Joseph Man Chan

Shifting Journalistic Paradigms How China’s Journalists Assess “Media Exemplars”

This study examines shifting journalisticparadigms in a transitional society. Analyzing data from surveys of journalists and journalism students in the People’s Republicof China, the authors find that professional journalism has emerged as a direct competitor to the party-journalism paradigm. Although the former is manifested in journalists’ positive appraisal of professional news media, the latter is embodied in praising the official party organs. The professional perspective is associated with emphasis on the disseminator role of the media and the desire for more liberal arts training in journalism, whereas the party-journalism paradigm is related to the emphasis on the interpretive and popular advocacy roles and the desire for more training in communist propaganda. The two journalistic paradigms are also reflected in differences in evaluating various innovative media outlets in the reforms. The implications of the findings for studies on the articulation of professionalism and other journalism paradigms are discussed.

One Event, Three Stories Media Narratives of the Handover of Hong Kong in Cultural China

This article analyzes how the media from the Peoples Republic of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong constructed their respective narratives about the handover of Hong Kong - based on their institutional configurations, the relevance of the story to their home constituencies, their conventions of news-making and the cultural repertoire on which they drew to make the event intelligible. Domesticating a global media event reflects and reproduces each society as a discursive community; in a defining moment like this, the media bind each society through their shared ways of interpretations and expression.

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.

Ethical Attitudes and Perceived Practice: A Comparative Study of Journalists in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan

This is a comparative survey study of journalists’ attitudes and perceptions concerning various types of conflicts of interest in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Journalists in all three regions are found to be receptive to freebies in the form of small gifts, meals and trips. However, they almost unanimously agree that monetary benefits from news sources are unacceptable. Compared with freebies, moonlighting seems to be a less serious problem in the three regions. Most journalists think that their colleagues do not commonly practice moonlighting. The journalists strongly agree that they should not solicit advertising on behalf of their employer or work for public relations firms or the government as a second job. With regard to self-censorship, journalists in the three regions unanimously agreed that softening negative coverage of key advertisers was unethical. However, there was considerable disagreement about softening negative coverage of government. The results also show that there is in general a discrepancy between the journalists’ value orientations and perceived reality, especially in Mainland China and Taiwan.

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.

Globalizing Chinese martial arts cinema: the global-local alliance and the production of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Using the Mandarin-language global blockbuster Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a case, this project aims to study how an oriental culture is globalized against the odds as predicted by theories of cultural imperialism. First, the globalization of local talents is found to be a precondition for this reversed cultural flow. Second, the formation of a global-local alliance, consisting of networks of both local and global firms and professionals, plays a critical role. The alliance serves to translate local cultural capital into economic capital and to enhance the transculturability of the cultural product. To be accountable to the Western agencies and to be faithful to local culture, the production team is under constant pressure to strike a balance between particularization and universalization. The implications of this unprecedented case are discussed.

Asian television: Global trends and local processes

This study portrays the rapid changing Asian television scene, in broad social processes, of which some are global, some are uniquely Asian. These interlocking trends and processes include the policy oscillation between state control and liberalisation, the contradic tions between media internationalisation, regionalisation and indigenisation, and the discursive struggle between Western and Asian television culture. This mid-rang and context-sensitive analysis is an attempt to supplement the catch-all generalisation of academic discourses such as globalism and media imperialism, which we think are incapable of describing the non-linear and asymmetrical nature of media exchanges between Asia and the West.

Professionalism, Politics and Market Force: Survey Studies of Hong Kong Journalists 1996–2006

A comparison of three surveys of Hong Kong journalists from 1996 to 2006 finds that media professionalism remains intact in spite of significant socio-political changes. However, the medias performance has been in doubt as reflected in credibility decline and rising self-censorship. Factors accounting for this apparent disjunction between professionalism and performance include the proliferation of journalism education, the entrenchment of press freedom in Hong Kongs political culture, the journalists’ need for a self-defense and survival strategy, and the media market as a balancing force of political pressure. It is the interplay of all these factors that matters.

Making Sense of Participation: The Political Culture of Pro-democracy Demonstrators in Hong Kong

A wave of large-scale demonstrations from 2003 to 2006 has given rise to a new pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and raised important questions about the political activism of the Hong Kong public. This study aims at achieving a better understanding of the cultural underpinnings of Hong Kong peoples protest participation (and non-participation). Following a tradition of constructivist analysis which sees culture as a set of shared and more or less structured ideas, symbols, feelings and common senses, this study examines how participants in the pro-democracy protests make sense of their experiences and the ongoing political and social changes in Hong Kong. It shows that the 1 July 2003 demonstration has indeed empowered many of its participants, but feelings of efficacy became more complicated and mixed as people continued to monitor changes in the political environment and interpret the actions of others. At the same time, beliefs and ideas that can be regarded as part of Hong Kongs culture of de-politicization remain prevalent among the protesters. The findings of the study allow us to understand why many Hong Kong people view protests as important means of public opinion expression and yet participate in them only occasionally.