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The Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong caught the world's attention and imagination at the end of 2014. The 79-day occupation campaign took on some of the characteristics of the recent wave of large-scale protest movements around the world, including the prominent roles played by the media - both conventional and digital - in the mobilization and communication processes of the movement. 0This edited volume, 'Media, Mobilization and the Umbrella Movement', brings together nine contributions which examine various aspects of the media-movement nexus, including the power of televised images to mobilize people, the role of social media in the insurgent public sphere, young activists' social media strategies, media influence on citizens' understanding of civil disobedience, the government's response to digital media tactics, public discourses about the rule of law, and local and foreign media coverage of the movement. We believe that this high-quality collection can not only enhance our understanding of the Umbrella Movement, but also facilitate and trigger more research and dialogue comparing the Umbrella Movement with other similar protest movements around the world. This book was originally published as a special issue of the 'Chinese Journal of Communication'

"As China is increasingly integrated into the processes of economic, political, social, and cultural globalization, important questions arise about how Chinese people perceive and evaluate such processes. At the same time, international communication scholars have long been interested in how local, national, and transnational media communications shape people's attitudes and values. Combining these two concerns, this book examines a range of questions pertinent to public opinion toward globalization in urban China: To what degree are the urban residents in China exposed to the influences from the outside world? How many transnational social connections does a typical urban Chinese citizen have? How often do they consume foreign media? To what extent are they aware of the notion of globalization, and what do they think about it? Do they believe that globalization is beneficial to China, to the city where they live, and to them personally? How do people's social connections and communication activities shape their views toward globalization and the outside world? This book tackles these and other questions systematically by analyzing a four-city comparative survey of urban Chinese residents, demonstrating the complexities of public opinion in China. Media consumption does relate, though by no means straightforwardly, to people's attitudes and beliefs, and this book provides much needed information and insights about Chinese public opinion on globalization. It also develops fresh conceptual and empirical insights on issues such as public opinion toward US-China relations, Chinese people's nationalistic sentiments, and approaches to analyze attitudes toward globalization"--

Phone-in programs on public and commercial radio channels have been a staple of popular Hong Kong politics since the 1990s. In the absence of a fully democratic system, they have played an influential role in channeling and mediating public opinion. This work examines the phenomenon of talk radio in Hong Kong, using as its analytical framework the idea of remediation. It argues that the circulation and re-circulation of talk radio content through the mainstream media is crucial in explaining the medium's social prominence and influence. The process has not only widened the dissemination of tal

"As China is increasingly integrated into the processes of economic, political, social, and cultural globalization, important questions arise about how Chinese people perceive and evaluate such processes. At the same time, international communication scholars have long been interested in how local, national, and transnational media communications shape people's attitudes and values. Combining these two concerns, this book examines a range of questions pertinent to public opinion toward globalization in urban China: To what degree are the urban residents in China exposed to the influences from the outside world? How many transnational social connections does a typical urban Chinese citizen have? How often do they consume foreign media? To what extent are they aware of the notion of globalization, and what do they think about it? Do they believe that globalization is beneficial to China, to the city where they live, and to them personally? How do people's social connections and communication activities shape their views toward globalization and the outside world? This book tackles these and other questions systematically by analyzing a four-city comparative survey of urban Chinese residents, demonstrating the complexities of public opinion in China. Media consumption does relate, though by no means straightforwardly, to people's attitudes and beliefs, and this book provides much needed information and insights about Chinese public opinion on globalization. It also develops fresh conceptual and empirical insights on issues such as public opinion toward US-China relations, Chinese people's nationalistic sentiments, and approaches to analyze attitudes toward globalization"-

While extant research on news avoidance has been conducted mainly in democratic societies, this article examines intentional news avoidance in a society undergoing severe democratic backsliding. Given the decline of political freedom and democratic institutions, citizens in such contexts may become frustrated with ongoing political change and withdraw from public affairs and the news. This could result in a form of intentional, politically driven, and topical news avoidance. At the individual level, such news avoidance is likely to be influenced by political attitudes, ability to adapt, and news affect and cognition. Analysis of survey data from post-National Security Law Hong Kong finds that negative news affect and perceived news efficacy explain intentional avoidance of news about social and political change, whereas political trust, belief in civil liberties, and adaptiveness relate to news avoidance only indirectly through negative news affect and perceived news efficacy. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

Professional and liberal-oriented news media in Hong Kong have been under severe political pressure since the establishment of the National Security Law in 2020. Journalists now have to navigate a more dense and uncertain legal minefield. Self-censorship has intensified. This article argues that self-censorship and other media responses can be better understood under the broader framework of risk culture. Drawing upon 43 in-depth interviews with journalists from 12 organizations, this article reconstructs how news organizations and journalists have developed methods to assess and manage risk and describes the characteristics of their risk assessment and management and the changing character of self-censorship. The emerging risk cultures have helped maintain organizational stability and journalistic professional identity. The concluding discussion elaborates on the implications of the analysis for understanding self-censorship and press freedom in Hong Kong, briefly compares Hong Kong's situation with mainland China's, and reflects on the possible development of risk cultures in other institutional contexts. (China J/GIGA)

Scholars have noted that the Chinese government has been grooming a range of grass-roots social organizations in Hong Kong since the handover. Hometown associations (HTAs), in particular, are seen as an important cultural nexus capable of integrating patron–client relationships based on material benefits with social relationships rooted in common culture and identity. Few studies, however, have documented the mobilizing power of HTAs quantitatively. This article examines the mobilizing power of HTAs in the 2021 Legislative Council elections, where the state attempted to promote voter participation to protect the legitimacy of the "reformed" electoral system. Analysis at the level of District Council constituencies shows that the presence of HTAs was indeed related to higher voter turnout. I also test whether the impact of HTAs was conditioned by population characteristics. General implications of the findings are discussed.

Given a concern with legal repression of protests and based on the premise that judges inevitably draw upon common sense ideas in judicial decision-making, this article examines how understandings of protests, protesters and protest policing are embedded in verdicts in protest-related court cases. A textual analysis was conducted on judgements in 21 cases about rioting and incitement associated with three prominent protest events in Hong Kong between 2014 and 2019. The analysis shows that the assumptions of risk aversion and perceptiveness were applied to the protesters and onlookers, whereas the assumption of professionalism was applied to the police. How police actions might influence protesters was ignored. The emergence of protest violence was typically understood in terms of emotional contagion within the crowd. Overall, such ideas and assumptions substantially constrain protests, though they sometimes benefitted the defendants in individual cases. The findings illustrate the cultural underpinnings of legal repression of protests.

This study examines people's judgment of what constitutes disinformation, how partisanship shapes such judgment, and how broadness of disinformation judgment relates to perceptions of the disinformation problem and support for anti-disinformation legislation. Analysis of a Hong Kong survey shows that many citizens are willing to treat a wide range of problematic news materials as disinformation. Partisans tend to treat counter-attitudinal materials as disinformation, but the influence of partisanship can be reduced by the norm of evenhandedness. Besides, broadness of disinformation judgment—especially anti-government disinformation judgment—relates positively with the perceived severity and impact of disinformation and support for legislation.

Many studies have illustrated how digital media can facilitate political criticisms and protests, but recent scholarship has noted the ability of authoritarian states to control the Internet and undermine its oppositional character. This study focuses on the "hybrid regime" of Hong Kong, where the progovernment forces have tried to counteract the formation of an online counterpublic sphere by setting up numerous online outposts since the mid-2010s. It examines how exposure to progovernment online media content is related to political attitudes. In addition to a direct relationship, drawing on inoculation theory, this article contends that progovernment online media may also consolidate support for the government by neutralizing the influence of online alternative media. Survey data analysis shows that exposure to progovernment online media content indeed related to more conservative views, and the connection between online alternative media use and prodemocracy attitudes was weaker among older citizens regularly exposed to progovernment online media.

One important aspect of the 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill (Anti-ELAB) movement in Hong Kong is a high degree of solidarity between the movement's moderate and radical flanks. The solidarity has contributed to the movement's sustainability and played important roles in its dynamic evolution. This essay attempts to explicate how the solidarity has been produced, maintained, and negotiated. It first outlines the changing relationship between the moderate and radical flanks of the city's pro-democracy movement since the 2000s. It then explicates the social, experiential, and discursive bases of solidarity in the first five months of the Anti-ELAB movement. It illustrates the role of – as well as the limitations to – an ethics of solidarity in managing conflicts in intra-movement debates. General implications of the analysis on studies of social movements are discussed. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)