The publication has always acted as one of the ways for the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to be in touch with the public for decades due to its outstanding accessibility and approachability.
Back to days when Taiwan was in the period of martial law, the public could rarely gain access to receive information due to the constraint of freedom of speech. 「黨外雜誌」(Magazines that were published by organizations outside the political parties) was thence became a crucial and inevitable platform for the Taiwan society to exchange vital and solid information, as well as agglomerated the reforming power continuously.
The publication has no doubt to have a great impact towards Taiwan in terms of its political democracy. Not only it was served as one of the means to challenge the prohibitions so as to rouse the public attention, but it also played an essential role to accumulate the reforming power in those dark days.
In the public perspective, NGOs are always deemed to bear certain and fixated society identity and responsibilities, ranging from promoting their beliefs and mottos towards the public by various means to seek support and identification through social dialogue. As a result, the majority of the social movement organizations would utilize publication to accomplish their objectives since the 90s. And the springing up of NGOs publications not only enriched and extended the local publication market by offering non-commercial and non-traditional products unlike usual but also became the cornerstone for NGOs to propose their ideas externally.
After the fourth transformation in 1999, the Taiwan Labour Front (TLF) has been devoting massive manpower to publications. On one hand, the publications could disseminate the idea of social democracy and seek the public acknowledgment; on the other hand, it could inherit the labor movement history to the public through publications. And the categories of the Taiwan Labour Front publications are as follows.
1. Magazines: Regularly published on a two-month basis.
2.References Book: Promoting the philosophy of the TLF, explaining the standpoint of the organization in various legislative reforming, or educating workers about the ground-rules and laws after the passing of the proposed law.
3. The Inherent of labor-movement experiences: Arranging and recording of local and global labor movement cases as the references of the local labor union.
4. Policies commenting: Criticize the local policy-making and offer further suggestions.