election day.

Relationship between satisfaction with Taiwan’s democracy and information overload

Those who felt that “the amount of information is just right” had the highest satisfaction with the current state of democracy in Taiwan, reaching 63.38%. Respondents who felt that “there is too much information” had a 56.48% satisfaction rate with the state of democracy, whereas only 48.25% of those who felt that “there is too little information” were satisfied . The differences between these percentages were statistically significant.

Relationship between satisfaction with Taiwan’s democracy, trust in Taiwan’s election, and political orientation

When the three major political parties in the election were factored in, supporters of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) exhibited the most satisfaction with the current state of democracy in Taiwan at 88.41%, followed by supporters of the Taiwan People‘s Party (TPP) at 48.4%. Finally, supporters of the Kuomintang (KMT) expressed nearly 70% dissatisfaction. Regarding the level of trust in Taiwan’s electoral system, DPP supporters had the highest level of trust at 93.54%. Thereafter, over 65% of TPP supporters trusted Taiwan’s electoral system, while only 43.29% of KMT supporters exhibited trust.

Relationship between education level and avoidant type of personality

Overall, individuals with higher education tended to feel more challenged when others presented differing viewpoints. Among those with a high school education or below, the majority (47.57%) chose “somewhat disagree” with this statement. However, among those with a college degree or higher, the combined proportion of those who chose “somewhat agree” and “strongly agree” was higher.

Relationship between education level and political polarization

We found that respondents with a master’s degree or higher had a significantly higher combined proportion of “somewhat disappointed” and “very disappointed” compared to those with lower educational levels. Those with a high school education or below, as well as those with a college degree, tended to choose “not disappointed” more often. However, overall, there was no significant difference in the percentages of the extreme reaction (i.e., “very disappointed”) across different levels of education.

Relationship between political polarization and political orientation

However, when we cross-analyzed supporters by political orientation, we observed that among respondents who supported the KMT, the percentage of those selecting “very disappointed” was significantly higher than among supporters of the DPP and the TPP.

Among respondents who chose “somewhat disappointed,” the percentage among KMT supporters was slightly higher than that of other party supporters.

Fact-checking behaviors of highly politically polarized individuals

When we juxtaposed political polarization with fact-checking behavior, individuals who felt disappointed when their family or friends supported a disliked political party tended to engage in fact-checking more frequently than those who did not feel disappointed. Individuals who did not feel disappointed when their family or friends supported a disliked political party tended to remain cautious and did not readily believe questionable information. However, among those who felt “somewhat disappointed,” 28.09% responded with, “If the information comes from a trustworthy media or institution, I would choose to believe it.” Among those who chose “very disappointed,” a significantly higher percentage of respondents reported “I would cross-reference the information with sources I trust” compared with other levels of political polarization.

Overall, respondents with higher levels of education tended to exhibit higher levels of political polarization and were more likely to feel challenged when faced with different opinions. Additionally, when facing questionable information, individuals who expressed higher levels of political polarization tended to respond with “If the information comes from a trustworthy media or institution, I would choose to believe it” and “I would cross-reference the information with sources I trust,” which may indicate a higher tendency to consume information in echo-chambers. This finding is consistent with that in our 2022 Taiwan Local Election Survey. However, it’s important to note that some items in this cross-analysis were drawn from relatively low sample sizes, so inferences should be made with caution.

Correlations between different narratives

If we examine the correlation between “satisfaction level with Taiwan’s democracy” and “level of trust in Taiwan’s electoral system” with the level of agreement with other narratives, several patterns emerge.

First, regarding narratives about “living costs are drastically increasing” and “housing prices are too high,” we observe only mild negative correlations between them. This suggests that respondents who tended to be satisfied with Taiwan’s democratic situation and trusted Taiwan’s electoral system tended to mildly disagree with the narrative that “living costs are drastically increasing.”

However, when we analyzed narratives with a more critical tone towards domestic issues, such as “Taiwan’s judiciary is unfair,” “Taiwan’s government tolerates scammers,” “Taiwan’s government provides citizens subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs,” “The ruling party is corrupt,” “Taiwan lacks freedom of speech,” and “The government is the biggest source of disinformation,” we found significantly higher negative correlations among them. Most of these narratives indicated moderate-to-highly negative correlations. In other words, respondents who were less satisfied with Taiwan’s democratic institutions and less trusting of Taiwan’s electoral system were more likely to strongly agree with these critical narratives about domestic issues.

Similar trends were observed in narratives related to US skepticism. Narratives like “The United States only wants to exploit Taiwan,” “The United States uses Taiwan to provoke PRC,” and “The United States definitely won’t send military support to assist Taiwan” also revealed moderate-to-highly negative correlations with satisfaction with Taiwan’s democratic institutions and trust levels in Taiwan’s electoral system. Particularly regarding satisfaction with Taiwan’s democratic institutions, these narratives demonstrated highly negative correlations. More specifically, respondents who were less satisfied with Taiwan’s democratic institutions tended to more strongly agree with these US-skeptic narratives.

However, when it came to discussions about Taiwan’s military defense, the distributions diverged more significantly. Compared with the trust level in Taiwan’s electoral system, satisfaction with Taiwan’s current democracy revealed higher negative correlations with the narratives such as “The ruling party uses defense as cannon fodder for young people” and “The government lacks preparedness to defend against enemy countries.” Especially regarding the narrative “The ruling party’s defense policy is to use young people as sacrificial lambs,” the correlation coefficient was −0.5634, indicating a significantly high negative correlation. However, the narrative “As long as there is communication and interaction with the PRC, there is a possibility of helping the PRC unify Taiwan” served as a reference point by revealing a mild positive correlation with satisfaction with Taiwan’s democratic institutions and trust level in Taiwan’s electoral system. More specifically, compared with respondents who exhibited more distrust in Taiwan’s electoral system, respondents who were more dissatisfied with Taiwan’s democracy were more likely to agree with narratives such as “The ruling party’s defense policy is to use young people as sacrificial lamb” and “The government lacks military preparedness to defend against enemy countries.” Moreover, they tended to disagree more with the narrative, “As long as there is communication and interaction with the PRC, there is a possibility of helping the PRC unify Taiwan.”

Regarding the correlations among the narratives, “The Taiwan government tolerates scammers,” “The Taiwan government provides citizens subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs,” “The ruling party is corrupt,” “The DPP is as authoritarian as the CCP, Taiwan lacks freedom of speech,” “The government is the biggest source of disinformation,” “The US only wants to exploit Taiwan,” “The US uses Taiwan to provoke the PRC,” “The US definitely won’t send military support to assist Taiwan,” and “The ruling party’s defense policy is to use young people as sacrificial lambs,” these nine narratives all reported the highest positive correlations. Among them, the lowest coefficient was 0.5148, between “The Taiwan government tolerates scammers” and “The U.S definitely won’t send military support to assist Taiwan,” whereas the highest was 0.8352, between “The Taiwan government provides citizens subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs” and “The ruling party is corrupt.” Although there was a gap between the lowest and highest correlation coefficients, respondents who tended to agree with any of these narratives also tended to strongly agree with the others.

When conducting cross-analysis of various variables based on the three major political parties during this election, Regarding satisfaction levels with Taiwan’s democracy, supporters of the KMT and TPP reported similar distribution levels. Over 50% of TPP supporters expressed dissatisfaction, while nearly 70% of KMT supporters tended to be dissatisfied. By contrast, nearly 90% of DPP supporters expressed satisfaction, showing a distribution trend closer to that of neutral voters who did not support any specific party. Regarding trust levels in the electoral system, the distributions among TPP supporters were similar to that among DPP supporters, with over 65% and 90%, respectively, leaning towards trust in the electoral system. However, over 55% of KMT supporters expressed distrust in the electoral system.

In aspects such as “living costs are drastically increasing” and “high housing prices and housing justice are crucial issues,” there were significant differences in the percentages among different political orientations; however, the majority generally fell within the agreement range (over 70%). For other narratives, the distribution trends of KMT supporters were very close to those of TPP supporters and opposite to those of DPP supporters. Except for the three narratives of “high housing prices, housing justice is important,” “Taiwanese society has a very serious problem with judicial injustice,” and “government lacks military preparedness to defend against enemy countries,” TPP supporters reported a higher agreement level compared to that of KMT supporters. Most other narratives indicated slightly lower agreement levels than those of KMT supporters. It is worth noting that among the three US skepticism narratives, TPP supporters exhibited a relatively conservative level of agreement for “The U.S uses Taiwan to provoke PRC” and “The U.S definitely won’t send military support to assist Taiwan.” Although over 55% of TPP supporters still tended to agree with these two narratives, the percentages were relatively balanced. For the narrative, “The U.S only wants to exploit Taiwan,” the level of agreement among TPP supporters (68.15%) was closer to that of KMT supporters (81.16%).

Relationships between the narratives and agreement level of ‘The current government is the primary producer of misinformation/ disinformation in Taiwan.’

Apart from showing moderate-to-high negative correlations with satisfaction with Taiwan’s democracy, level of trust in the Taiwanese electoral system, and “possible assistance in unification through communication with the PRC,” the narrative, “The government is the biggest source of disinformation,” predominantly indicated highly positive correlations with other narratives. It is worth noting that respondents who tended to agree with the statement, “The government is the biggest source of disinformation,” not only reported a higher level of agreement with narratives such as “The Taiwan government tolerate scammers,” “The Taiwan government provided citizens subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs,” “The ruling party is corrupt,” and “The DPP is just like the Chinese Communist Party, Taiwan lacks freedom of speech,” but also tended to strongly agree with US skepticism narratives.

Relationships between the narratives and feelings toward the ruling party

The degree of liking or disliking the current ruling party indicated moderate-to-high positive correlations with satisfaction with Taiwan’s democracy, trust level in the Taiwanese electoral system, and agreement with “As long as there is communication and interaction with the PRC, there is a possibility of helping the PRC unify Taiwan.” Therefore, the less one liked the current ruling party, the less satisfied they tended to be with Taiwan’s democracy overall, the less trusting they were in Taiwan’s electoral system, and the less they agreed with the narrative that “As long as there is communication and interaction with the PRC, there is a possibility of helping the PRC unify Taiwan.”

As expected, respondents who disliked the ruling party tended to agree more narratives that were critical of the Taiwanese government and the ruling party. The correlation coefficients ranged from −0.4634 to −0.8374. Notably, the degree to which one disliked the ruling party was significantly and positively correlated with the degree to which one agreed with US skepticism narratives, with correlation coefficients generally exceeding −0.65.

Relationships between the narratives and positive & negative emotions toward the presidential candidates

After analyzing the political emotions of respondents, we found that the level of optimism or pessimism toward potential presidential candidates’ effects on Taiwan’s development across the three parties also aligned with the aforementioned analysis. Respondents who were more optimistic about Lai Ching-te tended to be more satisfied with and trusting of Taiwan’s current democracy and electoral systems. They also exhibited a more cautious attitude towards China’s United Front tactics, perceived domestic issues such as housing prices as less severe, and leaned towards strongly disagreeing with US skepticism narratives. However, the opposite trend was observed among respondents who were optimistic about the potential presidencies of Hou Yu-ih and Ko Wen-je. Although respondents optimistic about Ko Wen-je showed similar trends in the correlation analysis to those optimistic about Hou Yu-ih, they tended to be more conservative in their agreement with various narratives, which yielded more mild-to-moderate correlations.

The narratives and relevant demographic characteristics

Through a correlation matrix analysis, we observed that “satisfaction with Taiwan’s democracy,” “trust in Taiwan’s electoral system,” “preference of ruling party,” and “communication with the PRC may aid in United Front works” were negatively correlated with narratives pertaining to domestic affairs and U.S skepticism. In other words, the more dissatisfied one was with Taiwan’s democracy, the more they distrusted the electoral process and the less they questioned whether potential cross-strait communication might assist with the PRC’s United Front strategies. Moreover, the more that respondents perceived various issues concerning the Taiwanese government negatively, the more likely they were to believe in US-skeptic narratives. Hence, those who viewed the ruling party as the primary source of disinformation also tended to perceive other social issues more critically and were more inclined to believe in US-skeptic narratives.

Identification with the three presidential candidates also echoed the results of the previous analysis. The more that one felt optimistic about Lai Ching-te’s governance, the more they were satisfied with and trusted the democratic process and elections, the more wary they were of the PRC’s United front tactics, the less they perceived domestic social issues as severe, and the less they were inclined to believe in US skepticism narratives. However, this was the opposite for supporters of Hou Yu-ih and Ko Wen-je.

Through a logistic regression analysis, we considered the respondents’ basic demographic information and political leanings to predict their agreement with narratives surrounding domestic affairs and US skepticism. Demographic variables included gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, education, occupation, Taiwanese identity, and residential area, while political variables included the political party they supported and their preference for president.

We found that respondents’ party preferences and support for a presidential candidate could more reliably predict their viewpoints on the other variables in this survey, such as judicial injustice, the Taiwanese government’s tolerance of scammers and profiting specific businesses, corruption of the DPP, the DPP restricts Taiwan’s freedom of speech, and the DPP being the primary source of disinformation. Conversely, feelings toward increases in cost of living and housing prices were not influenced by whether one identifies as “Taiwanese.” In other words, whether one identified as Taiwanese did not affect their perception of these issues. Furthermore, U.S skepticism narratives and military defense issues were affected by identification as Taiwanese, party preference, and support for a presidential candidate.

Relationship between agreement with narratives and source of information

Among the respondents who primarily used the most common information channels in this survey, most believed that democracy is always the best political system, with percentages exceeding 60% in all cases. Conversely, among respondents who primarily used YouTube as their source of political information, the percentage who believed that dictatorship may be better than democracy was significantly higher compared with those who used other information channels.

Additionally, when we aggregated the percentages of respondents who used Chinese social media platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, and Xiaohongshu, we found that those who believed that democracy was the best system were significantly higher than users of other information channels. This may be related to the PRC’s recent active reshaping of linguistic concepts such as “Chinese-style democracy.” This reshaping of concepts does not entirely discredit the values of terms and concepts like “democracy,” “freedom,” or “human rights,” but rather reconstructs the language, terms, and concepts within the framework of the official narrative of the Chinese government. In other words, while a high proportion of users of Chinese social media platforms believe that “democracy is the best system,” their dissatisfaction with the “current state of democracy in Taiwan” remains higher than that of users of other information channels. Further exploration of this phenomenon deserves continued in-depth discussion in future studies.

Regarding satisfaction with Taiwan’s democracy and trust in Taiwan’s electoral system, respondents who primarily used Chinese social media platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, and Xiaohongshu as their main sources of information reported high percentages of dissatisfaction and distrust. Similarly, respondents who primarily used LINE and YouTube as their main sources of information also indicated relatively high percentages of dissatisfaction and distrust.

Regarding domestic affairs in Taiwan, respondents who primarily used Chinese social media platforms as their main sources of information also tended to agree significantly more with such narratives. Those who primarily used LINE as their main source of information only reported higher agreement with the statement “There is very serious judicial injustice in Taiwan.” Apart from this, respondents who primarily used YouTube as their main information channel tended to agree more with narratives such as “The Taiwanese government tolerates scammers,” “The Taiwanese government benefits specific companies, providing citizens subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs,” “The current ruling party (i.e., the DPP) is corrupt,” and “The current government is Taiwan’s primary producer of disinformation.” These agreement percentages were closer to the distribution of respondents who primarily used Chinese social media platforms as their main sources of information, and the percentages were significantly higher than those of respondents who used other information channels. In other words, respondents who primarily used Chinese social media platforms, YouTube, and LINE as their main sources of political information tended to agree more with these narratives compared with other respondents.

In terms of narratives related to US skepticism and Taiwan’s military defense policy, respondents who primarily used Chinese social media platforms as their main source of information generally tended to agree more with such narratives. Among these, the narrative “‘If the PRC were to use force to attack Taiwan, the United States would definitely not send military assistance to Taiwan” , the respondents who primarily used YouTube and LINE as their main information channels also reported relatively higher agreement levels compared with other respondents. Additionally, for the narrative “In terms of strengthening the determination of the entire population to resist enemy aggression, the current Taiwanese government lacks actions and preparations in defense,” respondents who chose YouTube as their main source of information agreed more with the narrative.

Overall, respondents who primarily used Chinese social media platforms as their main sources of political information tended to report higher agreement levels with these narratives, YouTube and LINE users also yielded higher agreement percentages, although they were slightly lower than those who primarily used Chinese social media platforms as their main sources of political information.

The narratives and the politics & public affairs’ major point or view source

Regarding perspectives on democracy, satisfaction with Taiwan’s democracy, and trust in Taiwan’s electoral system, there were generally no significant differences among respondents who received political information from different sources, except for those whose perspectives came directly from political figures, who exhibited significantly higher confidence in the democratic system.

Regarding domestic affairs narratives in Taiwan, respondents whose political and public affairs point of views came from online video content creators and influencers or fan pages on social platforms generally exhibited higher agreement with such narratives compared with other respondents. Particularly, respondents from online video content creators tended to agree significantly more with most narratives. In other words, such respondents were more inclined to agree with narratives related to domestic affairs in Taiwan.

However, in practical interviews and in terms of operational definitions, there is difficulty and ambiguity in clearly distinguishing between “online video content creators” and “influencers or fan pages on social platforms.” It is suggested that readers may treat these two options as one in the same.

Similarly, regarding narratives related to U.S skepticism and Taiwan’s military defense policy, respondents who received information primarily from influencers or fan pages on social platforms generally tended to agree more with such narratives compared with other respondents. The percentage of agreement among respondents who received information from online video content creators also tended to be closer to that of influencers or fan pages on social platforms, indicating significantly higher agreement with most relevant narratives. In plain terms, respondents whose political viewpoints primarily came from “influencers or fan pages on social platforms” and “online video content creators” were more inclined to agree with these narratives related to U.S skepticism and Taiwan’s military defense policy.

As previously mentioned, there may have been difficulty and ambiguity among respondents in clearly distinguishing between “online video content creators” and “influencers or fan pages on social platforms,” It is suggested that readers may treat these two options as one in the same.

Analytical results of Taoyuan’s Exit Polling data

Taoyuan City has the highest ethnic diversity in Taiwan; its population consists of various ethnic groups, including Taiwanese Minnanese, Taiwanese Hakka, Taiwanese indigenous people, Taiwanese Mainlanders, and Taiwanese new immigrants. Moreover, compared to New Taipei, Taipei, or Kaohsiung, Taoyuan City boasts a more diverse range of industries, with a mix of service industries, manufacturing plants, agricultural land, and an emerging electronics industry. Additionally, due to the strategy of the third political force in Taiwan, the TPP, to divide the pan-blue camp’s voter base, Taoyuan City, currently governed by KMT, was selected to observe the future political landscape of Taiwan. Furthermore, Hou Yu-ih, who was also a presidential candidate in the presidential election, currently governs New Taipei City, from which a significant wave of young people have moved to Taoyuan City in recent years.

Moreover, while meeting the aforementioned requirements of ethnic and industrial diversity, Taoyuan City was also one of the counties where Ko Wen-je gained the highest share of the vote in the 2024 Presidential Election. Although Taoyuan City differed from the nationwide sample collected in our telephone surveys, it is still worthy of further focus at this stage to clarify the current political and social landscape and changes brought about by the emergence of a third political force.

Observations from the national and Taoyuan electorates

Overall, the relevant analysis results from the exit poll survey data in Taoyuan City mostly yielded correlation curves consistent with those from the telephone surveys. Among them, correlations between the narratives were predominantly clustered around nine narratives: “Taiwan’s government tolerate scammers,” “Taiwan’s government provides citizens with subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs,” “The ruling party is corrupt,” “the DPP restricts Taiwan’s freedom of speech,” “The government is the biggest source of disinformation,” “The US only wants to exploit Taiwan,” “The US uses Taiwan to provoke China,” “The US will definitely not send military support to assist Taiwan,” and “The ruling party’s defense policy treats youth as sacrificial lambs.” In other words, the data from the exit poll survey in Taoyuan City revealed a similar pattern to the nationwide telephone surveys — respondents who agreed with any one of these narratives also tended to agree with the others to a considerable degree.

If we conduct a correlation analysis between “the positive or negative perception of the ruling party” and other narratives, the difference in the telephone surveys would lie in the significant decrease in correlation coefficients with “living costs are drastically increasing.” In other words, compared with the analysis results from the nationwide telephone surveys, the impact of the ruling party’s favorability on the degree of disagreement with the narrative “living costs are drastically increasing” is lower. Similarly, in Taoyuan City, compared to the nationwide survey, there was also a lower correlation between the favorability of the ruling party and agreement with the narrative, “Taiwan’s government tolerates scammers.”

It is worth mentioning that when examining the relationship with these narratives through “the positive (negative) emotions towards specific candidates,” the results differ compared with those of the telephone surveys. Respondents who tended to feel more optimistic about Taiwan’s development under Ko Wen-je as president tended to agree with narratives such as “Taiwan suffers from judicial injustice,” “Taiwan’s government tolerate scammers,” “Taiwan’s government provides citizens with subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs,” “The ruling party is corrupt,” “The DPP restricts Taiwan’s freedom of speech,” “The ruling party’s defense policy is to use young people as sacrificial lambs,” and “The government lacks military defense preparedness against enemy countries.” These respondents tended to agree more with these statements than respondents who felt more optimistic about Taiwan’s development under Hou Yu-ih as president. Put simply, according to the exit poll survey data from Taoyuan City, respondents who favored Ko Wen-je tended to agree more with the aforementioned narratives related to domestic affairs and national defense than those who favored Hou Yu-ih.

From the above table, we can see that through the only open-ended question in this survey, across the supporters of all different candidates, “vaccine,” “egg,” “corruption,” “national defense/war” and “housing justice/housing price” are the most frequently mentioned topics, which have potentially change their original party preferences or voting intentions for the 2024 presidential election. However, since this question is an open-ended short answer, it is only possible to statistically analyze the most frequently occurring keywords in each group after clustering by political orientations and then rank them. It is challenging to clearly define the direction of the changes brought about by this issue. For example, the current questionnaire design and analysis cannot definitively tell us whether individuals who choose to switch their vote to Hou Yu-ih are doing so because they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the ruling party’s vaccine policy, housing justice, and national defense policies, then changing their voting intentions.

Please note that the information provided in the table allows for some reasonable hypotheses in certain contexts and preliminarily demonstrates the issues of particular concern to each group. However, further exploration of the causal relationship between various issues and changes in voting intentions requires other separate projects and related research.

Conclusion

In general, the 2024 Taiwanese election survey results expand upon the trends observed in our 2022 local elections survey and indicate significant political polarization in Taiwanese society. We found that individuals with different political leanings and ideologies present starkly polarized viewpoints on the variables that we analyzed.

Perceptions of the main sources of disinformation and information manipulation can be broadly categorized into two groups: (1) those who believe it comes from the DPP, other parties, or all camps, and (2) those who believe it stems from the KMT, TPP, or PRC. Additionally, our results reveal that those who agreed that disinformation and information manipulation primarily came from the DPP were more likely to be aged 30 years or younger, male, and not identify as Taiwanese. This group also tends to be dissatisfied and distrustful of Taiwan’s democracy and electoral system and tends to agree with narratives such as the cost of living is increasing drastically, housing prices are too high, Taiwan’s judiciary is unfair, the government tolerates scammers, the government provides citizens with subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs, the ruling party is corrupt, and the DPP restricts Taiwan’s freedom of speech.

Additionally, people who believe that disinformation and information manipulation mainly come from the DPP tend to hold the DPP responsible for tensions in cross-strait relations. Those who think it comes from all camps tend to believe that the PRC should be held responsible. Regarding the war between Ukraine and Russia, only those who believe that disinformation and information manipulation mainly come from the DPP tend to think that both the United States and Russia are equally responsible. This group also generally tends to agree more with narratives related to US skepticism, are more inclined to believe that the current government lacks military defense preparations and actions, and tends to disagree more with the narrative that communication with the PRC may help with the PRC’s United Front work.

On the other hand, looking at the age distribution, when asked about their views on democracy, the percentage of the younger demographic (20–29 years old) selecting “For me, any political system makes no difference” is noticeably higher. This may indicate that younger generation are apathetic towards the political system to some extent due to different factors. However, respondents from 20 to 49 years old still exhibit the highest percentages of satisfaction and trust in Taiwan’s democracy and electoral system. Meanwhile, they also have a higher percentage on agreeing with narratives such as “Taiwan’s government provides citizens with subpar vaccines and contaminated eggs,” “The ruling party is corrupt,”and “The government is the biggest source of disinformation”. Regarding the U.S Skepticism narratives, respondents aged 40 to 59 show an apparently higher agreement rate, followed by slightly lower agreement rates among those aged 30 to 39.

We find that both KMT and TPP supporters tend to agree more with the narratives in this survey, with KMT supporters reporting higher percentages of agreement. Compared to TPP supporters, KMT supporters are more inclined to believe that the DPP is the main source of disinformation and information manipulation, which is also reflected in their views on cross-strait relations and the war between Ukraine and Russia, for which they are more likely to think the DPP and the United States responsible.

Notably, housing prices and judicial injustice are issues where TPP supporters are more dissatisfied than KMT supporters. In addition, TPP supporters are more likely than KMT supporters to believe that the government’s military defense preparations are inadequate. Regarding cross-strait relations, KMT supporters tend to believe that tensions are caused by the DPP, while TPP supporters tend more toward the PRC. Regarding the war between Ukraine and Russia, TPP supporters tend to believe that Russia should be held responsible, while KMT supporters tend to believe that both the United States and Russia are responsible. In general, KMT supporters are more likely to believe in US skepticism narratives than TPP supporters, which corresponds to the results of our previous analysis on sources of disinformation.

Regarding Taiwan’s military defense preparations and the potential for communication with the PRC to be subject to United Front tactics, both KMT and TPP supporters lean toward agreeing that Taiwan is inadequately prepared and disagreeing that cross-strait communication may potentially facilitate United Front strategies. In terms of cross-strait relations and the Russo-Ukrainian war, voters who casted their ballots for KMT candidates tend to blame the DPP and the US. In summary, supporters of both parties harbor discontent, but the KMT specifically targets the DPP, while TPP supporters are only similar with KMT supporters on one narrative.

Furthermore, in analyzing satisfaction with Taiwan’s democracy and trust in Taiwan’s electoral system, supporters of the KMT and the TPP demonstrate similar satisfaction and trust levels compared with those of DPP supporters. However, TPP supporters tend to be more satisfied with and trustful of Taiwan’s democracy and electoral system. Up until the vote count, around 65% of TPP supporters still expressed trust in Taiwan’s electoral system, showing a certain degree of disparity from their discussions post-election. Based on the observations from TPP supporter Facebook and LINE communities outside of this study’s scope, most of the discussions on/before election day circulated around criticism of the procedures at polling stations rather than escalating to discussions of electoral fraud. When comparing this survey’s results with the 2022 local elections survey data, it’s apparent that a significantly higher percentage of political views and opinions now stem from content creators and influencer bloggers. Whether this shift is influencing specific groups of people with specific political leanings and information habits and leads to substantial changes in viewpoints in the short-term warrants further research and exploration.

Moreover, within the distribution of agreement level on conspiracy narratives included in this survey, those who obtain information mainly from YouTube and political and public opinion perspectives from “online video content creators” and “influencers (KOL) or fan pages on social platforms” also demonstrate significantly higher agreement with conspiracy narratives. The influence of “online video content creators” and “influencers (KOL) or fan pages on social platforms” on shaping public opinion and perspectives should not be underestimated.

When analyzing which aspects of conspiracy narratives may have a greater impact on satisfaction with Taiwan’s democracy, we found that narratives that manipulate negative emotions toward specific political parties, pertain to urgent livelihood issues during emergencies, and touch on corruption can greatly undermine public trust and satisfaction with Taiwan’s government and democracy, which exacerbates polarization in Taiwanese society.

It appears that reinforcing “cognitive biases” through conspiracy narratives leads to a higher societal cost of dialogue and impacts the resilience of democracy and democratic institutions in Taiwan. This highlights the urgent need to address these issues in Taiwanese society and improve media literacy around conspiracy theories and narratives.

Limitation of the research and analysis

National Telephone Survey

• Landline and mobile phones are limited in coverage, thus limited in generalization to the target population

The current nationwide telephone survey, whether conducted via mobile phones or landlines, employed weighted estimations based on age, gender, education level, and regional demographics of the general population. However, neither the demographic using mobile phones nor that using landlines represents the entire population. Additionally, some groups within these categories may be difficult to reach via phone interviews, such as individuals who habitually reject calls from unknown numbers. While academic, official, and general issue surveys adopt similar estimation methods, this survey still faces limitations in this regard.

• Missed opinions, characteristics and perspectives of non-respondents

The refusal rate for landline surveys was 9.9%, whereas for mobile phone surveys it was 5.5%. The majority of refusals were due to disinterest or lack of clarity about the survey topic. Some respondents expressed a lack of understanding or interest in politics, even after an explanation from the interviewers. As such, those who refused to participate may possess specific characteristics, such as indifference or aversion to political issues, which are not reflected in the survey results.

• Some respondents refuse to participate due to distrust of the research stance

Some respondents questioned whether the survey had a bias toward a specific political party, as several consecutive statements seemed unfavorable to the ruling party. As a portion of the survey questions were aimed at understanding public opinion on social issues, questions and narrative presented related to the government and the ruling party were construed as a negative by a few participants. While most respondents were willing to continue the survey after an explanation from the interviewers, some withdrew their participation midway through the interview.

Exit poll survey in Taoyuan City

• Limitations of data collection

One of the data collection methods in this project involved conducting exit polls in Taoyuan City on election day. We selected one polling station from each of the city’s 13 administrative districts based on a predetermined sampling method. However, since voters from different neighborhoods may have been present at the same polling stations, potential sampling errors may have arisen.

• The difference in time required for face-to-face interviews and the time in respondents’ ability to operate a tablet

When implementing exit polling, the researcher designed that responding to the whole questionnaire normally takes between 5 and 10 minutes. However, according to observations and feedback from interviewers, some respondents seemed impatient after spending over 5 minutes answering questionnaires via tablets. Additionally, some interviewers reported that using tablets for surveys may have posed difficulties for respondents who were less familiar with tablet operations, potentially limiting data collection.

Quantitative Analysis

We identified associations between variables using cross-tabulations and used chi-square tests to determine whether the variables were independent. Achieving statistical significance indicated that the variables were not independent, and the differences in percentages among categories were further examined. It is important to note that the effective sample size for exit polling was approximately 840 people, with some groups having fewer data points, making them unsuitable for extensive inference. Similarly, while the nationwide telephone survey yielded a total of 1,504 responses, some categories had fewer distributions, so caution should be exercised in extrapolating conclusions. Readers should pay special attention to the trends and tendencies obtained during the analysis to avoid generalizations about the framing of a specific political group or demographic nationwide.

Acknowledgements

This project would like to give special thanks to Dr. Zonghong Lin, a full-time research fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, for providing numerous suggestions and ideas in aspects such as questionnaire design, research logic, and sampling methods during the research preparation stage. Additionally, we express our gratitude to DSIGroup for conducting telephone interviews in accordance with Doublethink Lab’s planning. We also would like to thank the CAPI System development team, represented by Guo Zi-Jing from the Center for Taiwan Political Economy and Communication, National Chengchi University, for assisting with the setup of the exit-poll questionnaire system and the interview design.

All matters arising from this project and report are the sole responsibility of Doublethink Lab.