Contents and Effects of Newspaper Coverage of Talk Radio in Hong Kong: A Study of Remediation Through Content Adaptation

Media outlets and platforms in contemporary societies do not operate in isolation, but are interconnected with each other in various ways. The influence and significance of a medium can therefore depend on what Bolter and Grusin (1999 Bolter , J. D. , & Grusin , R. ( 1999 ). Remediation . Cambridge , MA : MIT Press . [Google Scholar]) labeled “remediation,” that is, the processes through which a medium is represented by other media. Content adaptation—the selective appropriation of the contents of another medium—is a specific means of remediation. This article applies these theoretical principles to the study of talk radio in Hong Kong. It examines how newspapers appropriate the contents of political talk radio and how content adaptation by the press affects people's perceptions of talk radio. Empirically, a content analysis shows that newspapers regularly cover talk radio contents, but the coverage is affected by the journalistic paradigms the newspapers adopt. Based on the content analysis, hypotheses about the relationships between news consumption, talk radio listening, and perceived value of talk radio are set up and tested by data from a representative survey (N = 862). The findings confirm the presence of “content adaptation effects.”