Media Power in Hong Kong

Charles Cheung completed his doctorate at the University of Leeds, UK

Media ownership in Hong Kong, due to Hong Kong's special colonial and post-colonial situation, is strongly concentrated, with Hong Kong's public and independent media much weaker than their ‘Western’ counterparts. This book explores the impact of this on how events and phenonema are portrayed by the Hong Kong media. It considers production, text and reception of media content, showing how, in detail, media content is shaped and distorted by Hong Kong's media ownership structure. It includes a detailed examination of the media's stigmatisation of youth, a group without power in Hong Kong, unable to put forward its own voice in the media. The book makes comparisons with the situation in western countries, arguing that the limitations of a marketised media system as demonstrated by the example of Hong Kong are generally applicable.

1. Introduction 2. Literature review: theoretical reformulation of media power 3. Production: the negotiated representational struggles in Hong Kong’s hyper-oligopolistic media system 4. Texts and news polysemy I: the range of discourses 5. Texts and news polysemy II: treatment of textual discourses and modes of news polysemy 6. Audience negotiation 7. Conclusion