Shen Boyang, the Taipei mayoral candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, accepted an exclusive interview with Zhao Shaokang's "Shaokang War Room" on the 7th, and responded positively to the recent epidemic of drugs, death penalty, recall and other issues. The fan blog "Voice Views Politics" pointed out that it is worth noting that relevant volume data shows that Shen Boyang's live broadcast viewing number on the Pan-Blue channel increased significantly that day, which was nearly 6 times that of the previous day. It also attracted attention on whether this interview had a "breaking circle" effect.
The fan blog "Voice and Politics" stated in a Facebook post that the Kuomintang has recently continued to launch attacks and defenses against Shen Boyang's past articles on drug policy and his stance on the death penalty, and related issues have become the focus of the election campaign in recent days. Shen Boyang's participation in the Pan-Blue program with a clear political stance to accept questions this time also gave the controversy that was originally condensed into political labels an opportunity to be re-presented through a more complete Q&A. From the YouTube live broadcast data, from September 28 to October 6, Shen Boyang's related views on the Pan-Blue channel were roughly between 10,000 and 20,000, but on the 7th it suddenly climbed to about 120,000, nearly 6 times the previous day. On the same day, Jiang Wanan's relevant live broadcast on the Pan-Blue channel had about 16,000 views, and there was a clear gap between the two.
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Fans pointed out that in addition, during the broadcast of the "Shaokang War Room" interview, it was reported that the highest number of simultaneous online viewers reached 140,000. However, "Maximum simultaneous online" and "Cumulative views" are different statistical indicators and cannot be directly compared; the political stance of the channel does not represent the political leanings of all viewers, so the relevant numbers are more suitable for observing the level of attention and cannot be directly interpreted as candidate support. Google Trends also has a second wave of search peaks. Shen Boyang's search popularity once rose to a standardized index of 100 due to his previous attack and defense on drug issues, and then fell back to about 30; it climbed again before and after Zhao Shaokang's interview, reaching a maximum of nearly 80. The search popularity of Zhao Shaokang himself has also increased simultaneously, indicating that this exclusive interview has generated another wave of Internet attention.
The fan blog continued that in terms of policy, Shen Boyang stated in the program that he does not advocate the decriminalization of drugs, nor does he support the legalization of marijuana, and further explained the policy concepts of harm reduction, clean needles and medical treatment. On the issue of the death penalty, he argued that Taiwan does not yet have the conditions to abolish the death penalty at this stage, but should discuss reducing its use in the long term. This has also further shifted the "label attack and defense" in the recent election campaign to the test of policy content. The originally highly simplified issues of drugs and the death penalty were given more room for explanation in the long interview. As for whether it can change the views of voters who originally held different positions, it is still difficult to judge based on the number of views or search data alone.
Fans analyzed that in fact, Shen Boyang has recently been interviewed by media figures of different styles such as Wang Weizhong and Li Siduan. This time he entered Zhao Shaokang's program again, which was regarded by some supporters as further contact with the political "different temperature". After the show, Shen Boyang also released a photo with Zhao Shaokang. Zhao Shaokang left a message saying, "Bo Yang is very handsome today." This shows that the two parties still maintain friendly interactions even though their political stances are different. On the other hand, Jiang Wanan has also faced comparisons in the interview route recently. Shen Boyang has entered media programs with different audiences one after another, and Jiang Wanan has confirmed to accept an exclusive interview with Guo Zhengliang. How the two candidates reach voters through different media has also become a new observation point in the election communication strategy.
Fanzhuan bluntly said that overall, what the current data can confirm is that after the Kuomintang launched attacks and defenses on issues such as drugs and the death penalty in recent days, Shen Boyang's exposure and search attention in the pan-blue media field increased simultaneously. However, whether the so-called "breaking the circle" really translates into favorability, support and even votes still needs to be verified by follow-up polls and election results.
