Francis L. F. Lee

Facebook Use and Political Participation: The Impact of Exposure to Shared Political Information, Connections With Public Political Actors, and Network Structural Heterogeneity

Some recent studies have illustrated a positive relationship between social media use and political participation among young people. Researchers, however, have operationalized social media usage differently. This article adopts a multidimensional approach to the study of the impact of social media. Focusing on Facebook (FB), the most widely utilized social networking site in Hong Kong, this study examines how time spent on FB, exposure to shared political information, network size, network structural heterogeneity, and direct connection with public political actors relate to young people’s online and offline political participation. Analysis of a survey of university students (N = 774) shows that participation is explained most prominently by direct connection with public political actors, followed by exposure to shared political information. These two variables also mediate the impact of other dimensions of FB use on political participation.

Cultural Discount and Cross-Culture Predictability: Examining the Box Office Performance of American Movies in Hong Kong

Media studies have suggested that a media product traveling across cultures would be received in locally specific ways. This study argues that cultural discount and cross-culture predictability of financial performance are 2 quantitative manifestations of local reception. The loss of value and performance predictability constitutes a problem for media producers, whereas universalizing the media product is a possibly useful strategy to handle such problems. This article analyzes box office figures from 1989 to 2004 to examine whether Hollywood movies of different genres are more or less subject to cultural discount and lack of predictability when they travel to Hong Kong. The results show that comedies are highly particularistic and that science fiction is apparently the most universal. Mixed results are obtained for other movie genres.

Newspaper editorial discourse and the politics of self-censorship in Hong Kong

In transitional societies where political pressure on the press is coupled with a commercial media system and a professional journalistic culture, the politics of self-censorship is likely to involve a strategic contest between the media and political actors. Language plays a significant role in this contest. The present study focuses on the case of Hong Kong. It analyzes how two local newspapers, facing an important yet sensitive political issue, constructed two different overall storylines and used two different sets of discursive strategies in their editorials to handle political pressure, market credibility, and journalistic integrity simultaneously. The elite-oriented Ming Pao constructed a storyline of the debate as a factional struggle in order to posit itself as an impartial arbitrator. This approach was further sustained and justified by the discursive strategies of balanced and qualified criticisms and the rhetoric of rational discussion. The mass-oriented Apple Daily, on the other hand, constructed a storyline of a sovereign people whose rights are encroached upon by a powerful entity. The paper was therefore much more critical towards the power center. Nevertheless, it also appropriated the dominant discourse, constructed internal contradictions, and decentralized the Chinese central government to smooth out the radicalism of its criticisms.

Organizational Production of Self-Censorship in the Hong Kong Media:

Media self-censorship refers to nonexternally compelled acts committed by media organizations aiming to avoid offending power holders such as the government, advertisers, and major business corporations. While self-censorship constitutes a major threat to press freedom in Hong Kong under China, recent studies have shown that Hong Kong journalists have maintained a strong sense of professionalism. The coexistence of professionalism and self-censorship poses important challenges to news organizations: How is self-censorship effected as professionalism does not favor its practice? How can news organizations minimize the conflicts between self-censorship and professionalism so that news operations will remain stable, smooth, and efficient? Drawing on the literature on newsroom social control, we tackle the above questions by focusing on the internal structure of and the interactive dynamics within newsrooms. Methodologically, this study draws on both representative survey and in-depth interview data. It is found that self-censorship is effected through selective positioning and assignment, observational learning of tacit rules, the giving of ambiguous orders, and the use of professional or technical reasons to justify questionable news decisions. Meanwhile, some journalists also developed their own operational tactics to resist what they perceived as self-censorship attempts. The theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

Online news meets established journalism: how China’s journalists evaluate the credibility of news websites

The internet presents challenges to traditional journalism by being a platform for alternative practices of news production and dissemination. In response, traditional journalists are expected to engage in ‘news repair’ in order to reconfirm the authority of existing news institutions and the legitimacy of traditional models of journalism. This interaction between new media and journalistic practices must be contextualized within a media system. Built upon these premises, this study analyzes data from probability sample surveys of journalists in two Chinese cities. It finds that journalists regard mainstream media organizations’ websites as more credible than those run by commercial portals. The perceived credibility of these two types of news websites varies with journalists’ beliefs about journalism. While party journalism remains a dominant lens through which Chinese journalists evaluate the two types of websites, the sites of commercial portals are viewed by some to be embodying an alternative model of journalism.

Cultivating an Active Online Counterpublic Examining Usage and Political Impact of Internet Alternative Media

While alternative media have long been playing important roles in the politics of protests and resistance in many countries, the Internet has led to the emergence of online alternative media and arguably expanded the reach of such outlets. This article focuses on the audience of Internet alternative media. It examines the factors associated with usage and whether and how usage relates to political participation. Analysis of survey data (N = 1,018) in Hong Kong shows that, not surprisingly, Internet alternative media usage was driven by preexisting political attitudes and critical views toward the mainstream media. But social media usage could also drive alternative media usage even among people who did not hold congruent preexisting attitudes. Meanwhile, alternative media usage leads to protest participation and support for unconventional protest tactics. The study thus provides empirical evidence regarding how Internet alternative media can facilitate the formation of an active online counterpublic and the role of social media in potentially enlarging the counterpublic.

Hollywood movies in East Asia: Examining cultural discount and performance predictability at the box office

Cultural differences are likely to affect the extent to which and the ways in which audiences appreciate foreign media products. Not all media products travel across cultural and national boundaries equally successfully. When media contents are highly culturally specific, a high level of relative cultural discount and a loss in cross-culture performance predictability are likely to result. Based on these arguments, this study empirically examines: (1) how US movies of various genres, presumably with content of varying levels of cultural specificity, perform in seven East Asian countries and the world market at large, and (2) whether audiences in East Asia exhibit similar patterns of reception for Hollywood movies of different genres. With a data set of 489 US movies between 2002 and 2006, the analysis shows that there are indeed commonalities both among the East Asian countries and between East Asia and the world at large in terms of how certain movie genres are received at the box office. The theoretical and strategic implications of the findings are discussed.

Digital media activities and mode of participation in a protest campaign: a study of the Umbrella Movement

ABSTRACT Although digital media are widely recognized as a predictor of protest participation and a platform for the coordination of connective actions, few studies have examined how digital media activities systematically relate to protesters’ mode of participation in protest campaigns. This study aims at filling the research gap through analyzing the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. It identifies time spent in the occupied areas, participation leadership, and forms of actions undertaken as three aspects of a protesters mode of participation that can indicate a protesters degree of involvement in the movement. Analysis of a protester onsite survey shows that the protesters were active in four types of digital media activities: online expression, online debates, online explanatory activities, and mobile communication. Digital media activities are generally positively related to degree of involvement, but the four types of activities are also related to the three aspects of mode of participation differently. The findings illustrate how digital media activities are integrated into individualized mode of participation in contemporary connective actions.

Strategic Interaction, Cultural Co-orientation, and Press Freedom in Hong Kong

This article discusses press freedom in Hong Kong since the handover. It argues that in the immediate years after reunification, the strategic interaction between the media and the power holders within a commonly accepted framework has contributed to an ‘equilibrium condition’ in which there was no huge and apparent loss of press freedom. The equilibrium was maintained by a clear distinction between national and local issues. At the same time, the handover has led to processes of cultural co-orientation which further ‘de-problematized’ news coverage of certain sensitive national issues. Nevertheless, political developments in recent years have led to the breakdown of the national–local boundary. The original equilibrium was destabilized, which led to renewed concerns of press freedom in the city.

Radio Phone-in Talk Shows as Politically Significant Infotainment in Hong Kong

Past research has generated two main characterizations of the radio phone-in talk show phenomenon. Some argue that talk shows can provide forums for public deliberation, while others regard talk shows as a form of infotainment that displaces serious political journalism. This study argues that public forum and infotainment are not necessarily incompatible with each other, and it tests this possibility by a case study of talk radio in Hong Kong. Analysis of a survey data set points to the infotainment characteristics of talk radio listening in the city. However, results also suggest that talk radio provides political information to listeners and serves as a forum for the public to criticize the government. The author thus argues that talk radio constitutes a form of politically significant infotainment in Hong Kong. Implications on the study of infotainment and talk radio in general and in the specific case of Hong Kong are discussed.