State–press relations revisited: a case study on how American media portray the post-war Vietnam

This study revisited the state–press relations theory by analyzing the coverage of Vietnam over the 30 years between 1980 and 2009 in two leading American news magazines, Time and Newsweek . A contribution of this research is its context of the long-term and volatile relationship between these two countries. Despite progress in the diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam, the portrayal of Vietnam in US media remained unchanged. This finding indicates that American media do not always support the US government's political stance when covering international news. It suggests a new direction for future research applying this theory.     

Encoding the paranoid style in American politics: “anti-establishment” discourse and power in contemporary spin

The term “anti-establishment” has witnessed a revealing rise in recent American political discourse. Combining textual analysis of news coverage and speeches with in-depth interviews with dozens of consultants involved in the encoding of mediated political communication, this research analyzes and critiques its deployment and significance in Republican campaign messaging. Mapping the contours of this rhetorical strategy, a typology of four dimensions of tension emerges: insurrection versus order; populism versus insider power; real America versus elitism; and purity versus compromise. As an exercise in critical political communication, the argument concludes that “anti-establishment” rhetoric seeks to stoke and co-opt resentment while effacing powerful, privileged economic interests.     

Comparing social media use,discussion, political trust and political engagement among university students in China and Hong Kong: an application of the O–S–R–O–R model

Adopting the Orientation–Stimuli–Reasoning–Orientation–Response (O–S–R–O–R) model of political communication effects, this study examines the mediating roles of online/offline political discussion and political trust on the relationship between social media information seeking and online/offline political participation in China and Hong Kong. Findings through structural equation modeling showed that the relationship between information seeking and online participation was mediated by online discussion for both samples. Moreover, the relationship between information seeking and offline participation was mediated by offline discussion, and offline discussion mediated the relationship between information seeking and online participation. Political trust did not mediate any of the relationships in China and Hong Kong and all significant paths involving political trust were negative. Implications of the findings for youth political participation in China and Hong Kong are discussed.     

New Copyright Challenges and Opportunities for Academic Librarians in Hong Kong in the Digital Information Age

1 Introduction High-speed networking can now deliver Information tomillions of users in seconds.Users In turn can download thedata in electronic format or just print them out with a fewstrokes of the keyboard.The data can be easily saved,reorganized and modified electronocally.While informationtechnology provides fast and easy ways to distributeinformation,it also presents challenges.Easy access tocopyrighted materials is resulting in the unauthorizedreproduction of all kinds of information,forcing information     

Romantic Relationship and “Yuan”: A Preliminary Study of Chinese in Hong Kong

This study investigated how the traditional Chinese concept of “yuan” influences perceptions of romantic relationships. A small-scale survey of young people in Hong Kong indicated that the belief in yuan was prevalent among respondents. In addition, a significant, positive correlation was observed between participants' belief in yuan and relationship satisfaction. However, romantic love was a better predictor of satisfaction and commitment than was the belief in yuan.     

Public opinion and political outspokenness in pre‐1997 Hong Kong: Two tests of the spiral of silence theory

This study analyses the impact of perceptions of the opinions of others on political outspokenness in Hong Kong. Based on the results of two representative telephone surveys conducted in Hong Kong in 1993 and 1995, the spiral of silence theory is tested in the context of public opinion regarding the Sino‐British dispute over Hong Kong's political future and the 1995 Legislative Council election. As hypothesized, respondents in both surveys were more willing to voice their political opinions publicly when they perceived the majority opinion to be on their side, or when they perceived a trend in support of their own political viewpoint. However, this effect was observed only for respondents who were not much concerned about either issue. People's political outspokenness was primarily boosted by higher issue salience, more exposure and attention to television news and news magazines, and higher political interest and efficacy.     

Gender portrayal in Hong Kong and Korean children's TV commercials: A cross‐cultural comparison

This study examined gender portrayal in a sample of 345 television commercials broadcast during children's programmes in Hong Kong and Korea using content analysis. Literature suggests that Hong Kong culture differs from Korean culture on the dimension of Masculinity/Femininity proposed by Hofstede. The differences between the two countries provide a valid test of theory, and suggest hypotheses about the gender portrayal in children's advertising. The results of the study showed, contrary to expectations from Hofstede's framework, that the gender portrayal of central characters and the level of gender stereotyping in Hong Kong commercials was similar to those of Korean commercials. Possible explanations include the emerging homogeneous youth market using a standardized advertising strategy, and the rising concern for women's rights in Korea.     

Social stability and harmony: A new mission for the press?

The world appears to be ready for a new journalism paradigm— one that stresses order and social harmony. Western media dominance is still a fact of life as the 21st century dawns. But the social form, pulling ever more complex populations toward order, cooperation, and a need for authority, is thrusting media systems into a new and more harmonious communitarianism.

The harbinger of such a drift away from the older libertarianism is found even in the US where public journalism is being heralded by many as an antidote to harmful effects of 18th Century Enlightenment liberalism that is accused of pushing journalism increasingly toward social irresponsibility and even chaos.     

Hong Kong media system in transition: A socio‐cultural analysis

This paper examines the media system of Hong Kong from a socio‐cultural perspective. It proposes to analyse five major factors that determine a media system, namely, political structure, economic structure, media proprietors’ culture, media practitioners’ culture, and audience's culture. Interactions of these five factors result in four ideal‐type media systems. They are: Type I, Free System; Type II, Relatively Free System; Type III, Relatively Repressive System; and Type IV, Repressive System. Analysed in this context, the present media situation in Hong Kong can be considered to be a relatively free system. However, it is also observed that the media system in Hong Kong is likely to become a relatively repressive system after 1997. The paper further suggests that the socio‐cultural model developed here can be used for cross‐cultural comparison.     

The market for university press books in the United States: 1985–1999

University press books play a pivotal role in the transmission of knowledge among academics and to serious readers outside universities. Yet the market for these books underwent substantive changes and posted lacklustre increases in net publishers' revenues and unit sales between 1985 and 1999. In this article, statistical data on university presses' net publishers' unit and dollar revenues, covering the years 1985 through 1999, are analysed to ascertain: (i) shifts in the channels of distribution; (ii) the future demand for university press books for the years 2000 through 2004; and (iii) the price elasticity of demand for these titles. Other issues addressed briefly include competition from commercial academic publishers, consolidation in the publishing industry, the rise in importance of the global market for university press books, and financial issues.     

Rationality and politics of algorithms. Will the promise of big data survive the dynamics of public decision making?

Big data promises to transform public decision-making for the better by making it more responsive to actual needs and policy effects. However, much recent work on big data in public decision-making assumes a rational view of decision-making, which has been much criticized in the public administration debate. In this paper, we apply this view, and a more political one, to the context of big data and offer a qualitative study. We question the impact of big data on decision-making, realizing that big data – including its new methods and functions – must inevitably encounter existing political and managerial institutions. By studying two illustrative cases of big data use processes, we explore how these two worlds meet. Specifically, we look at the interaction between data analysts and decision makers. In this we distinguish between a rational view and a political view, and between an information logic and a decision logic. We find that big data provides ample opportunities for both analysts and decision makers to do a better job, but this doesn't necessarily imply better decision-making, because big data also provides opportunities for actors to pursue their own interests. Big data enables both data analysts and decision makers to act as autonomous agents rather than as links in a functional chain. Therefore, big data's impact cannot be interpreted only in terms of its functional promise; it must also be acknowledged as a phenomenon set to impact our policymaking institutions, including their legitimacy.     

The Russian intelligentsia in the public sphere: The mass‐circulation press and political culture, 1860–1917

An independent, commercial mass‐circulation newspaper industry boomed at the end of the tsarist era, one analogous in most respects to that which evolved in the West during the nineteenth century. The Russian press, however, differed significantly from the Western press in the manner in which it functioned politically. Russian journalism, too, helped to open a public sphere in the autocratic environment, in concert with a series of social and political reforms in the 1860s. However, when those reforms failed to create a political order guaranteed by a constitution, the press reconstituted that sphere in a way to actually thwart the evolution of Western liberalism. The pivotal event in this process proved to be the failure of the 1905 Revolution to secure the postreform decades of incremental gains. Like most of the rest of society, journalists became so disappointed by the limited concessions exacted from the government that they lost hope that the autocracy could be reformed. Newspapers sought new political symbols in Russia's past; they found an equally disillusioned intelligentsia, whom they historicized and manipulated so as to undermine whatever substantive part they could have played in using the press as a genuinely transformative institution central to the public sphere.     

Advertising images among Hong Kong Chinese: Use of individual modernity and western orientation clusters in determining market segmentation∗

Advertising is a highly visible force in Hong Kong society. Within this diverse environment, media organizations and marketers attempt to define target markets (market segmentation) composed of persons who are most likely to be influenced by their marketing and advertising efforts. This research, based on a 1,019 sample face‐to‐face intercept survey, segments the market based on measures of self‐ascribed individual modernity and individual traditionalism and Chinese and Western value orientation. The scales are statistically analysed by cluster analysis, to place each respondent into clusters. The segmentation scheme viability is analysed in relation to media consumption and attitudes about specific advertising issues in six areas: 1. consumer benefits and economic force; 2. credibility; 3. entertainment value; 4. social force; 5. manipulation and motivation; and 6. repetition. The segmentation of individual modernity/traditionalism and Chinese/Western orientation provides greater differentiation than age, gender, income, education or place of residence.     

‘Play mas’: carnival in the archives and the archives in carnival: records and community identity in the US Virgin Islands

Over the past several decades, scholars concerned with post-colonial and indigenous populations have focused on archives as one method of excavating the cultures and lives of marginalized peoples. The limitations of textual and bureaucratic records, combined with the recognition that an archive can consist of interrelated knowledge constructs composed of many different kinds of documentation, have led these scholars to seek ‘archives’ beyond the walls of official buildings. For archivists likewise engaged in documenting post-colonial and other communities, expanding the definitions of what an archive could be, and suggesting new ways of seeing ‘records’, offers the potential of creatively representing and preserving the cultural expressions of these communities. This paper examines carnival as a cultural archive. Carnival, an annual tradition in many Caribbean islands was initially created by both enslaved and freed Africans as a counter-narrative to the festivals of the colonizers. In the US Virgin Islands, carnival began in the eighteenth century when the islands were Danish colonies. It was briefly revived at the beginning of the twentieth century and again in 1952 as an annual public celebration, which it remains today. While carnival produces traditional records, the week-long event also embodies the continuum of a local culture through a variety of non-traditional records that transmit genealogies, folkways, food customs, and history.     

Covering the world‐class downtown: Seattle's local media and the politics of urban redevelopment

Local disputes over land use and urban development generate some of the most heated struggles in American politics. Yet the role of local media organizations in covering debates over urban development has been woefully understudied by media scholars. To address this soft spot in the critical media literature, this article offers an investigation of how the local press covered a particularly bitter debate over one urban redevelopment proposal in Seattle during the mid‐1990s. Drawing on Hallin, who predicts that reporters will abandon professional codes of neutrality and balance when they perceive the political field to be unified around a single position, an examination of sourcing patterns in the Seattle case suggests that local reporters cover debates over urban development from a spurious assumption of “consensus”—an assumption that privileges the voices of downtown business leaders and pro‐development public officials. A concluding section offers suggestions for future investigation into the intersection of local media and urban development politics, drawing particularly on Bourdieu's notion of “symbolic capital” to explore how such presumptions of consensus are cultivated, maintained, and contested within the local public sphere.