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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Buddhist Television in Taiwan: Adopting Modern Mass Media Technologies for Dharma Propagation A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies by An Quoc Pham Committee in charge: Professor Mayfair Yang, Chair Professor Fabio Rambelli Professor Vesna Wallace September 2017 The dissertation of An Quoc Pham is approved. ______________________________________________ Fabio Rambelli ______________________________________________ Vesna Wallace ______________________________________________ Mayfair Yang, Committee Chair August 2017 Buddhist Television in Taiwan: Adopting Modern Mass Media Technologies for Dharma Propagation Copyright © 2017 by An Quoc Pham iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writing of this dissertation has been a journey and I have many people to thank for guiding me along the way. First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my advisor, Professor Mayfair Yang, for her patience and support from the very first year of my graduate education. I had no understanding of the theories she introduced me to when I first read them in our seminars, but over time I grew to see them in a new light. I would also like to thank Professor Fabio Rambelli and Professor Vesna Wallace for their help and for the Buddhist histories and philosophies that they introduced me to, which have opened new avenues for me to explore. A special thanks to all the faculty and staff in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara who have helped me grow into a more knowledgeable person than I was before I began this journey. I also thank all of the friends and contacts I made in Taiwan who helped me with my research, including the representatives and volunteers of Fo Guang Shan, Tzu Chi, and Life TV. My deepest gratitude goes to my parents who have supported me in my endeavors throughout my life. My father did not live to see me finish, but I know he is with me always in spirit and I thank him for all that he has done. I thank my mother for her constant support and her loving motherly care. I would not be the person I am today without the love and care I received from my parents throughout my life. I thank my brother and my sister for also supporting me in my endeavors and putting up with my quirks. As life is a journey that continues to change us, I continue to mature and, having gotten married along the way, I thank my wife, Akiko, for pushing me forward, making sure I continue to advance step by step. iv v VITA OF AN QUOC PHAM August 2017 EDUCATION Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, December 1996 Master of Arts in Asian Studies, California State University, Long Beach, May 2008 Doctor of Philosophy in East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, September 2017 (expected) PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT 1999-2017: Substitute Teacher, Torrance Unified School District, Torrance, CA 2001-2002: US and World History Teacher, West High School, Torrance, CA 2008-2009: Japanese Language Teacher, North High School, Torrance, CA 2010-2017: Teaching Assistant, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara Summer 2017: Teaching Associate, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara AWARDS Graduate Dean’s Advancement Fellowship June 2014 Taiwan Ministry of Education Short Term Research Award April – September 2014 Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant May 2013 Taiwan Ministry of Education Huayu Enrichment Scholarship April 2013 FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Buddhist Studies Studies in Religion and Media with Professor Mayfair Yang Studies in Buddhist Studies with Professor Fabio Rambelli Studies in Religious History and Geography with Professor Vesna Wallace vi ABSTRACT Buddhist Television in Taiwan: Adopting Modern Mass Media Technologies for Dharma Propagation by An Quoc Pham With the advent of television in the twentieth century, religious institutions found a new medium with which to use in proselytizing and disseminating religious messages. Adapting the use of the new medium to religious communication has meant adopting broadcast strategies that change the way preachers engage audiences and the way audiences receive religious messages. These broadcast strategies, which are a combination of methods established by secular broadcasting and methods unique to the Buddhist broadcast stations, offer audiences an alternative to established commercial television. Beyond merely serving as a means of entertainment, Buddhist television programs contain ethical messages of morality based on Buddhist tenets that attempt to influence how viewers see and live their lives. In Taiwan, several Buddhist organizations have used the television medium for religious broadcast purposes since the government lifted martial law in 1987. This technological progression in the use of new mediums of communication is taken for granted, but it raises questions of whether technologies like television simply help to spread the same Buddhist messages that have been expounded for generations, or whether the medium and the way in which it is used changes fundamental aspects of how the message is delivered and received. I argue that while the adoption of television and established television program vii formats by Buddhist institutions in Taiwan follows a long tradition of Chinese Buddhist adoptions of mass media and popular culture, the usage of television changes the very practice of religion through the televised delivery and reception of the Buddhist teachings as well as through televised ritual ceremonies. Taiwan’s Buddhist television channels can be accessed around the world by satellite television and by Internet video streams. The ability to easily access these monastic broadcasts allows for viewers to discuss and comment on the words of Buddhist monks and nuns in new ways that were impossible before technological mediation. My research focuses on both sides of the television – the side of television producers, who negotiate the use of established commercial program formats to conform to Buddhist values, and the side of the television viewers, whose viewing of Buddhist television changes the way religion is received and practiced. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: The Precedents for Modern Buddhist Propagation Methods in Chinese Buddhist History ................................................................... 16 Chapter 2: Taiwanese Buddhist Television .............................................................. 47 Chapter 3: Audience Reception: A Taiwanese Buddhist Counter-Public Mediated Space ...................................................................................... 116 Chapter 4: Television as Ritual Implement ............................................................ 180 Chapter 5: Beyond Nation and Beyond Television ................................................ 220 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 276 Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 288 ix Introduction The usage of technological media to preserve and propagate religious teachings is a firmly established practice within the history of Chinese Buddhism. The world’s earliest extant dated and printed book is a Chinese woodblock print of the Diamond Sutra dated to 868 C.E., considered one of the most important texts in Mahayana Buddhism. After Bi Sheng (畢昇 970-1051 C.E.) invented movable type printing at some point around the eleventh century C.E., within fifty years of his invention, Buddhist sutras were then printed using movable type as well, with the earliest extant sample of a Buddhist scripture in movable type being a Pure Land scripture, the Sutra of the Buddha Gazing at Infinite Life Spoken by the Buddha 佛說觀無量壽佛經, dated to 1103 C.E. In the modern era, in Taiwan, this practice of adopting the usage of mass media technology has continued with the usage of television and the Internet for propagation purposes. Chinese Buddhists in Taiwan have been able to use television to broadcast sermons and Buddhist ritual ceremonies because of the legal freedoms that came about after the lifting of martial law in 1987 and the enacting of the Cable Television Law that allowed private entities to own and operate cable television stations in 1993. From the mid-1990s onwards, Buddhist organizations in Taiwan, unlike in mainland China, have been able to use television as a means of Dharma propagation. How is the Buddhist adoption of the use of television different from the adoption of pre-modern forms of propagating teachings? This is one question that arises concerning Buddhist television and a partial answer relates to what Marshal McLuhan has written on the advent of television in the very title of his first chapter in Understanding Media that “The Medium is the Message.” His meaning was to say that the very medium of television changed the ways that the message creators had to operate in order to get their message 1 across to receptive audiences. And audiences, themselves, changed the ways in which they listened to and interacted with