In Taiwan's highly mediatized society, prosecutorial authorities face a severe structural conflict following the 2019 amendment to the Regulations Governing Non-Disclosure of Investigations, which shifted policies toward comprehensive control. This shift forces agencies to navigate between a judicial logic of strict secrecy and a conflicting media logic demanding immediate news narratives. This study explores how prosecutorial authorities construct communication mechanisms amidst this institutional complexity. Adopting an organizational communication and institutional logics perspective, we focus on the mechanism of strategic decoupling. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews with five prosecutorial spokespersons and four senior judicial journalists, data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings reveal that formal communication channels now frequently adopt an extremely conservative "defensive communication strategy". The resulting rigid, decontextualized information creates a severe usability gap, failing media needs and forcing reporters to seek unofficial sources. To compensate for this functional failure, actors developed a communication mode based on "trust as an informal governance mechanism". Spokespersons act as boundary spanners, fulfilling media needs through private background briefings without violating regulations. However, this approach exhibits institutional fragility, relying heavily on the spokesperson's personal attributes rather than systematic knowledge management. Ultimately, this study asserts the need for a paradigm shift toward "logic hybridization," incorporating media logic into judicial administration. Furthermore, it demonstrates how organizational actors exhibit agency within rigid institutional structures.

Authors:
Yuan Hao Cheng, Chengchi University, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Mr. Cheng Yuan-Hao is a PhD student in Communication at National Chengchi University and an Assistant Research Fellow at Taiwan's Academy for the Judiciary. His interests: judicial communication, health communication, criminal policy evaluation.

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