Global Media Spectacle
SUNY series in Global Media Studies
Yahya R. Kamalipour and Kuldip R. Rampal, editors
To our families, with love and gratitude
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Contents
Figures and Tables
ix
Preface
xi
Acknowledgments
xv
Chapter 1.
Global Event, National Prisms
1
Chapter 2.
News Staging
21
Chapter 3.
Domestication of Global News
41
Chapter 4.
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
63
Chapter 5.
Banging the Democracy Drum: From the Superpower
85
Chapter 6.
Essentializing Colonialism: Heroes and Villains
109
Chapter 7.
Defining the Nation-State: One Event, Three Stories
127
Chapter 8.
Human Rights and National Interest:
From the Middle Powers
151
Chapter 9.
Media Event as Global Discursive Contestation
169
Epilogue:
After the Handover
189
Appendix I.
Sampled Media Organizations
199
Appendix II. Interviewees
205
Appendix III. Guideline for Interview
209
Appendix IV. Content Analysis
215
Appendix V.
221
Coding Scheme
Notes
223
Bibliography
229
Authors
245
Index
247
vii
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Figures and Tables
Figure 1.1:
Conceptual Scheme of Comparative International
Media Discourses
16
Table 1.1:
The Sample of Media Outlets
10
Table 1.2:
National Origins of Journalists Interviewed
12
Table 2.1:
Number of Media Organizations and Journalists
Registered with the Handover Ceremony Coordination
Office
25
References to the Prospect of Changes after the
Handover
54
Table 3.2:
Tones on the PRC Government (in %)
56
Table 3.3:
News Sources from Different Countries
56
Table 3.4:
Official Sources from Different Countries
57
Table 3.5:
Top Ten Most Frequently Cited Sources by Country
58
Table 4.1:
Key Visual Devices from the Media Coverage
72
Table 5.1:
Ideological Packages of the U.S. Media Coverage
92
Table 7.1:
Discursive Packages of the PRC Media
129
Table 7.2:
Features of the Historical Scripts of the Three Media
Narratives
147
Table 3.1:
Table 7.3:
Features of Discourse Structures of the Media Narratives 148
Table 9.1:
Domestic News vs. International News
173
Table 10.1:
Headlines of Hong Kong Anniversary Stories in the
World Media
191
Topical Distribution of U.S. and British Media
Coverage of Hong Kong (July 6, 1997–July 5, 1998)
196
Table 10.2:
ix
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Preface
If journalists are said to write the first draft of history, what kind of a
history will they be writing in the age of globalized media? Does this history
appear to be littered with contrived images and dramas, hyped media events,
and ideologically soaked catchy phrases? All global news is local. How do
the media—operating as a “twenty-four-hour ideological repair shop” (van
Ginneken, 1998:32)—mold international news in accordance with national
interest, domestic politics, and the prevailing cultural values? Sighting this
scene of international newsmaking from a hub of the world capitalist system, we are awed at how much the process of constructing mediated narratives cum historical discourses is Western-dominated both organizationally
and ideologically.
The ubiquitous mediated communication of secondhand reality has kept
alive the powerful images of joy and despair, destruction and triumph, authority, and emotion from the Tiananmen Square, the Berlin Wall, the Gulf
War, and the Moscow coup. But as students of international communication
we know surprisingly little about how the world media and journalists plan,
operate, compete, and produce during these historical episodes. We know of
no systematic, broad comparative account of the dynamics of international
newsmaking since Wilbur Schramm (1959) published One Day in the World’s
Press, an analysis of press coverage of the Suez Canal. This sustained neglect
for four decades has been particularly extraordinary in view of the proliferation of journals and publications in media studies, and of the amazing growth
in the number of theoretical treatises on the ideological underpinning of
newswork in relation to social power and national interest. The heat of the
New World Information and Communication Order debate, once highly visible and charged in the fora of international politics, threw little light on this
issue. Even the current vogue in the glamour of media globalization has
barely skirted around it.
By good fortune, we were at the right place at the right time. In 1997 we
were on the spot to witness an important chapter of history—the transfer of
xi
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Preface
sovereignty of Hong Kong—unfolding and, further, to observe the field of action by thousands of top international journalists at close range. We saw how
journalists wrote the first drafts of history from their vantage points. The result,
being presented to you after long years of labor, is, we hope, a theoretically informed and empirically grounded analysis of the international newsmaking
process. How did our project begin? Our institutional memory has faded: two
claim the idea came from a bus ride in Montreal, the other attributes it to a challenge from a Dutch colleague, and the fourth member decides not to contest the
archeological truth. What is important, however, is that we did agree to follow
the admirable tradition of C. Wright Mills in trying to integrate personal interest with public issues. We were intent on taking advantage of the world media
that were to congregate in one place—an alien, exotic, but most likely routinebreaking place—to cover a momentous event of global significance.
We are a team of diverse backgrounds and compatible interests who actively engage one another’s minds. Lee, a native of Taiwan, on a three-year
leave from the University of Minnesota to be a chair professor at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong, is interested in political and international communication, political economy of the media, and the interface between social theories and media studies. Chan, then chairing the department, was born in China
but grew up in Hong Kong, with interest in international and political communication as well as the impact of information technology. Pan, arriving from his
previous post at the University of Pennsylvania to join the team, is a native of
China and is interested in framing analysis and political communication. So returned from Canada to his native land of Hong Kong to resume his teaching position, just in time to “catch the big show”; his interest includes media
sociology and the sociology of knowledge. All educated in the United States,
with prior journalistic backgrounds, we met in Hong Kong. The magnitude of
this project might be unimaginable for any team less diverse or less committed
than ours.
In this volume, we shall try to demonstrate how nation-states fight an international discursive battle via the media to compete for legitimacy and recognition. We shall explore the causes, processes, consequences, and limits of such
discursive contestation. To these goals, we strive for a “thick description”
(Geertz, 1973) of contestation and alliance, themes and variations, convergence
and divergence between and within various blocks of nations. We take pains to
collate a mountain of media texts with the “meaning world” of journalists.
These theoretical points could not have been adequately made had it not been
for the scope of empirical data that our project encompasses. Comparative studies being easier said than done, we are uniquely blessed to canvas the broad
landscape of eight different “national” media systems: the People’s Republic of
China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and
Japan. We wish to paint a general picture of broad (yet nonreductive) outlines
Preface
xiii
with nuanced analysis and a lot of rich details. Having poked into a world of
life stories behind these media accounts for three long years, we are feeling bittersweet loss and relief at delivering this intellectual baby.
While incorporating the strength of area studies, we have above all aimed
to keep pace—and dialogue—with theoretical and methodological advances in
several fields of humanities and social sciences. We began by trying to conceptualize the project theoretically in terms of what Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz
(1992) call “media events” and methodologically in terms of what William
Gamson (1988) calls a constructionist approach to discourse analysis. Interwoven into this theoretical and methodological matrix are a network of theoretical
visions culled together from media sociology (including media occupation,
profession, and organization), international communication (the geography,
ideology, linguistics, and semiology of international news), cultural studies (social construction of meanings, ideological contestation, and Orientalism), and
various strains of social theories (nationalism and globalization). This process
involves developing layers of arguments through journeying back and forth between social theories, media theories, and the “real world”—all guided by a
comparative light.
No sooner had we set out to interview journalists than we sensed pent-up
anxiety about the gulf between what they had preconceived and what they were
witnessing. Such revelation continually impressed on us to discard, modify,
sharpen, and improvise many hypotheses, and we have in the end strayed quite
far away from the original trajectory and terrain. We are therefore grateful to
the seventy-six international journalists who shared their professional insights
with us in a series of grueling interviews while in the thick of fighting their own
“news war.” They are in this sense distant coauthors of this book. But as interpreters of their interpretations we are ultimately responsible for the viewpoints
expressed. In the course of interviewing these journalists, they were eager to
have our take too. This experience gave us a unique position to penetrate their
minds and see what really “troubles” them.
We have spent countless hours together mulling over the outlines and details
that led to mutual fusing of perspectives, the incremental development of ideas,
themes, and arguments, as well as the making sense of embedded empirical
meanings. We debated in the little noodle corner, in the mountaintop office overlooking the magnificent Tolo Harbor, in the crowded subway, on the noisy phone,
over the delicious Peking duck and Cantonese cuisine (all too infrequently), and
via the corridor of global cyberspace. Ideas have germinated and taken shape
with our travel in today’s global air transport to Beijing, London, Jerusalem,
Acapulco, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C. While the project is a whole
piece, writing involves inevitable division of labor. Lee drafted chapters 1, 5, and
9. Chan drafted chapters 3 and 6. So drafted chapters 2 and 8 as well as prepared
the index and photos. Pan drafted chapters 4, 7, the epilogue, and Appendix IV;
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Preface
he also prepared the methodological note and the quantitative data. Chan was the
project coordinator. In the last stage, Lee was entrusted to critique and edit the entire manuscript; in various cases, this involved extensive rewriting. Three years of
asking, arguing, laughing, and griping together have accomplished a profound
level of borrowed learning, the impact of which will be quite obvious in each of
our future work.
Acknowledgments
Without the generous assistance of many friends and colleagues we could
have not assembled the complete texts of 32 newspapers, four news magazines,
as well as news and special programs from 14 television channels, scattered
from Beijing to London, from New York to Tokyo, from Sydney to Toronto,
and from Hong Kong to Taipei. Deserving our gratitude are Qiu Xiangzhong
(London), Dr. Zhao Bin (Cardiff), Eugene Louie (San Jose), Zhan Jun (Washington, D.C.), Dr. Judy Polumbaum (Iowa City), Dr. Chen Shimin (Taipei), Dr.
Lo Venhui (Taipei), Professor Pang Kafat (Taipei), Dr. Yang Chang (Vancouver), Wang Bing (Tokyo), Professor Huang Shengmin (Tokyo), Zhong Jing
(Beijing), and Yin Jing (Beijing). C. K. Lau, a South China Morning Post
columnist, collected the Australian materials for us. The British Council library
in Hong Kong donated copies of British newspapers. Doris Tsang shuttled between various newsrooms to fetch textual materials under the simmering sun.
Lam Kong efficiently taped Hong Kong television. Mak Yiu-on provided CTN
tapes. Our hats off to all of them.
This huge database was managed under the remarkably gracious and
meticulous purview of Winnie Kwok, who prodded us on, gently scolded us
when deserved, gave us a pat on the back when not so deserved, and pushed us
through many moments of despair. To her we owe our deepest debt and admiration. Professor Huang Shengmin, whose one-month sojourn in Hong Kong
as a visiting scholar was spent exclusively on no other bigger fun than decoding the meaning of Japanese media texts, deserves a hearty thank you. An
anonymous Japanese researcher read a draft on Japan. A group of dedicated
graduate students including Julia Chu, Francis Lee, Zhang Yong, and Li Yanhong undertook the content analysis. Julia Chu also contributed to library research and data management. Francis Lee analyzed the data of content
analysis. Zhang Yong assisted in the preparation of Appendix I. Dr. Ma Ngor
transcribed some of the interview tapes. Mandy Leung assisted in library research and in checking the citations. Mak Wing Kau helped in compiling the
name and subject indices. We thank them.
xv
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Acknowledgments
This work, as part of the “Mass Media and Political Transition” project,
received generous support with funds from the Universities Research Grants
Committee of Hong Kong. Professors Jeremy Tunstall, Everette Dennis, Lowell Dittmer, and Lynn White III offered critical support at the early stage. We
are also indebted to the Shaw College, the United College, and the Chinese
University of Hong Kong for providing supplemental small grants. Throughout, we have had the intellectual blessing and encouragement of Professor
Elihu Katz. Professor James Curran honored us with an invitation to contribute
a chapter (Lee et al., 2000) to Mass Media and Society. Professor Akiba Cohen
moderated a theme session devoted to our project at the International Communication Association convention in Jerusalem. Professors Cees Hamelink, Jon
F. Nussbaum, and Dave Dembers have offered timely reassurance to our work
in their capacities as editors of various journals (Pan et al., 1999, 2001; Lee et
al., 2001).
Chapter 1
Global Event, National Prisms
What the fireworks of international news illuminate or leave in the dark
is the historic panorama beyond them.
—Jaap van Ginneken (1998: 126)
Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder
respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
—George Orwell (1954: 177)
A thin massive event: a small pellet of fish food being attacked by 8,000
piranhas.
—Chris Wood, a Canadian journalist,
on covering the handover of Hong Kong
It is often claimed that media discourse represents “a site of symbolic
struggle,” but what are the processes, significance, and limits of that struggle?
As a global “media event” (Dayan and Katz, 1992), the transfer of Hong Kong
from British to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997 provides such a site and moment for opposing national media communities to express, and thus reinforce,
their enduring values and dominant ideologies. More than 8,000 journalists and
778 media organizations from around the world reportedly congregated in this
bustling city to witness an event of presumed global significance.1 The political
periphery of Hong Kong stands in sharp contrast to its status as a core hub of
global capitalism. Yet journalists are far more interested in China than in Hong
Kong. They are interested in China not so much as an ideologically benign site
of geography, as it is a rising economic power, a security risk, and an ideological foe in the post-Cold War era. They participate in the embedded ideological
struggle among various modern -isms: East versus West, capitalism versus socialism, democracy versus authoritarianism. As New York Times columnist
Thomas Friedman puts it vividly, Hong Kong’s return to China is “not just a
1
2
Global Media Spectacle
slice of the West being given back to the East,” but also “a slice of the future
being given back to the past” (December 15, 1996). What marks for China national triumph over colonialism is, in the eyes of most western journalists, “a
menacing, authoritarian Chinese government, its hands still stained by the blood
of Tiananmen Square, riding roughshod over freewheeling, Westernized Hong
Kong” (Chinoy, 1999: 394). The world media had worried about brutal Communist China turning Hong Kong into Tiananmen II. When that scary scenario
did not come to pass, their interest in Hong Kong quickly faded away after the
handover.2 In view of Hong Kong’s relative stability, the world media cast all but
a casual glance at the neighboring Macau (a big casino showcasing capitalist
vices) when it returned from Portugal to China two years later.
In the shadow of cultural and technological globalization (Braman and Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1996; Featherstone, 1995; Featherstone and Lash, 1995;
Tomlinson, 1999; Waters, 1995), we wish to show in this volume that international newsmaking remains inherently ethnocentric, nationalistic, and even
state-centered. Globalization may have brought the world “closer” in many
ways. But global news continues to acquire paradoxically domestic, local, and
above all national significance. The same event may be given distinct media representations by various nations, through the prisms of their dominant ideologies
as defined by power structures, cultural repertoires, and politico-economic interests. Journalists try to illuminate complex and ambiguous political realities in
remote foreign places through the process of “domestication” (Cohen et al.,
1996). If international news is a state-centered enterprise, Hong Kong’s sovereignty transfer explicitly foregrounds this nation-state problematic.
News is about the unexpected, the extraordinary, and the abnormal, but it
can only be understood in terms of the expected, the ordinary, and the normal.
As an event must be understood in relation to a whole stream of previous
causes, collating selected facts into certain relationships is based on embedded
cultural and national perspectives. van Ginneken (1998: 126) puts it so well:
“What the fireworks of international news illuminate or leave in the dark is the
historic panorama beyond them.” In general, these media frames coincide with,
echo, and support elite consensus within the established order. Moreover, the
state, as a repository of “national interest,” is a major contestant in international news discourse. As the media foreground the sovereignty reversion of
Hong Kong as historical ruptures, lurking in the background are the ideological continuities of their nations toward China. Major western media do not recognize their quasi-consensual ideology but naturalize it as common sense.
They emphasize the facts, but disguise the underlying ideology.
Nevertheless, the ceding of the “capitalist jewel” to a Communist regime,
against the grand narratives of “the end of history” (Fukuyama, 1992) and “the
clash of civilizations” (Huntington, 1993), is a rallying cry for national media resources to reinforce their core values and reaffirm the power structure. Interna-
Global Event, National Prisms
3
tional journalism is in this sense an ideological war, a discursive contestation, or
a symbolic struggle. From the perspective of comparative sociology of newsmaking, we wish to show how international journalists take part in a post-Cold
War ideological discourse through making sense of a “media spectacle” (Edelman, 1988). The handover of Hong Kong is a media event that undergoes a
transformation—thus robbed of conflict, suspense, and theatrical appeal. This
does not prevent the world media, cum various national cultural arms, from
plunging into discursive struggles to promote the legitimacy of their national
regimes. The media utilize a set of rhetorical strategies from the entertainmentbased media logic (Altheide and Snow, 1979) to articulate their ideological
themes. The collusion of national interests and foreign policy goals on the one
hand and the media interests in enthralling large audiences on the other brings
the world media together to stage a global media spectacle in collaboration with
their domestic authorities. It is illuminating to note that these international journalists come all the way to interview a small (probably no more than fifty) and
highly overlapping set of people, mostly from the elite but with some token “ordinary folks” to put a “typical” face on the news. But different national narratives enable journalists to insert the present into a highly ideological perspective
on the past and the future. In most foreign policy issues, media differences
across the ideological divide within a nation tend to be dwarfed by media differences between nations. Such national perspectives interact with the sociological arrangement of the theater of the handover events as well as the rhetorical
strategies of the media logic, making it appropriate to talk about the handover as
a global media spectacle fitted with varying national themes.
International News and Discursive Struggles
Discourse is at the heart of a nation as an “imagined community” (Anderson, 1983). It reproduces the society as a coherent unit of culture, allowing its
members to envision a sense of belonging and identity vis-à-vis other units. A
discursive community comprises a group of people who feel bound through
shared interpretations and representations of their everyday experiences within
a common cultural, political, and economic environment (Fish, 1980; Lincoln,
1989; Wuthnow, 1989). The discursive binding of such a community shines
particularly at critical moments when certain events of historic proportions inspire a wealth of symbolic resources to solidify cultural values. These events
force members of a society to form their self-conceptions through cultural
practices and thus renew their shared identity.
The ceding of Hong Kong to a Communist regime in the post-Cold War
era represents one of those “hot moments” to different national communities
in varying degrees. In this study, as said above, we start with the premise that
4
Global Media Spectacle
on the global scale, different national communities will construct different
media discourses about an issue of such momentous ideological import. It is
true that globalization of modern media has made the symbolic bond of a
community often more dependent on mediated representations than on territoriality (Appadurai, 1996), but international news about distant events happening in faraway places must be “brought home” via discursive means.
Cultural representations of a “discursive community” are closely related to the
activities and artifacts of their producers in concrete social and historical
settings. Media discourse, in Wuthnow’s words (1989: 16), occurs within “the
communities of competing producers, of interpreters and critics, of audiences
and consumers, and of patrons and other significant actors who become subjects of discourse itself.” This sociological grounding calls for an examination
of how different media discourses invoke their cultural symbols on behalf of
their national interests, and how they articulate enduring values of the society
often in support of the power authority.
Put otherwise, mass media stand at the forefront of institutional venues
through which each national community acts out its shared experiences and the
underlying cultural premises (Edelman, 1988; Esherick and Wasserstrom,
1994). Events of historic importance absorb the “attention resources” of the
public arena (Hilgartner and Bosk, 1988), which “tames” a distant event through
selective domestication in tandem with core social values. Global news must be
filtered through the domestic system of commonsense knowledge (Berger and
Luckman, 1967) or “local knowledge” (Geertz, 1993); media texts are constructed in the multilayered organizational, cultural, economic, and political
frameworks. We aim to achieve some understanding about the discursive contestation of national media systems in the international terrain over tensions between cultural particulars and transcendent values. These tensions sharpen the
continuities and ruptures between national interests in the world order.
The handover of Hong Kong forms a concentric circle of relevance and
vested interests to various national discursive communities and is thus open to
divergent media construction. International newsmaking follows the same logic
of domestic newsmaking, but under different political conditions. It is widely
accepted that the media produce and reproduce the hegemonic definitions of
social order. There are four general claims to this overall thesis. First, “news
net” of the media (Tuchman, 1978) corresponds to the hierarchical order of political power and the prevailing belief system that defines this order. Occurrences outside the centralized organizations or standard genres would not be
recognized as news. Secondly, even in a democratic society, news production
must inevitably epitomize the capitalist mode of production and serve the financial-ideological structure and interests of the dominant class, race, and gender (Mosco, 1996; Thompson, 1990). Thirdly, the ideology of journalistic
professionalism, as enshrined by the creed of objectivity, is predicated on an
Global Event, National Prisms
5
unarticulated commitment to the established order (Gitlin, 1980; Said, 1978;
Schlesinger, 1978; Tuchman, 1978). News media “index” the spectrum of the
elite viewpoints as an essential tool for domestic political operation (Bennett,
1990; Cook, 1998). In a similar vein, Donohue, Tichenor and Olien (1995)
maintain that the media perform as a sentry not for the community as a whole,
but for groups having sufficient power and influence to create and control their
own security systems. Fourthly, when elite consensus collapses or is highly divided, or when there is strong mobilizing pressure from social movements, the
media may have to reflect such opinion plurality (Chan and Lee, 1991; Hallin,
1986; Page, 1996). Such plurality does not, however, question the fundamental assumptions of power in society.
The international order being more anarchic, the state—rather than specific individuals, classes, or sectors within a country—acts as the repository of
“national interest” (Garnett, 1994), as the principal maker of foreign policy, and
as a contestant in international news discourse (Snyder and Ballentine, 1997:
65). Operating as “little accomplices” of the state (Zaller and Chiu, 1996), the
media rely on political authorities to report foreign policy cum national interest. Moreover, the media, the domestic authorities, and the public tend to perceive the international news reality through shared lenses of ideologies, myths,
and cultural repertoire. The media resolve around the head of state, foreign
ministry, and embassies to make news because these institutions are assumed to
have superior if not monopolistic access to knowledge about what national interest is abroad. Foreign news agendas are even more closely attuned to elite
conceptions of the world than domestic news agendas. The U.S. media therefore tend to “rally around the flag” in close alliance with official Washington
(Brody, 1991; Cook, 1998), especially when the country is in conflict with foreign powers. By this process of “domesticating” foreign news as a variation on
a national theme (Cohen et al., 1996), the media serve to sharpen and legitimize
national perspectives embedded in the existing order of power and privilege
(chapter 3). Gans (1979) maintains that in the U.S. media, foreign news stories
are mostly relevant to Americans or American interests, with the same themes
and topics as domestic news; when the topics are distinctive, they are given interpretations that apply to American values. Media domestication is an integral
part of the international political economy.
News media participate in a broader discursive process in constructing the
domestic elite’s images of “the other” and legitimizing the state’s effort in safeguarding geopolitical interests abroad (Said, 1981, 1993). They produce a local
narrative of the same global event through employment of unique discursive
means of rhetoric, frames, metaphors, and logic. In “tangling” with distant contestants in the game of international newsmaking, they impute different causes
and effects to reality to advance national interest and promote national legitimacy. During the Persian Gulf War, CNN became a stage for the U.S. and Iraqi
6
Global Media Spectacle
governments to verbally attack each other, paving the way for and extending
the eventual armed conflict (Kellner, 1992). Unlike the institutional struggle in
which central authority allocates tangible material resources (Jabri, 1996: 72),
the discursive struggle wins or loses symbolically in terms of expression of preferred values and orders. The latter may be mobilized into an institutional
struggle, while the former may derive its legitimacy from a discursive struggle
(Edelman, 1971; Gamson, 1988; McAdams, McCarthy, and Zald, 1996). During the Cold War, superpowers contested over intangible public opinion, images, and rhetorical discourse in order, ironically, to prevent the hot wars of
guns and missiles (Medhurst, 1990).
The Making of a Media Event
The arrival of the world media turns Hong Kong into a theater of performance. Although the basic script for the event was long written in the SinoBritish Joint Declaration in 1984, the actual staging of its performance had
been in serious dispute between the two principals (Lee, 1997, 2000a). The
handover is thus a long anticipated and carefully scripted event that unfolds
with real and potential drama of conflicts. The predictability of its prescheduled nature facilitates “calendar journalism” (Tuchman, 1978). Following the
meticulously scripted events may neither require much enterprising journalistic effort (Sigal, 1973) nor satisfy the “entertainment logic” of television age
(Altheide and Snow, 1979). Yet, given the logic that bad news is good news and
given the rancorous diplomatic skirmishes and war of words between Britain
and China until the final moment, the world media had committed considerable
resources to covering an event of presumed worst-case scenarios under Communist takeover. But the handover turns out to be smooth and peaceful, not as
bad as previously envisaged. Somewhat disappointed, the large presence of international journalists in a crowded island becomes a story—a media spectacle—more important than the event itself. A Canadian journalist compares this
“thin massive event” to “a small pellet of fish food being attacked by 8,000 piranhas.” Newsweek’s bureau chief, when asked, agrees that thousands of competitive egos probably end up talking to the same set of 20 to 50 people in town,
but the Daily Telegraph reporter defends this practice as an inherent logic of
journalism not different from covering South Africa or Bosnia. The logic of
making news is hijacked by the logic of staging a media spectacle.
According to Dayan and Katz (1992), a media event may fall into one of
three categories: a contest, a conquest, or a coronation. In spite of consuming
efforts made by the dismayed international journalists, the handover story did
not seem to rise to various qualifications of a spectacular media event. As it
began, the event seemed to contain all the exciting elements of a conquest or
Global Event, National Prisms
7
those of a contest. As the event went through a process of transformation during its life cycle, elements of a contest and conquest receded, and the media
began to focus on it more as a coronation.
First, a contest “pits evenly matched individuals or teams against each
other and bids them to compete according to strict rules” (Dayan and Katz,
1992: 33). Media events of this type should generate much excitement over the
process of competition and reduce the uncertainty about its outcome. The SinoBritish rows over sovereignty negotiations and Governor Patten’s democratic
reforms (Dimbleby, 1997) began to fade in significance as Hong Kong inched
toward the handover.
Second, a conquest refers to great men and women with charisma who
“submit themselves to an ordeal, whose success multiplies their charisma and
creates a new following” (Dayan and Katz, 1992: 37). Indeed, all of China’s official and media proclamations hail Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader, as the
ingenious author of the “one country, two systems” idea, through which the previously impossible task of reclaiming Hong Kong becomes a reality. Thus, Chinese patriotic heroes roundly beat British imperialist villains. China’s official
television constantly shows a picture of Margaret Thatcher falling on her steps
in front of the Great Hall of the People, almost as a favorite icon that “provides
an occasion for journalists and their sources to refigure cultural scripts” (Bennett
and Lawrence, 1995). The Prime Minister had just emerged from her first excruciating encounter with Deng, during which he lectured her that China would
not take humiliation from foreign powers any more. That showdown forced both
sides to embark on painful negotiations leading finally to the handover. This
icon was coined in 1982, and by 1997 Thatcher had retired from public life and
Deng was already dead, but the image lives on as a soothing symbol of conquest
for China’s injured national psyche. The People’s Republic of China (PRC)
media are also fond of flexing military icons to relish the story of national
strength in front of the doubting world. To counter this, the world media depict
that the small and efficient Hong Kong will play the role of a “Trojan Horse” to
subvert the huge and clumsy Communist China from within. This story of conquest is, however, set in the future, and its confirmation requires a time horizon
that goes far beyond the drowning ritual ceremonies.
A coronation, a third kind of media event, deals in “the mysteries of rites
of passage” which “proceed according to strict rules, dictated by tradition
rather than by negotiated agreement” (Dayan and Katz, 1992: 36). Media coverage of a coronation serves to pledge allegiance to the political center and to
renew contract with it. Persons of authority are signified and dignified by costumes, symbols, titles, and rituals. Media presentation, which tends to be reverent and priestly, enacts the tradition and authority that are usually hidden
from everyday life. A prime icon of Hong Kong’s handover coronation is a
picture of the brief moment at the midnight of June 30, seemingly frozen in
8
Global Media Spectacle
history. The Union Jack is being lowered, and the Chinese flag being raised.
All principal actors—including Prince Charles, President Jiang, Governor Patten, and Chief Executive Tung—are solemnly arrayed on the stage to commemorate a change in the authority structure and to usher in formal absorption
of Hong Kong into the motherland. In spite of its historical significance this
still moment produces no lively journalism.
The media event thus transformed, journalists must do something to save
the integrity of their paradigmatic structure. They repair part of the assumptions, cull more supporting data, dismiss contrary evidence, or try to fit their
stories into generic narrative structures of media events (Bennett, Gressett, and
Haltom, 1985; Chan and Lee, 1991). Above all, they must “hype” up the event
in hopes that their domestic audiences may find reasons to participate in the
media rites and rituals. Through the display of repetitive, familiar, and exaggerated images often out of the context, hyping creates a mythical ritual that is
confirming of the dominant ideological framework (Nimmo and Combs, 1990).
The media are not passive reflectors of the media event, but active participants
in its making. The media not only provide a stage for an event scripted by authoritative agencies outside of media; they also “coauthor” the event with event
organizers and their own domestic authority structure. They rescript the event
to fit their respective national narrative and annotate the performance of the
principal actors with reverence. They add their own “star performers”—the
celebrity anchors and famed correspondents—to share the stage with, if not
take over the title role from, the actors of the official script. They hype the elements of the event in resonance with the domestic audiences.
Methodology
This study interweaves (a) indepth interviews with international journalists, (b) a content analysis, and (c) a discourse analysis of elite newspapers
and television networks from eight countries or regions. The main body of
evidence comes from a discourse analysis of media representations. The result of content analysis provides information about the basic parameter and
orientation of media coverage. Interviews with journalists are indispensable
to understanding the sociology of news regarding their professional biographies, organizational resources and strategies, news competition and collaboration, and the cultural map on which they draw to cover the handover.
These interviews generate important insights for formulating and confirming
the “ideological packages” in our constructionist discourse analysis. Published documents, press reports, the proceedings of media fora and symposia,
and our field notes fill the background gaps in terms of the motives, actions,
and behind-the-scene maneuvers of various key individuals and regimes, thus
Global Event, National Prisms
9
piercing through the surface of media content. Needless to say, all of them are
to be interpreted in light of the insights we have built up over two decades as
critical analysts of the media in Hong Kong and elsewhere (Chan and Lee,
1991; Lee, 1997, 2000; So and Chan, 1999). Without doubt, our comparative
framework sharpens our interpretation of media accounts.
Countries and Media Outlets
To investigate the national prisms through which the handover of Hong
Kong is inflected, we select for examination eight “national” media systems
that form a concentric circle of relevance and vested interest: the PRC, Hong
Kong, Taiwan, the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and Japan. Within
the immediate circle of relevance are the primary constituencies of “Cultural
China” (Tu, 1991)—namely, the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong—fraught with
conflicting identities and historical memories. (Strictly speaking, Hong Kong
is not a “nation” but a British colony returning to the PRC’s possession, while
Taiwan has de facto but not de jure nationhood, constantly struggling against
the PRC over issues of national sovereignty. To avoid repeated references to
more accurate yet cumbersome “nations or regions,” we shall treat Hong Kong
and Taiwan as if they were “nations.”) In broader circles of relevance, the PRC
seems ideologically at war with the outside world at large, in what appears to
be an extended East-West conflict. Not only has the outgoing Britain marshaled
possible moral, political, and media resources to fend off assaults on its legitimacy from the PRC. The United States, particularly, has led a western ideological united front in support of Britain against China in this power game of
words and images. Incorporated as junior partners in the western camp are
Canada, Australia, and to some extent, Japan, which display different national
interest within the common western ideology.
We set out to select a sample of 32 newspapers, four news magazines, 14
television channels, and seven news agencies from the eight countries (Table
1.1). The criteria for selection include:
•
Influence in terms of circulation and the perceived status.
•
The range of ideological variation with a national media system.
•
Level of operation: International, national, regional, and local.
• Modes of financial operation: Official organ or private enterprise.
•
Type of medium: Newspapers, magazines, television, and news
agencies.
•
Type of audience: General interest or specialized interest.
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Global Media Spectacle
Table 1.1
The Sample of Media Outlets1
Countries
Print Media
TV
News Agencies
PRC
(n ⫽ 8)
People’s Daily*
Economic Daily
People’s Liberation Army Daily
Guangming Daily
Guangzhou Daily*
CCTV*
Guangzhou TV
Xinhua
USA
(n ⫽ 11)
New York Times*
Washington Post*
Wall Street Journal*
Chicago Tribune*
Los Angeles Times*
Des Moines Register*
San Jose Mercury News
Newsweek (magazine)
CBS*
CNN*
AP
Britain
(n ⫽ 8)
The Times*
Guardian*
Daily Telegraph*
Independent*
Financial Times
BBC*
ITV*
Reuters
Hong Kong
(n ⫽ 10)
Ming Pao Daily News*
South China Morning Post*
Apple Daily*
Oriental Daily News
Yazhou Zhoukan (magazine)
Far Eastern Economic Review
(magazine)
TVB*
CTV
CTN
(GIS)2
(continued)
We compile media content of the sampled organizations from two weeks before the handover and one week after it, thus covering the period between June
16 and July 5, 1997. We ask many professional colleagues in various locales
to collect the sampled newspaper issues and to tape sampled television programs (including regular evening news, special programs, and live coverage
on June 30). It should be noted that we decide not to include the endless
stream of wire stories in further analysis, although we do incorporate insights
from interview with wire reporters. We are also confident that the “discursive
packages” of news agencies do not differ markedly from those of print media
and television.
11
Global Event, National Prisms
Table 1.1 (continued)
The Sample of Media Outlets1
Countries
Print Media
TV
News Agencies
Taiwan
(n ⫽ 7)
China Times*
United Daily News
Central Daily News
Liberty Times
Mingzhong Daily
TTV*
Central
Japan
(n ⫽ 7)
Asahi Shimbun
Yomiuri Shimbun
Sankei Shimbun
Nihon Keizai Shimbun
NHK
Asahi
Kyodo
Australia
(n ⫽ 2)
The Australian*
ATV*
Canada
(n ⫽ 5)
Globe and Mail*
MacLean’s (magazine)
CBC*
Canadian Press
Southam News
Notes:
1. All print media and television outlets listed in this table are qualitatively examined in the discourse analysis.
Only those with * are also content-coded. We do not examine the news agencies in either study. For further information, see Appendix I–IV.
2. The Government Information Services serves the international journalists by providing press releases, briefings, field trips, and other assistance.
Interviews
Based on this media sample, we interview a total of 76 journalists (Table
1.2), including 37 from the print media, 29 from the broadcasting media, and
10 from news agencies. The country distribution is, except for Australia, fairly
balanced. (See Appendix II for a complete list of interviewees.) Most interviews are based on a detailed, semistructured protocol (Appendix III), each
lasting 30 to 180 minutes, fully taped and transcribed. A small number of interviews take the form of more casual conversation to validate our inferences
from more formal interviews. Many of the interviewees are Hong Kong-based,
others on special assignment for the occasion.
We aim to discern patterns of professional journalists at work within various
organizational and cultural milieus. We probe journalists on (a) their professional
biography; (b) their working conditions in relation to the sources, editors, competitors, and audience; and particularly (c) their discursive activities—namely, invocation of themes, frames, images, and metaphors to narrate the story. This thick
description of their professional world later comes to life, enriching our interpretations of the stories they produce. We ask them to name a story they think would
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Global Media Spectacle
Table 1.2
National Origins of Journalists Interviewed
PRC
USA
Britain
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Japan
Australia
Canada
Total
Print Media
Broadcasting
News Agencies
Total
2
7
5
7
6
4
1
5
37
4
2
4
4
9
3
1
2
29
1
1
0
0
2
4
0
2
10
7
10
9
11
17
11
2
9
76
capture the essence of Hong Kong. This would lead to a better understanding
about how they draw on certain political ideology and cultural repertoire in the
process of “translating” foreign reality for their home audiences. We also ask
them about their game plan for covering a series of competing events situated in
the web of time and geography on the day of the handover. It is important to
know how they construct the news net, divide the labor, and cope with intense
competitive pressure under the punishing deadline.
At first glance, the interviews seem to suggest the emergence of a “global”
culture of professional journalism. Rooted in western origins of market economy and liberal polity, this professional culture seems to have been widely accepted as general if not universal norms of journalistic conduct and judgment
(Schudson, 1978; Weaver, 1998). All journalists profess their commitment to
the pursuit of fact and “truth,” in their capacities as avowed observers, transmitters, and interpreters of reality, and they take offense at being viewed as partisan activists with an ideological ax to grind. Even Communist journalists
from the PRC seem no longer to hold their Leninist teachings with deep conviction (He, 2000; Pan, 2000; Zhao, 1998). This general impression is superficial and shallow at best, for what constitutes the fact or truth is culturally
relative and ideologically indeterminate. Despite being professional cynics,
journalists usually do not defy the assumptions of the power structure in their
work (Gans, 1979; Manoff and Schudson, 1986; Schlesinger, 1978; Tuchman,
1978). Media discourses in the international terrain, in particular, tend to possess strong national personalities that sharpen the us-against-them boundaries
in reductive and limiting categories (Herman and Chomsky, 1988; Lee and
Yang, 1995; Said, 1981). Notwithstanding claims to the contrary, this reliance
on national ideology is also true of such global-scale media outlets as the BBC
or CNN that speak in perfect English to the elite in the rest of the world.
Global Event, National Prisms
13
Content Analysis
Of the sampled media outlets, we perform a content analysis of a subsample of 26 outlets totaling 3,883 stories, across seven media systems except
Japan (Table 1.1). The main purpose is to set the basic comparative parameter
of media coverage, but content analysis does not yield a deep understanding of
the discursive structures. Appendix IV provides a more detailed description of
the research procedure.
Three general points deserve initial remarks here. First, all eight media
systems have covered the handover extensively (see Appendix IV for statistics).
In terms of newspaper space, Hong Kong and the PRC rank highest, followed
by Taiwan, Australia, and Canada. The United States ranks lower because the
“local” papers devote a smaller space to the handover, but the elite papers produce large amounts of long interpretative stories. The pattern of television coverage differs only slightly: CCTV (China) ranks the first, followed by TVB
(Hong Kong) and TTV (Taiwan), and Australian, British, and U.S. networks.
Second, the handover, as a prescheduled calendar event, has a clear life
cycle. Media coverage peaks on June 30 and July 1. During the prehandover
preparatory period (June 16–29), daily media coverage is only 11% to 33%
of the amount produced in the peak period. The posthandover coverage (July
2–5) tapers off to range from 7% to 39% of the amount produced in the peak
period.
Thirdly, as will also be clear (Table 3.1), the PRC faces a doubting world.
The PRC media see no negative change will take place after the handover; in
fact, everything in Hong Kong will look brighter under the loving care of the
motherland. But those from the four English-speaking countries—the United
States, Britain, Australia, and Canada—predict that profound negative change
is likely to occur in political, if not economic, areas. Hong Kong and Taiwan
media, concerned with self-survival, are also negative but not as negative as the
western media. The content analysis confirms and sharpens the results of our
discourse analysis.
Discourse Analysis
For the most important part of our work, we take a constructionist approach to discourse analysis as developed by William Gamson and his associates (Gamson and Modigliani, 1987, 1989; Gamson et al., 1992) in an effort to
link media texts and broader ideological underpinnings of national prisms. We
first deconstruct stories that comprise each national media account into what
Gamson and Lasch (1983) call “signature matrix,” a device that lists the key
frames and links them to salient signifying devices. We then reconstruct their
major theses into genotypical categories—or what Gamson calls “ideological
packages” or “discursive packages”—replete with metaphors, exemplars, catch
14
Global Media Spectacle
phrases, depictions, visual images, roots, consequences, and appeals to principle. These frames serve as an organizing scheme with which journalists provide
coherence to their stories and through which some critical issues can be discussed and understood. Gitlin (1980: 7) writes, “Media frames, largely unspoken and unacknowledged, organize the world both for journalists who report it
and, in some important degree, for us who rely on their reports.” These frames
relate media texts to overall social and ideological contexts.
This analysis involves examining the text along the paradigmatic and syntagmatic dimensions (Fiske, 1982). The former calls for an examination of the
choices of textual units and their interrelationships within a news paradigm. We
focus on “macro” and “midlevel” units in terms of journalists’ choice of story details, quoted statements, metaphors, images and exemplars, as well as their source
dependence. The syntagmatic dimension concerns the placement of textual units
in a syntactic structure according to certain linguistic rules or the “story grammar” of an event (Pan and Kosicki, 1993; van Dijk, 1988). This dimension entails
three levels of abstraction, each forming a template for storytelling:
(1)
At the level of the story, we must first analyze the “macro structure” (van Dijk, 1988) or “story grammar” (Franzosi, 1989) of
news items—how signs are put together according to certain
rules. A regular news item consists of the headlines, the lead
paragraph, and the story (or event)—woven with actors, actions,
and consequences.
(2)
We must analyze how official event organizers author a “megastory” composed of a series of activities and events (with a cast
of actors and roles) leading up to the sovereignty transfer. This is
an analysis of the “superstructure” or “global structure” (van
Dijk, 1988).
(3)
We must analyze how, within this “global structure,” journalists
bring certain professional norms, journalistic paradigms (Bennett,
Gressett, and Haltom, 1985; Chan and Lee, 1991), and organizational routine (Tuchman, 1978) to make sense of the events.
In sum, we examine the narrative structure (headline, lead, main body, and
sources), the thematic structure (rules of citing sources and evidence to support
a theme), and the rhetorical structure (rules and conventions of using certain
symbolic resources to create meanings and cultural resonance) of media discourses (Pan and Kosicki, 1993).
We examine the texts of all sampled media organizations (Table 1.1), with
an estimated total of 7,600 print stories, hundreds of hours of television coverage, and supplemental magazine stories. Two of us on the team are responsible
for analyzing a country to achieve cross-verification. Frequent—initially, almost
Global Event, National Prisms
15
daily—communication is conducive to furthering our common understanding
about the framework for scrutinizing the discursive packages of each media system. We develop “country reports” based on cross-examining and traversing
media texts, interview transcripts, our “other knowledge,” and theoretical concepts. We make back-and-forth attempts at proposing alternative and supplemental interpretations to settle some conflicting hypotheses. For example, given
our understanding of the general literature, we were initially skeptical about a
claim made by a prominent CNN corespondent that his network is an objective
international entity not tied to U.S., or any, ideology. We nonetheless treated it
as a plausible hypothesis and reminded ourselves to pay special attention in the
discourse analysis to determine if there is a significant difference between the
ideological structure of CBS and CNN. We found little differences between
them and hence rejected his claim (see chapter 3). Painstaking and disciplined
cross-fertilization between theoretical concepts and different facets of data has
led to the development of thematic outlines as herein presented.
Framework for Analysis
News has to come from somewhere and somebody. It does not reveal itself
without human construction. Our framework for analysis, as sketched in Figure
1.1, highlights the following points:
1.
International news is a series of complex processes that involves
making political, economic, and cultural choices.
2. Each of these news processes is constrained by the political economy of the home country, as well as its role and place in the
larger international political economy.
3.
Event organizers, often the authorities, produce the first-order
script to structure the universe of news activities.
4.
Professional journalists, working for and within media organizations, write the second-order script as narratives based on
their observations and interpretations—within the constraints
mentioned above.
In essence, this volume consists of two major parts: chapters 2–4 deal with
the sociological, cultural, and ideological processes and strategies in the making of a global media event, while chapters 5–8 analyze the very stuff of life in
discursive contestation.3 The first part—the sociology of international media—
is important in its own right, but it also paves the way for the second part,
where national prisms are the central site of ideological wars.
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Global Media Spectacle
News Staging and News Agendas
The authorities outside the media set the news stage—ranging from the
controlled access, facilities and the infrastructure, to schedules and arranged
activities—that have a decisive influence on the news flow (chapter 2). The
nature of the event—whether prescheduled, conflict-ridden, or fast-paced—
varies. The first injunction of journalists is to stay with the facts; they cannot
portray a peaceful march as a bloody crackdown. Next, the configuration of
domestic and international forces shapes the parameters of potential news
topics within which journalists construct their narratives. Journalists transform occurrences into news agendas according to professional norms, orga-
Figure 1.1
Conceptual Scheme of Comparative International Media Discourses
Nature of event
News staging
Configuration of
international forces
News agenda
Configuration of
domestic forces
Home country
Domestication/
Globalization
Organizational/
personal constraints
Hyping/
Essentialization
Frames/Narratives
Global Event, National Prisms
17
nizational constraints, national values and orientations, and the law of the
market. The stronger nations tend to have a stronger media presence. The
media enjoy less latitude in setting the agenda if the organizers minutely
script the stage. All centralized authorities and dominant nations attempt to
control the flow and rhythm of news, even though they cannot completely
monopolize it.
Domestication and Globalization
Global news, about events happening in distant places, has to be brought
home through the process of “domestication” to make it familiar and intelligible to home audiences (chapter 3). The conversion of a global agenda into a
home agenda—that is, treating foreign news as an extension of domestic
news—starts out with selective framing of issues or topics through the lens of
professional norms, national interest, cultural repertoire, and market dynamics.
As the public is generally apathetic to international news, foreign correspondents must go to extra length in imparting relevance or adding entertainment
value to the story. This “domestic” perspective tends to be state-articulated “national” perspective, suppressing subnational, local differences. The extent to
which the global-scale media outlets (such as CNN and the BBC) can be free
from national ideological constraints bears further analysis.
Hyping and Essentialization
Hyping and essentialization are two processes by which news is domesticated and globalized (chapter 4). Hyping is a strategy for the media to reduce the gap between what is expected of a media event and scripted reality,
thus bringing to the forefront (and to make up for the lack of ) theatrical elements (such as conflict, competition, suspense, and emotion) to electrify the
audience. The resultant media product tends to portray a reality that is larger
than life. Intensified media competition in the commercial market has made
hyping an imperative in today’s news business. Essentialization means stripping an event to its core properties as if they were invariant and immutable;
the reductive and frozen narratives, often manifested in crude us-againstthem cliché, conceal many complex and contradictory contexts of reality. We
present a case analysis of essentialized narratives about nationalism and colonialism in chapter 7.
National Prisms: Frames and Narratives
Another core concern is to analyze international newsmaking as a form of
ideological contestation (chapters 5–8). As the end product of the news process,
these frames and narratives provide journalists with organizing coherence to
18
Global Media Spectacle
their stories, through which some critical issues can be discussed and understood. These frames help organize the world of events both for those who report
them as journalists and for those who consume such reports as audience. We
shall examine four outstanding discursive battles, each with internal skirmishes.
The first discursive battle is fought between the United States and the
PRC over grand ideologies and conflicting systems (chapter 5). The PRC
finds itself becoming the chief villain of the U.S. media in the post-Tiananmen era and in the post-Cold War order. Seeing Hong Kong through the ugly
mirror of the Tiananmen crackdown, they proclaim that the United States, as
a “new guardian,” will prevent Hong Kong’s fragile democracy and existing
freedoms from China’s abuse. Hong Kong will also play the “Trojan Horse”
role to subvert China’s authoritarian system. Television networks are particularly blatant.
Britain and the PRC, the two sovereign powers involved in the handover,
join the second discursive battle over the interpretations of colonialism and nationalism (chapter 6). China’s media essentialize British colonialism as inherently evil while touting Chinese nationalism as inherently supreme; this
narrative, while partially valid, loses sight of several key complex and paradoxical historical developments. The British media largely ignore their inglorious
colonial beginnings. Instead they de-essentialize the evilness of colonialism by
emphasizing that Hong Kong is Britain’s creation as a free, stable, and prosperous enclave against relentless turmoil in the PRC. They personify Governor Patten as democracy’s apostle who stands up to Communist bluster. These selective
historical depictions, while partially valid, typify what Said (1978, 1981, 1993)
portrays as the imperial construction of Orientalism.
The third discursive battle occurs within “Cultural China” over the meaning of Chinese nationalism, China, and Chinese (chapter 7). The state-controlled PRC media approach the handover primarily as a domestic issue with
global implications for national glory. Relying exclusively on domestic and
friendly sources, they construct China as a unified nation-state centered in
Beijing yet supposedly inclusive of global Chinese communities. The handover is a “national ceremony,” marking an end to western colonialism and a
beginning to national reunification. On the receiving end, Hong Kong media
treat the handover as the unfolding of a crucial chapter in local history, praying that global watch will keep the place out of Beijing-inflicted harm’s way.
A thriving democracy in search of identity, Taiwan media focus on “what’s
next” for the island nation.
The fourth discursive struggle concerns a supporting cast of the western
camp who seems to fight against the PRC and the United States at the same
time over the primacy of ideology and national interests (chapter 8). Both
Canada and Australia have become Hong Kong’s new diaspora, while Japan
has enormous economic interests in Hong Kong. Australia and Japan also em-
Global Event, National Prisms
19
phasize their “Asian identity.” This means that the “minor three” not only play
ideological variations on the western themes of democracy and human rights,
but also seek to advance their own economic and security interests that require
certain struggle against the U.S. policy.
Finally, we shall conclude this volume in chapter 9 with focused discussions on the implications—the structures, processes, consequences, and limits—of this discursive contestation in relation to media events in the age of
globalization.
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Chapter 2
News Staging
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
—Shakespeare, As You Like It
Staging is a transitory world of make-believe.
—Gerald Millerson (1982: 10)
For the foreign press, we won this battle. We were not just a side story on
July 1. In the foreign press, we were the focus. That was our intention.
—Lau Sai-leung, Senior Executive Officer,
the Democratic Party of Hong Kong
Help us stop 5 billion people being fed garbage.
—Advertisement by a PR consultant in the South China Morning
Post, referring to foreign journalists’ “rubbishing” Hong Kong
International journalism is performed on a local-cum-world stage. In the literal sense, the handover of Hong Kong’s sovereignty takes place at a specific
time and place. The date of July 1, 1997 was in a way set in 1842 by the Nanjing
Treaty and rectified in 1982 by the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The official
site makes Hong Kong a stage for the Chinese and British leaders to perform
courteous but strained rituals for the invited political and social dignitaries in
front of the mediated world audience. Symbolically, the Hong Kong handover is
also a stage for ideological contestation between East and West, and between
capitalism and socialism in the post-Cold War context. The media, representing
national discursive communities, are the principal reality constructors and ideological contestants.
We borrow from the literary and theatrical traditions the concept of stage
and apply it metaphorically to look at the acts of the world media and journalists in the context of regime change. We shall describe and analyze, at different levels, the various news gatherers and makers as well as media scenes as
21
22
Global Media Spectacle
components of a news stage. With news stage as a macroscopic framework to
visualize the roles of the media and journalists, we shall also use the literature
on media sociology to make sense out of their strategies and activities.
News Stage
In an early handbook on the production of plays, Nelms (1958) spells out
the essential theatrical elements as the stage, script, casting and actors, acting,
scenery, lighting, make-up, set design, and costumes. More broadly, this “art of
presentation” (Beckerman, 1990) encompasses the audience, the place (scene),
the performers, the “theatrical hierarchy” (managers and playwright), and
media or scholarly critics. The theory of dramatism (Gronbeck, 1980) notes
that not only do the actors perform according to the scripts written in languages
or symbols; other constituencies would then interpret the scripts via their
knowledge of cultural rules and significant symbols. Consequently, social
meanings and actions are produced within certain sociocultural contexts of
scenes. In the modern setup of a television studio, Millerson (1982: 10) describes controlling the staging as “whenever we deliberately arrange or contrive
a scene in front of the camera.” He further comments that “staging is a transitory world of make-believe, where the fantastic and the imaginary are given
substance, where for a brief while we build an illusion.” Staging can be used to
provide a background for a subject, to create an atmospheric effect, and to enhance a subject either by stressing its importance or by distracting our attention
from it.
Media are essential to staging a major international event like the Olympic
Games. The organization of games entails marketing, security, tourism, transport, volunteers, and everything else, but the media are assumed to be “the last
judges” of its success (Gratton, 1999: 122). The media televise rituals and symbols (the flame, torch, flag, ceremonies), prominent individuals and athletes,
events and performances—most importantly, they also make “numerous judgments about the host country and its society and how well the Games have been
organized” (pp. 130–131). That is why the Sydney Olympics in 2000 regard it
as a high priority to rectify the shortcomings of the press center in the 1996
Atlanta Olympics.
The best competition to a media event is another media event. At the time
of the Hong Kong handover, there are no other major crises brewing nearby or
elsewhere, so the world media can focus their attention on this tiny “giant” island-city. In June, it was rumored that Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge killer, had
been captured; the Associated Press for example reassigned half of its handover
staff to Cambodia, only to discover that it was a false alarm. Similar rumors
spread that hell had broken loose in North Korea, diverting some media atten-
News Staging
23
tion away from Hong Kong. But none of these events ultimately equals or
threatens the prominence of the handover.
First and foremost actors in staging the theatricals of the handover are the
Chinese and British governments, complete with their political showmanship.
Both sovereign powers’ clash of interests had been glaringly played out in the
public arenas of media diplomacy until the last end. Any details relating to the
handover must be carefully planned to avoid being elevated to a test of national
dignity. The flags used in the handover ceremony must be of equal size. Turquoise, politically neutral, is the chosen color of the handover logo. Media representations were judiciously negotiated. All other onlookers to the political
spectacle have their own interests at stake: the tourist industry intends to cash
in on the mania, after years of promotion, to make real profits; the business
community wants the goose to continue to lay golden eggs. For Hong Kong
people, after years of patient or impatient waiting, this day of reckoning has
come, exposing their fear and hopes to the world media.
The stage cannot be complete without the presence of the world media and
journalists as key observers and participants. The two sovereign powers set the
stage to aid and filter world media coverage, each competing to establish different agendas. They set the outer boundary conditions of media operation in terms
of schedule, activities, and primary content. They write the first-order script
(Dayan and Katz, 1992), within which the media build their own news stage and
write their own second-order scripts. The media’s “news net” captures the
essence of the event in ways that not only aim to win journalistic competition
but also reveal their deep-seated ideological assumptions. Metaphorically speaking, this news stage is made up of (a) various locations and scenes; (b) journalists and their organizations; (c) their sources and interviewees; and (d) their
scripted texts. This news stage allows the journalists to transform occurrences
into newsworthy stories for the public consumption.
Journalists do not have unlimited freedom in creating their news agenda.
For any event, there is a defined set of potential news topics for the journalists
to tap. News staging defines news agendas; the nature of the event and the configuration of domestic and international forces give slanted prominence to selected occurrences. The larger the event, the more difficult it is to block out all
competing social forces. The more concentrated is power distribution in society, the less likely the event will allow room for the competing social forces to
operate in a given society. Journalists have room for negotiation, but only
within given parameters.
Journalists, as professional storytellers, invoke their ideological premises
and professional codes to understand the events, ceremonies, people, institutions, and psychology, and finally to produce oral or visual texts accessible to
the public. Journalists seldom openly discuss their own work. Their ideological
framework is more often implicitly embedded in the larger culture, thus outside
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Global Media Spectacle
the range of critical reflection. A discursive struggle starts with the unmasking
of ideological assumptions that inform professional codes. A global-scale
media event engenders international discursive contestation over its causes,
processes, and consequences. This contestation, however, seems to consist of
a series of independent and parallel self-declarations by the media of their
national desires, hopes, fear, and agendas without fierce frontal attacks or
encounter of direct battles.
The GIS as Controlling Host
As the official host, the Government Information Services (GIS) in Hong
Kong is responsible for coordinating the government’s communication efforts
with local and foreign journalists. The 9,300-square-meter Press and Broadcast
Center (PBC), located in the newly expanded Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, is the main journalistic site to gather basic information for their
organizations back home. The PBC is officially open on June 15 and closed on
July 10, operating twenty-four hours a day. According to the GIS, the PBC provides 150 booths for use by the electronic media, more than 80 booths for the
print media, and a free-seating area that accommodates more than 600 journalists. There are also photo-finishing booths and snack counters.
The GIS accredits 8,423 media representatives from 778 organizations.
As Table 2.1 shows, Hong Kong contributes 2,816 (or one-third) to this pool;
many of them are TV reporters and technicians as well as freelancers. Local
media submit as many names as possible “just in case,” for accreditation does
not incur any cost or effort. The rest are from Japan (1,300 or 15 percent), the
United States (1,047 or 12 percent), Britain (688 or 8 percent), China (610
or 7 percent), and Taiwan (528 or 6 percent). Canada and Australia are more
modestly represented. According to a Japanese media specialist, Japanese TV
stations are notorious for sending a huge number of people to file reports
from abroad because they prefer not to work with local stations. There is no
precise breakdown of how many actually arrived, but by any measures the
total number remains astonishingly large. While the United States is third in
number of journalists, following Hong Kong and Japan, it is first in number
of media organizations represented. Hong Kong, Japan, and China have many
journalists but fewer media organizations; some media outlets dispatch a
large army of journalists. China’s state-run “Big Three” virtually monopolize
the entire team.
The PBC, which carries a price tag of U.S.$11 million and takes two years
to plan, is the largest of its kind ever built in Hong Kong. This huge physical
stage can be regarded as a symbolic backstage for world journalists to cover the
handover. The GIS has an information counter working around the clock during the span of PBC’s operation. Journalists located in the PBC can have 18
25
News Staging
Table 2.1
Number of Media Organizations and Journalists Registered
with the Handover Ceremony Coordination Office*
Country/Region
Number of Media
Organizations
Number of
Journalists
N
%
N
%
Hong Kong
Japan
USA
Britain
China
Taiwan
Australia/New Zealand
Canada
Other European countries
Other Asian countries
Other regions
106
45
108
63
16
42
34
22
233
91
18
13.6
5.8
13.9
8.1
2.1
5.4
4.4
2.8
29.9
11.7
2.3
2,816
1,300
1,047
688
610
528
159
76
727
441
31
33.4
15.4
12.4
8.2
7.2
6.3
1.9
0.9
8.6
5.2
0.4
Total
778
100.0
8,423
99.9
*Source: Handover Ceremony Coordination Office as of May 8, 1997
feeds from different venue locations around Hong Kong. They can book studios, editing suites, and a video library with record and playback facilities.
Some 400 kilometers of video and audio cables are used to link the broadcast
booths to the master control center. Over 40 tons of TV equipment is installed
in the technical nerve center for broadcasters to get signals and uplink to satellites for global distribution. Inside the PBC are information counters for the
Tourist Association and the Trade Development Council. Each accredited journalist receives a packet of souvenirs, information materials, a book promoting
Hong Kong’s economy, and even a belt pouch with six rolls of film and lens
cleansing kits. The GIS facilitates journalistic operation and promotes Hong
Kong’s tourism and business opportunities.
One notable arrangement inside the PBC is the size and location of official
media from China and Britain. Literally, CCTV and Xinhua (New China) News
Agency, symbolizing the new sovereign power, take the most prominent locations at the center stage of the PBC’s floor plan. CCTV occupies the largest
booth (540 square meters), paying a weekly rent of U.S.$13,000 and the total
renovation cost of U.S.$39,000. A neighboring area with the same size is originally saved for the BBC, but the BBC decides to make a low-key retreat by renting only two small units inside the PBC. (For comparison, Reuters rents seven
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Global Media Spectacle
units.) This space is ultimately assigned to a group of official Chinese media
including Xinhua News Agency, the People’s Daily, the PLA Daily and the
English-language China Daily. Our informants disclose that even if the BBC or
anyone else had offered top money, it would not have got the top spot anyway.
The BBC finally chooses the rooftop of the neighboring Academy of Performing Arts as its coverage headquarters. The Hong Kong government could not
promise the BBC to have the PBC early enough, and the BBC wants to have a
closed and secure site for its huge team, responsible for both its domestic and
world radio and TV broadcast services. The official TV representative of Hong
Kong, RTHK, is located in a relatively obscure position on the middle left side
of the PBC. Many reporters mill around the huge free-seating area, where they
gulp massive amounts of GIS handouts and watch a big TV screen to keep
abreast of various ongoing activities. A television producer, having overheard its
rival station’s conversation about “news budget” held in a thinly separated cubicle next door, sighs in relief, “We are doing OK.” Reporters from two poorer
Taiwan papers had initially fretted about having to rely heavily on organized
sources, but the event turns out to be so colorless that they scoff at their richer
colleagues for being overzealous.
The GIS arranges a program of 70 package tours for visiting media, including 30 briefings and 40 visits over a three-week period. Some 1,000 journalists attend the briefings, and 1,200 take part in the visits (Knight and
Nakano, 1999: 35). Since the news net “identifies some sources and institutions
as the appropriate location of facts and dismisses others” (Tuchman, 1978: 13),
the GIS is the most prominent source of information exerting decisive influence
on the media. Building on routine journalistic practices, the GIS generates a
form of manipulated journalism “for its instrumental value in the service of
particular interests” (Fishman, 1980: 15). The GIS facilitates foreign journalists in various ways: interviewing senior officials, visiting government departments and new constructions, and touring local industry and commerce as well
as “fun spots.” The most popular site to visit is the border that divides Hong
Kong and the mainland, where the People’s Liberation Army was to cross to
make its entry. The GIS has a team of 26 photographers going to all major
events in the last five days, who provide digitized photographs to all journalists
on the Internet free of charge (Ming Pao Daily News, June 6). The GIS is, in
effect, providing subsidized visual scripts to media “clients.”
As the major propaganda arm, the GIS is extraordinarily skilled in controlling the flow of government information and in “marshaling” the media.
The GIS establishes a website to facilitate information delivery but restricts the
number of journalists to various ceremonies. Media accreditation has a deadline on April 7; latecomers can partially use the PBC facilities but cannot apply
for attending the major ceremonies. Major officials convey their speeches to the
media via the GIS. The GIS releases a time schedule of daily events and the
News Staging
27
arrival time of major dignitaries from China and the United Kingdom. (The list
of VIP guests for the handover ceremony totals over 4,000 from more than 40
countries, since the Chinese side is eager for celebrating the international
“coronation,” while the British side hopes for a grand finale to mark a retreat in
glory.) One journalist complains that the operational details are too tightly but
unnecessarily controlled (Knight and Nakano, 1999: 40). Journalists schedule
their work around the official itinerary, as for example on the June 30 countdown day:
4:15 pm: Governor Patten and his family leave the Government House
6:15 pm: The Sunset Ceremony for the British administration
8:15 pm: Firework Display
9:00 pm: Reception Banquet
10:00 pm: Variety Show
12:00 pm: Handover ceremony
1:00 am: Royal Yacht Britannia departs
1:30 am: The Provisional Legislature swears in
5:00 am: The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) moves in
The only “nuisance” that received most eager media attention is the staged
protest by the Democratic Party in the immediate wake of the handover ceremony and before the swearing-in of the Provisional Legislature (see below).
Journalists remonstrate about Beijing’s “closed door” policy, but praise
the GIS for trying to wear them down by helping to secure five to six interviews
a day. Kristi Khockshorn of the San Jose Mercury News observes: “You call
people here nine at night and they are at their desks working . . . Everybody
from the PR section calls me back at midnight.” AP’s Marcus Eliason echoes,
“They are on the board. They give you accurate information, quick, the transcripts of the speeches; the trips they organize are very useful.” However, Yau
Shing-mu of the Hong Kong Economic Times opines that the GIS provides
good daily routine help (such as looking for phone numbers) but is not forthcoming with in-depth information. Even the invited guest list to the handover
ceremony was not released until after it was over.
Competing for Media Attention
Besides the GIS, numerous social organizations and political groups vie
for media attention to promote their causes. In the days leading up to the handover, the media-savvy Democratic Party holds different types of street shows,
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Global Media Spectacle
concerts, talks, and exhibitions. Other activist groups of different ideological
stripes take advantage of the presence of foreign journalists by staging protests
near the handover ceremony site. The police have to block off several streets
next to the Convention Center and designate a small site for the demonstrators
200 yards away so that they would not see or be seen by the invited guests.
Nearby newsstands are suspended.
Led by the most eloquent English-speaking lawyer Martin Lee, the Democratic Party stages a protest on the balcony of the Legislative Council Building
right after the handover ceremony and before the swearing-in ceremony of the
Provisional Legislature on the midnight of July 1. The event is carefully timed
to occur in the brief span when television camera is momentarily not captivated
by official proceedings. The site, a stately and photogenic building perfect for
visual attraction, is chosen to tell the world that the democrats have been driven
out from the PRC-installed body that displaces the elected legislature. A senior
party official admits that they orchestrated this event with the foreign media in
mind (Knight and Nakano, 1999: 43). Moreover, Lee delivers his speech in Cantonese and in English, with somewhat different emphasis and tone, to satisfy different needs of the local and foreign media. The Democratic Party has two
slogans; the foreign media harp on “Fight for Democracy,” whereas the local
press finds “Support the Return of Sovereignty” also palatable. The Party considers it a coup for Lee to be quoted by English-language newspapers—invariably praised as a “democracy hero”—more often than Prince Charles and the
incoming Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa on July 1. But the headline on the
cover of an earlier edition of the South China Morning Post magazine reads:
“Martyr Lee.”
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC), headed by the Washington
Post’s local bureau chief Keith Richburg, also sets itself up as a miniature news
stage; it creates and legitimates news agendas by sponsoring seminars and
press conferences with a parade of local and foreign personalities. Parachute
journalists, new to Hong Kong and lacking linguistic competence, find such
staged news of particular benefit (chapter 3). Resident correspondents, many of
whom claim to be independent loners rather than members of the news pack,
nonetheless tend to clarify and reinforce their shared definition of news through
press conferences and informal social contacts (Bennett, 1996). We find journalists well aware of the range and quality of their colleagues’ work. Even Edward Gargan of the New York Times, a self-proclaimed loner, admits that he
occasionally shares observations and insights with other colleagues. The
British Guardian correspondent credits the New York Times and the Washington
Post for doing more thorough coverage thanks to their abundance of resources.
These leaders in the pecking order are treated so reverentially that their accounts helped to set the basic tone of news agendas for the U.S. if not world
media. The FCC may play a dual function akin to Crouse’s (1973) description
News Staging
29
of U.S. journalists on the campaign trail who compete, compare notes, and
swap tales with one another. News is a mutually confirming process; the
agenda is intersubjectively constituted by members of the journalistic community (Zelizer, 1993). Consequently, certain events receive more prominence,
while others fall into obscurity.
In one of the FCC’s guest-studded seminars, the speaker is a local banker
who takes a pro-China stand. We find that about 30 journalists are present,
mostly from the English-language media, one from Kyodo News Agency, and
one crew from Hong Kong’s ATV. While many journalists ask the banker about
the property market and economic situation in Hong Kong, an unidentified
journalist (probably just parachuted from abroad) asks him if he is a member of
the Communist Party. The banker announces that he is a citizen of the United
States. His agenda was to release a packet of survey findings conducted by the
Asia Society (of which he is chair) depicting Hong Kong people as increasingly
optimistic about their future. He also tries to blame Governor Chris Patten and
the Democratic Party chief Martin Lee for presenting a bad image of Hong
Kong overseas. We doubt any news organization would pay him much respect;
at best, veteran journalists would treat his remarks as background statements to
be inserted into a larger story as a show of balance and depth. Those from proBeijing papers, if they had been present, might have been more than happy to
use him to denigrate Patten and Lee. We check the South China Morning Post
(June 20), which carries a short story about the talk, with a markedly skeptical
title: “Tycoon on the Offensive.”
In a relatively open environment of diverse interests and perspectives, the
media can subvert the intentions of various major organized groups so far as
these fora and symposia are concerned. While the GIS coordinates numerous
field trips to impress journalists from abroad, some local social workers want
to expose social problems by taking them to slum areas to see the poor live in
a “cage.” To mold a more favorable opinion environment for the handover, the
pro-Beijing Foundation for a Better Hong Kong Tomorrow had been inviting
journalists from midsized cities in the heartland of the United States to take
paid visits to the territory since 1996. Now this foundation is also sponsoring
seminars and symposia for journalists but, for credibility’s sake, finds itself
having to invite its ideological opponents to share the limelight, even sharing
the same speakers with the FCC. On these occasions, the media habitually
shower attention on democracy activists to the neglect of pro-China sources
whom the sponsors mean to spotlight. Parachute journalists, brought in for the
occasion, are, however, more vulnerable to the manipulation of activist groups
(see chapter 3).
Apart from the FCC, the Freedom Forum also sponsors a number of talks
and seminars for the media right before the handover date. For example, CNN’s
Mike Chinoy gives a speech organized by the Freedom Forum on May 6. Earlier
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Global Media Spectacle
in March, the Freedom Forum had a luncheon talk featuring the editor of the Far
Eastern Economic Review. Other stage-setters include the Hongkong Telecom
that provides more than 1,500 phone lines, 275 fax lines, more than 200 telex
lines, 300 video lines, private exclusive lines, mobile phone and pager rental services. In addition, it has three satellites for worldwide broadcast, and two-thirds
of the world’s population can directly pick up their signals.1 Physically adjacent
to the PBC is the Academy of Performing Arts that rents out its rooftop,
equipped with satellite dishes, to more than 50 media organizations, including
the BBC. DHL Worldwide Express begins to pick up brisk business in early
June, for reporters have to send photos and materials back home.
The Broadcast Feed: A Stage of Mini Struggle
The broadcast arrangements for the handover ceremonies were an act of
political wresting in the Sino-British Liaison Committee. The BBC and CCTV,
designated representatives of the two sovereign states, were to be official coproducers of live footage of the major events and handover ceremonies for free
satellite transmission to the rest of the world. Our informants reveal that the
BBC, acutely aware of the fact that even when it takes charge on June 30 it will
have no significant role to play after the next day, has been inclined from the
start to let the local television take the lead. The PRC was reluctant to concede
the primacy to Hong Kong on grounds of national sovereignty; not until the last
moment did CCTV relinquish that control, realizing that local people can do a
better job. So a local television consortium, led by RTHK with the three local
broadcasters (TVB, ATV, and cable) as members, takes over the responsibility
to produce the core feed. The BBC remains in the consortium as an associate
member but CCTV refuses to be part of it and wants to make productions of
its own. In the end, the BBC agrees to take up the Sunset Ceremony at Tamar
and the leaving of the royal yacht Britannia, while CCTV covers the official establishment of the SAR and the PLA’s incoming. Nevertheless, the whole
episode gives a glimpse into Hong Kong’s awkward roles between the hegemonic PRC and the sunset British.
The BBC focuses on the Flag Lowering Ceremony and the Sunset Ceremony as a dignified retreat. They report the demonstration by the democrats
while ignoring the swearing-in of the Provisional Legislature. The moving in
of the PLA troops is done live but negatively covered. The core feed supplied
by the Hong Kong TV consortium also shows a memorable farewell with
friends and well-wishers of Chris Patten, with his daughters’ tearful eyes. For
Fiona Andersen, the bureau chief, the top story is the departure of the British
entourage, Prince Charles’s speech, and the ceremony itself. The second story
turns immediately to the new regime and the problems it will face, airing the
News Staging
31
speech by Martin Lee in the Legislative Council balcony. In contrast, CCTV
pays little attention to the lowering of the Union Jack and other British ceremonial rituals. It covers the swearing-in ceremony, praises the PLA, ignores
the protests, and highlights the celebration activities in Beijing and other parts
of the world.
In the end, the television consortium delivers 96 hours of live broadcast
from June 29 midnight until July 2 midnight, involving ten crews, 76 video
cameras, and more than 300 people. It also has 48 hours of nonstop broadcast
over the Internet. From June 23 to early July, over nine million people have
visited the consortium’s Internet site, and a quarter million have watched or
listened to the live broadcast. (During the 48 hours on June 30 and July 1,
more than six million people visited the consortium’s website.) Among the
audience, 20% are from Hong Kong, 31% from the United States, 16% from
Canada, 14% from Australia, 11% from Malaysia, 4% from China, and 2%
from Britain (Leung, 1997). The handover is truly a staged international
media event, and the distribution of audience reveals not only the Internet
strength of individual countries but also their psychological affinity toward
this spectacle.
The Media as Stages
While the GIS and other organizations set the stages for the handover, the
media as participants construct different stages for the political actors to perform. We can differentiate the print media from the broadcast media (basically
TV) as two stage environments, and also the local media as a stage to assist the
foreign media acquainted with the Hong Kong scene.
Television
The biggest challenge for television is a technical one. Local TV does not
have to remind its viewers of the political and historical significance of the
handover; instead it prefers to let them “see everything for and by themselves.”
Live coverage and technical excellence overwhelm substance. To fill up its airtime, CNN tries to showcase a troop of key players on all sides of the political
fence, hiring a full-time person to book interviews. Its comprehensive coverage
is an important point of reference for parachute journalists. To Mike Chinoy, its
Hong Kong bureau chief, the handover is “a bit of a logistical nightmare.”
Bringing in 70,000 pounds of equipment from the United States, CNN has to
make sure that cameras will catch the events as they are happening; the sheer
mechanics of getting the right technical stuff, the right camera, the right people
at the right place and the right time is a formidable challenge. Chinoy says that
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Global Media Spectacle
he spends a lot of time fighting with the handover committee for the right to
do a stand-up commentary before camera in addition to getting a picture of the
ceremony from the pool. Since there is not much chance to flaunt its breakingnews specialty, CNN ends up doing a lot of profiles, analyses, and features. A
producer flies in from Congo to team up with its senior European correspondent in the filming of a local bartender with a king cobra tattooed on his arm in
a tattoo parlor. Another CNN team spends half a day trying to find a restaurant
willing to be filmed for serving snake and lizard on the menu.
The BBC’s team of 180 people is, as a senior management describes it,
“one of the most ambitious projects we have ever attempted in every respect.”
The BBC builds a studio in Britain, ships it to Hong Kong, and spends four
months to install it on the rooftop of the Academy of Performing Arts, guarding it against possible typhoons. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) provides technical infrastructures for 66 European member stations in 54
countries, but editorial coverage is the responsibility of individual members.
EBU has a master broadcast control room for its members to share. It ensures
proper functioning of satellites, phone lines and fax machines, and tries to meet
different requests from member stations.
CCTV’s 300-strong staff, including reporters and technicians, began to arrive in 1996. A building was bought for use as their dormitory. Beijing dispatches its own people to handle CCTV’s local transportation and travel to
mainland cities, to protect the security of their booth at the PBC—and to cook
daily meals for 300 people. CCTV erects in its booth a 1.5-meter-high photo,
along with a huge model, of Hong Kong as a background for live broadcast, so
the presenters can point out places such as the arrival of the PLA. Everyone
speaks from a completely written and preapproved script, but the anchor tries
to read it as if it were “live.”
Hong Kong’s TVB had intended to hire helicopters to cover the entry of
the PLA in the early morning of July 1, but darkness, cloud interference, and
insufficient microwave links made it infeasible. TVB’s “war plan” looks like a
huge spiderweb of high-cost communication lines and points connecting its
headquarters, the PBC, and different venues. The setup, with the help of additional optical fibers and mobile crews, is more complex than anything TVB has
ever attempted, as its news manager Carmen Luk stresses: “The most important
thing is to ensure the infrastructure is well built.”
The resource-poor television stations must try to impose stringent order
on the news schedule by producing canned programs well in advance. The
Hong Kong-based CTN, having not enough equipment and cameras, makes
100 fillers of 30-second MTV-style films, statistics, Q & A, and sound bites
from the audience for use between scheduled events. Taiwan’s TTV prelists 35
story ideas for June 23 to 27, each with assigned reporters, a story outline, and
a target date for completion and airing. The local cable television organizes
News Staging
33
professional and public fora to fit its “transition in people’s heart” theme.
RTHK prerecords its regular programs early on to free up resources.
The Print Media
The newspaper is more analytical and contextual than television. TV stories can whet some audience’s appetite so they will look for more information
in the newspaper. On the other hand, television can also create what Lazarsfeld
and Merton (1948) call “narcotizing dysfunction,” so the public mistakes superficial knowledge for action. Jan Wong of the Globe and Mail considers what
she does is “sociology in the daily news.” Graham Hutchings of the Daily Telegraph, as a historian, finds the Hong Kong story very “absorbing, interesting,
and fantastic” to cover, as his job is not only to report what happened yesterday
but to explain it in context. Most western media try to explain Hong Kong in
the China context.
Chris Wood of Maclean’s puts it nicely, “The actual story is before, after,
and around.” Before: Go back to 156 years ago when Hong Kong was ceded.
After: What will happen? Around: What is going on in Guangzhou, Shanghai,
Beijing, and Taipei? With the transition seemingly smooth and peaceful, many
western journalists—such as those from the Associated Press, the San Jose
Mercury News, and Canada’s Southam News—set their eyesight on the future:
What will happen a year from now? Can Tung handle it? Will Hong Kong remain upbeat? Will China suppress the Democratic Party? The New York Times
has been working on a series of “Waiting for China” projects. International
(Newsweek and Time) and regional (Far Eastern Economic Review and Yazhou
Zhoukan) newsmagazines publish a number of cover stories or special issues,
as the date of the handover is drawing near. Asahi Shimbun vividly compares
Japan’s orderliness with Hong Kong’s order-within-chaos and China’s complete chaos.
Local Media as “Clues”
Many journalists take cues from the English-language South China
Morning Post, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and to a lesser extent the Hong
Kong Standard. Those who read Chinese get information, rumors, and story
leads from major local Chinese-language newspapers. Major local media
inform foreign correspondents of the basic community concerns, foreign coverage feeds back into the local circuit, and news spawns news in the globallocal nexus. Kristi Khockshorn of the San Jose Mercury News admits that she
only knows about the illegal immigrants as a big issue in Hong Kong after
reading the South China Morning Post, as the wires do not write much on it.
TV Asahi gets news ideas from the local media, and they do follow-up stories.
ITN admits to receiving helpful advice and source materials from the local
34
Global Media Spectacle
media, while the BBC also hires many local journalists whose families and
friends the network can film. Most sophisticated journalists read such political
journals as the Nineties Monthly, Zheng Ming (Contending), and Kaifang
(Open) for indepth and critical analysis. Many foreign journalists get the daily
GIS news summary of the local Chinese-language media. They also read the
local China-controlled Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po to decipher Beijing’s
rhetoric and motives.
The Apple Daily and Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) deserve special mention. As a vulgarly populist paper thriving on commodifying antiBeijing sentiments, the Apple Daily is seen as a test case of press freedom;
many foreign journalists rush to its premises to take pictures and ask its reporters whether they are “afraid” of China’s takeover. Its publisher, Jimmy
Lai, whom Beijing detests, is a darling of the western media; even CNN does
a live interview with this paper’s political editor. RTHK, a government arm,
has established itself as a source of high credibility (top-ranked in public
opinion polls) in the last two decades by modeling after the BBC’s professionalism, but for this very reason it has been assaulted by the Beijing authorities and pro-Beijing figures in Hong Kong. ITN films the making of
RTHK’s controversial current affairs program “Headliner,” which is often
satirical of the Hong Kong government and the PRC. Whether RTHK will be
allowed to continue as usual is a burning question for the western media.
Given its former pro-British background and now being suspected of selfcensorship, the South China Morning Post also courts journalistic attention as
an indicator of the political wind. Edward Gargan of the New York Times
(April 18) and Joseph Kahn of the Wall Street Journal (April 22) develop
lengthy and widely discussed reports on the softened voices of the SCMP and
Ming Pao Daily News.
Media Sociology
Many local journalists prepare for the worst but hope for the best, so far as
Hong Kong’s future is concerned. The best-case scenario, as outlined by Anson
Chan in a speech delivered in Manila two months before the handover, is this
newspaper headline: “Hong Kong goes back to China; Nothing happens.” A
local TV news editor puts it: “You get up early in the morning (on July 1),
Nathan Road did not turn into Liberation Road.” But for the foreign journalists
“nothing happens” would be a disastrous anticlimax. They had scripted all sorts
of scenarios beforehand, knowing what to look for, who to talk to, and what
kind of events to cover. BBC’s James Miles observes that journalists’ diaries
are well written out because the handover itself, with saturated coverage,
“scripted all the way down to the second in the grand hall.” The western media
News Staging
35
expected Martin Lee to get arrested and the People’s Liberation Army to provoke a major confrontation, but in the end, the better wish of local journalists
comes true; the transition is smooth.
Competition
Competition is the engine of news business. The wire services pride themselves on beating their rivals by minutes or seconds. The local bureau of the Associated Press assigns junior reporters the task of monitoring Reuters and AFP.
The BBC television competes with ITN at home; the BBC World Service considers CNN (television) and the Voice of America (radio) as its chief competitors. The BBC headquarters takes satisfaction in airing, before ITN does, an
interview with Tung Chee-hwa. After the BBC does a piece on Lantau Island,
its reporters bump into an ITN reporter interviewing the same person, so the
BBC arranges to run the piece one day ahead of ITN. A satellite television news
team from Taiwan decides to do 37 hours of live coverage from June 30 to July
1, just to beat its competitor, CTN, by one hour (Yazhou Zhoukan, May 19).
On the other hand, journalists have to bow to the pressure of standardization (Bennett, 1996; Zelizer, 1993). There may be some kind of “herd journalism” in which several thousands of journalists interview a few dozen people. It
is not uncommon for them to seek mutual aid in updating and providing incidental information, giving referrals and “global leads,” as well as exchanging
gossip (Crouse, 1973; Fishman, 1980). Mutual back-scratching and pooled resources are all the more pronounced when covering in a foreign land an event
too huge for anyone to do it all. Reporters sometimes compare notes. Kristi
Khockshorn of the San Jose Mercury News admits, “You share with your community, but you do not share with outside your community. You steal the
sources, see other people’s stories, and see who sounds intelligent. You definitely steal. I see CNN, and I write down the name of the people they interview
for different subjects.” Before arriving in Hong Kong, many Canadian journalists—from noncompeting organizations—got together to exchange information
and to enlarge personal contacts, vowing to be in touch while there. The Liberty
Times from Taiwan teams up with the western media—to compensate for its
weaker resources—through the friendship its deputy chief editor had made
with leading western colleagues while translating their books into Chinese. In
return, his western partners profit from his expert knowledge of Chinese economy. Cable TV in Hong Kong has a partnership deal with CNN to exchange
news and feature programs about the handover. The Wall Street Journal is assisted by its subsidiary, the Hong Kong-based Asian Wall Street Journal; so is
Taiwan’s TVBS backed by its parent company TVB in Hong Kong. But Edward Gargan of the New York Times claims that he is happiest when he is alone
and out in the jungle.
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Global Media Spectacle
The Hong Kong stories are too routine to get a scoop or to be scooped.
Andrew Higgins of the Guardian thinks of them as “bordering on the impossible of finding anything new to write about,” but journalists still closely watch
their competitors’ moves. Rarely do print journalists regard television reporters
as their direct competitors and vice versa. The competition is likely to be most
fierce between rival oligopolies, such as the Apple Daily and the Oriental Daily
News in Hong Kong, ITN and the BBC in Britain, and the China Times and the
United Daily News in Taiwan. They bring forward rather homogeneous stories,
though with a certain degree of product differentiation. An ITN reporter considers his organization as more light footed and fresher, while BBC as more
worthy and stodgy in approach. The China Times is perceived to report more
about the mainland and Hong Kong, while the United Daily News is more interested in the Taiwan-Hong Kong relationship. In Hong Kong, Cable TV does
not regard the terrestrial ATV and TVB as a threat.
Competition can be won by getting exclusive stories, coming up with
original feature-story ideas, or making small scoops on details (Gans, 1979).
Since Beijing controls the “first-order script” (Dayan and Katz, 1992) of the
event and did not finalize the arrangements until the last moment, the media are
left to construct their own “second-order script.” With little chance of getting a
big scoop, journalists are not terribly keen on documenting the mundane details. In search of colorful stories tailored for domesticated consumption, journalists also become spectators to the tightly controlled extravaganza of official
ceremonies. Without substantive competition, it is customary for the Taiwanese
press to overwhelm their rivals with more space, which the editors take as a
sign of victory.
Reporting Strategies
Major western media have sent in additional reporters to join forces with
those already stationed regularly in Hong Kong. Many outlets have hired a
mixed lot of local assistants. Some media have worked out detailed plans in advance, others simply follow their intuitive “noses for news.” These differences
notwithstanding, they invariably follow the principle of domestication (chapter
3) and build their “news net” around seven principles:
■
Get big names. Favorite names include Governor Patten, Chief Executive Tung, and democracy advocates (Martin Lee and Emily
Lau). Martin Lee has to attend two to three hour-long press conferences every day in order to satisfy “thousands” of requests from
journalists. The leader of a pro-Beijing party, Tsang Yok-shing,
has been meeting the press frequently since March and sometimes
has to grant five interviews per day. The news net is set up to catch
News Staging
the big fish—not the small fish, let alone shrimps—but the less
prestigious media cannot have access to these media celebrities
who are either too busy or very selective in granting interviews.
Many foreign journalists are left empty-handed.
■
Interview “relevant” people, especially one’s own official representatives and expatriate communities. Canadian journalists would
hunt for the Canadian commissioner in Hong Kong, and Japanese
reporters would look for Japanese expatriates there. U.S. Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright, as the de facto spokesperson of the
western world, is a prized source for the American and other western media. The PRC media only seek out the pro-China people,
while Taiwanese reporters would find people inclined to air a pessimistic view of the handover.
■
Talk to other journalists when “real” sources are unavailable. The
Liberty Times of Taiwan, for example, interviews the BBC’s bureau chief in Beijing and ABC’s diplomatic correspondent. Many
foreign journalists seem to take cues from the English-language
South China Morning Post. Resident correspondents may read
local political journals. Jan Wong of the Globe and Mail is interviewed by ABC News, the U.S. network, for her feature stories on
“cheungsam” (Chinese gown); the South China Morning Post interviews her for her recent book on China.
■
Cover the media phenomenon if there is no real news. Editors in
New York or London are bombarded with so many pictures and stories as to think of them as something interesting. Andrew Higgins
of the Guardian said stories he filed normally would be cut in half,
but the handover stories get printed twice as large as the “usual”
size. The active international media presence heightens the level of
the event’s perceived significance more than what it really is.
■
Interview the street people to put a human face on the story. The
supply of these “sources” is virtually unlimited, but western journalists tend to pursue English-speaking people. Linguistic barriers
may prove formidable for low-budget media organizations that cannot afford an interpreter’s help to interview “ordinary” street people.
■
Make use of stereotypes to typify events and people (chapter 4). It is
reported that an Australian network hopes to find “a pro-mainland
spokesman who would appear belligerent,” and a Norwegian broadcaster is seeking “an elderly colonial Brit with an intelligence background who is upset about what’s going on” (Far Eastern Economic
37
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Global Media Spectacle
Review, July 10). South China Morning Post (May 2) takes an informal count of stories in selected western newspapers. Out of 237
headlines about Hong Kong from 10 prominent newspapers from
the U.S., Britain, and Canada between March 1 and April 29, 89 are
negative, 32 positive, and the other 116 neutral. A local reporter
notes that western colleagues “always report the pessimistic side”
and “discard the not-too-bad opinions when they ask people how
they feel about the future of Hong Kong” (Yazhou Zhoukan, July 7).
These stereotypes are consonant with core values and not likely to
be challenged by the public (Nimmo and Combs, 1990; Said, 1981).
■
“Peg” the news to special dates and “hype” the event. News peg is
the use of a recent event or a public official’s statement as a “handle”
to “hang” stories (Gans, 1979: 168). In the handover saga, certain
dates are given special significance. For example, the Independent
focuses on the last 100 days and begins to print stories about the
Hong Kong handover; TVBS starts the “100 days countdown”; the
Ming Pao Daily News officially kicks off the coverage on the same
day. Typical of many television stations, the BBC did special reports
on days marking one year, six months, and a week before the handover. Kyodo News pegs its articles to three years before the handover, then two years, one year, six months, one hundred days, three
months, two months, and one month. TV Asahi plans to do a special
“one month after the handover in Hong Kong.”
Given the media logic, the set of people (mostly from the elite plus a few
“ordinary” persons) to be interviewed by the journalists is small. The pool of
news sources are rather homogeneous among western media, but the PRC
media’s heavy reliance on domestic and pro-China sources indicates little overlap with the sources of western media. The news rhythm of the scripted event
is decidedly slow, while the spot news is boring. Deprived of any real scoop
and tired of the rituals and government planned tours, many journalists are keen
to develop nonscheduled soft stories—the British “color” stories or the American “mood” pieces. Being “there” to see and feel it, journalists provide a personal touch to hook up with the audience. They are keen to describe the
thunderstorm falling when ordinary people line up outside the Government
House to bid farewell to Patten. Perhaps hoping to invoke his audience’s familiar image of the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, a TV reporter
from South Korea points his camera and places his palm against one of the concrete pillars of the barbed-wire fence built to halt illegal immigrants at the
Hong Kong-China border. He then explains: “This is the border between capitalism and communism” (Far Eastern Economic Review, July 10). Jan Wong of
News Staging
39
the Globe and Mail writes about the gay bars, the souvenir craze on stamps, the
subway passes, and the elevator closing seconds earlier than elsewhere as a
sign of quick life tempo. She also recounts her having a last afternoon tea in the
Peninsula Hotel in the old colonial tradition. The “side stuff” is not necessarily
less ideologically loaded.
Conclusion
Power is reflected in the sociology of news organization, which also affects the media content. There are event-centered, journalist-centered, and organization-centered theories to explain how occurrences are transformed into
news (Gans, 1979: 78-79). But all these factors have to operate within larger
contextual factors—including technology, economy, politics, and culture—that
lie outside the boundary of the news organization. This chapter has dealt with
the play of power between journalists and their sources: journalists cultivate
sources to gain information, whereas the sources seek to publicize certain
events or influence news agendas. The GIS as the official organizer and centralized news source is not shy about taking advantage of its privileged status
and from profiting from its interaction with the media. Other nongovernmental
organizations also enter the fray to have their say. The local media serve their
audience and play host to the foreign media. Journalists are constantly battling
for scoop and speed, but sometimes may help each other out in small ways.
They have developed reporting strategies to deal with different situations, even
for a much scripted and predictable event like the handover.
The availability of resources determines the size of reporting teams, ranging widely in numbers from hundreds (such as China’s state-run television) to
tens, to several, to a lone stringer. Many resource-poor journalists collaborate
with colleagues from a different type of medium who are not direct competitors, or those from other countries—and better yet, with the local media. Major
outlets call upon their Beijing correspondents, in addition to those from the
home headquarters, to reinforce the effort of the Hong Kong bureau. Many
media outlets use CNN cuts or wire stories, which approach the global status.
On the other extreme is Epicentrum, a news organization from Czechoslovakia,
which rents a small office (also used as living quarters for the four reporters)
in a village house in the outlying island of Cheung Chau. It can only afford to
use a computer, a secondhand TV, a Beta VCR, and two digital cameras, to produce feature stories and analyses (but no live coverage) for its domestic media
clients. The four reporters came in November 1996 and hope to stay until the
end of 1997 (Apple Daily, June 30).
In the sociology of journalism, a striking feature is predominant interest
in people, especially when the event itself proves to be inadequately
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Global Media Spectacle
attractive. TV stories need to have faces and images, and people are the best
vehicle to convey meanings and emotions of remote foreign events in personal terms. “Everything must be about people, about human beings, then
everyone will be interested,” notes Steve Vines of the Independent. People
orientation is useful for lesser organizations such as the Baltimore Sun to
produce dramatic human-interest stories, leaving formal and stately ceremonies to the wire services. If there is a central theme, the Southam News
correspondent says, it is “what Hong Kong people feel about this.” The South
China Morning Post’s Chris Yeung echoes: “For the media as a whole, the
handover was about how 6 million people felt about the changes.” The Ming
Pao Daily News also wants to capture the feelings of the general public. Unlike the historians who have the luxury of sitting in a nice office to read what
the journalists write about, the journalists often write about what is happening under great pressure. The first drafts of history that journalists are writing
always start with people and events.
Chapter 3
Domestication of Global News
One of our great problems is to make some people in Pakistan, in Hong
Kong, in Iowa, the head of the CIA, the Russian Foreign Ministry, all understand the (handover) stories and learn something from them.
—Mike Chinoy, Hong Kong Bureau Chief, CNN
I am sure that on the night of the handover I would be looking for someone from San Jose.
—Kristi Khockshorn, Correspondent, San Jose Mercury News
For Britons and Americans, the Hong Kong storyline is simple: The
place is going down the tube after 1 July.
—Jonathan Fenby, Editor, South China Morning Post
Newsweek produces a cover story on Hong Kong, as the handover approaches. The international issue is a “souvenir issue” whose cover portrays
Hong Kong as a “Land of Survivors” against the backdrop of its towering skyscrapers, but the U.S. edition features the face of a female model blindfolded
with a red ribbon, asking “China Takes Over Hong Kong—Can it Survive?”
People wonder why Newsweek has two different covers for the same story. Is it
not a blatant example of western attempts at “demonizing” China?
Rarely can a foreign topic make the domestic cover story of Newsweek. A
foreign topic, with the notable exception of Princess Diana, has invariably hurt
the magazine’s newsstand sales in the United States. Maynard Parker, the
editor-in-chief of Newsweek, admits that China is the international news that
causes the least decrease in circulation, and the handover of Hong Kong is seen
primarily as a China story. But then even the grim irony of Hong Kong coming
into China’s possession, against the world trend of collapse of Communist
regimes since 1989, is judged not enough to “grab” the attention of the American audience, so Parker decides that throwing in a question mark may “energize” the cover story. Apparently, the uncertainty this question mark implies is
41
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Global Media Spectacle
controversial and yet quite in tune with the prevailing political culture of the
United States that tends to cast doubt over the future of a capitalist jewel
snatched by the Communists. This story typifies how a global media event is
“domesticated.”
Bases and Processes
Globalization, a useful yet elusive concept, has its fair share of supporters
and skeptics. World economy, politics, and culture are becoming more interdependent, but also with sharpened disparity between center and periphery on the
globalized stage. It is widely accepted that globalization brings about “the
time-space compression of the world” (Tomlinson, 1999) and the “intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole” (Robertson, 1992). To Giddens
(1991: 63) globalization is the consequence of modernity marked by the increased level of “time-space distanciation” and “the intensification of social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are
shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.” Waters (1995:
3) defines globalization as “a social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become
increasingly aware that they are receding.”
Globalization and localization are a pair of conceptual opposites that at the
same time imply each other (Chan, 2002; Chan and Ma, 2002). Globalization
represents the universalization of the particular, whereas localization is the particularization of the universal; one cannot be divorced from the other. Local happenings may move in an obverse direction from the very distanciated relations
that shape them, and local transformation is as much a part of globalization.
While time and space have been compressed in this globalized world, they have
not been eliminated (Wang et al., 2000). The perspective of globalization tends to
exaggerate the extent of deterritorialization, with references to “the end of geography” and “the end of sovereignty” (Scholte, 1996: 51). The very existence of
time and space is an important basis for locality to assert its influence in the midst
of globalization, because locality anchors cultural meanings of a discursive community through shared language, experience, and knowledge. Robertson (1992)
and Featherstone (1995) therefore use “glocalization” to capture the mutually
constituting and dialectical nature of the global and the local.
One of the most vexing questions in this formulation is: How “local” is
“local”? The global system of international relations consists of a network of
nation-states (Giddens, 1985). In the international discursive terrain, the “local”
is most likely to be the “national” that is tied to domestic political authority and
interests at the expense of subnational differences (Sreberny-Mohammadi,
1991). Globalization may have weakened national feelings to some extent, but
Domestication of Global News
43
nation-states remain very relevant in contemporary politics. Nationalism has
seen a rapid revival in Eastern and Central Europe after the collapse of Communism, while instability of a nation-state in Yugoslavia has triggered intense
and often destructive subnational “identity” struggles, leading to ethnic cleansing and religious strife. Instead of viewing globalization as “a process that uniformly subverts the national,” the nation-states are thus regarded as “powerful
players in the process of constructing the global” (Sreberny-Mohammadi et al.,
1997: xi).
Given the inexactness of “the local,” we posit the concept of “domestication” to refer to the way that journalists try to transform global events, through
adaptation, into the relevance structure of a national home audience in accordance with the primary definitions of the nation-state. In this context, the
metaphor of “domestication” in the taming of wild (thus alien, uncertain, unknown, unpredictable) animals into being part of the home environment is an
apt one. Journalists use domestic frames to turn “nonrecognizable happenings
or amphorous talk into a discernable event” (Tuchman, 1978: 192); otherwise,
without domestication, foreign news may remain as nonrecognizable happenings. Domestication of global news can be viewed as a major procedure of “reality-maintenance to safeguard a measure of symmetry between objective and
subjective reality” (Berger and Luckmann, 1967: 167)—in other words, to
avoid cognitive discontinuity and inconsistency. In order to render distant happenings salient, familiar, intelligible—or, less wild—to a home audience preoccupied by the “here and now” issues, journalists must therefore construct
foreign news stories in connection with their own political, cultural, and historical systems of meaning (Cohen et al., 1996). The process of news domestication enables journalists to convert foreign agendas into home agendas and to
tailor international news for domestic consumption, with the implications of reproducing the prevailing ideology and renewing national self-identity. Said
(1981) demonstrates that Orientalist media discourses are clearly constructed
through the eyes of imperialist nations in grossly self-serving and reductive
terms, thus obfuscating and distorting the complex reality of the Orient itself.
Gans (1979) observes that international news in the U.S. media is often presented from a purely national perspective, hewing closely to the State Department line. Hallin and Gitlin (1994) show that the U.S. media try to emphasize
the “home dimension” and local relevance of the Gulf War. Lee and Yang
(1995) attribute the different causes of the Tiananmen incident as imputed by
the U.S. and Japanese media to their different foreign policies that are crystallized expressions of respective national interests.
Various national media systems routinely apply the three criteria of “authority, credibility and availability” differently in choosing their sources (van
Ginneken, 1998); this may create a particular slant to the constitution of their
news net. The application of these criteria is situated within the sphere of elite
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Global Media Spectacle
consensus and the field of acceptable discourses (Hallin, 1986; Bennett, 1990),
thereby privileging official sources and marginalizing other voices. Hearing
other sides and checking information are done only within this overall framework, not outside it. Journalists, like other people, live in a “common-sense
world in which the meaning of things, of facts and relations, is taken for granted
and self-evident” (van Ginneken, 1998). Their socialization into the larger culture, professional subculture, and organizational milieu (in that order) further
reifies this taken-for-grantedness of reality (Tuchman, 1978; Schlesinger, 1978).
No wonder journalists may “depart (for a foreign country) with a repertory of
stereotypes, tend to interpret an ambiguous confrontation with strange cultures
in these terms, and tend to return with their preconceptions reconfirmed” (van
Ginneken, 1998: 70).
International relations are at the core of international news, but international relations are ridden with contending national interests. The powerful
countries tend to impose their worldviews by setting the parameters for discourse on international affairs, but they can count on few laws to govern the behavior of different countries. The discourse on international affairs leaves open
the space for national struggles within the world order. From the cognitive perspective, the less well defined the stimulus, the greater the contribution of the
perceiver (Fensterheim and Tresselt, 1953). Hall (1974) observes that the
media exert their maximum effect on labeling an unfamiliar or ambiguous situation. The ambiguity and indeterminacy embedded in the multifaceted nature
of international reality necessitates journalists to provide accounts that suit
their preconceived conceptions. Even the sophisticated readers of the New York
Times and the Guardian, their correspondents confess, would find “other people’s politics boring.” To enliven the boring and familiarize the unfamiliar,
“framing” (Goffman, 1973) through typification of unknown phenomena into
known categories is an inevitable yet potentially distorting bridge for understanding. These conceptions are, however, not random but have national and
cultural embeddings. We agree with van Ginneken (1998) in regarding the nation-state as the primary definer and the media as only the secondary definer of
international reality. This ambiguity also enhances the interpretative role of
government officials and other sources endowed with institutional authority.
In this sense, media accounts reflect the nation’s perspectives and outlooks on
world affairs. Journalists do not necessarily toe the line of the foreign office,
but they rarely question the premises of foreign policy.
Domestication is also necessitated by the needs of audience and media organizations. Cohen (2002) argues that television viewers may not possess certain cognitive abilities to make sense of news if it is not put in a domestic
context, because some formal features of news pose problems for comprehension. Newscasts consist of a rapid succession of brief items with no pauses between them, often with no relationship between them or with little or no
Domestication of Global News
45
context or background given. Thus both proactive and retroactive interferences
occur, unless foreign affairs are cast in a culturally familiar framework. Organizationally, the media outlets have to justify why they have to send correspondents overseas, particularly in this age of high cost and easy access to wire
news. Providing a customized and domesticated perspective gives the media
outlet an edge over its competitors. The need for domestication is thus built into
the organizational and economic logic of any competitive news medium.
Strategies
Journalists tend to “hype up” the boring news to inflate its appeal or significance (chapter 4). Hyping is a general process that can apply to domestication of
foreign news and reportage of domestic news as well. Domestication is first mediated by the professional routines—such as norms and conventions of source attribution and reliance on the powerful to make news—that media organizations
develop to achieve efficiency and to safeguard themselves from external pressure
(Tuchman, 1978; Gans, 1979). To begin with, given the considerable latitude in
making source selection, journalists often take pains to tell a foreign story
through the words of celebrities and familiar faces. Journalists have absorbed organizational and cultural definitions of foreign reality as their own “second nature,” which lets them accomplish their news task without having to be conscious
of the professional rules and values. In covering critical events where greater interests are at stake, the home editorial office plays a more active role and flies in
star anchors, well-known commentators and experts from half a world away to
“tell as news is happening” in a foreign locale. U.S. television network anchors,
despite their lack of expertise in Asian affairs, are prominent television personalities who extend their news battlefield to Hong Kong. The Asahi Broadcasting
Corporation boosts its ratings by inviting Agnes Chan, a local pop singer turned
Japanese through career and marriage, to report from Hong Kong. A Taiwan TV
personality admits to his lack of expert knowledge about Hong Kong but is put in
the anchor’s chair because of his popularity.
Moreover, the media put the news spotlight on high-ranking officials
from their home countries. Gans (1979) notes that the majority of foreign
news in the U.S. media concerns “Americans abroad” or “foreigners at
home”; of them, many are no doubt high-ranking officials. Officials are
highly visible and in a position to express certain views as a representative
of political institutions, thus establishing relevance of foreign reality to the
home base. Authority figures of international stature, whose reputation and
influence reach beyond national boundaries—such as Tony Blair, Margaret
Thatcher, Madeleine Albright, and Chris Patten—are keenly sought after by
various national media systems. Taiwan’s media for days speculated on the
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Global Media Spectacle
seating arrangement for its representative to the handover ceremony and its
implications for renewing the talks with the mainland, which had been stalled
by Beijing’s missile threats in 1995 and 1996.
In addition to officials, the media may give voice to the “ordinary people,”
especially those from or related to home, to incorporate foreign reality as an extension of local interest. Kristi Khockshorn of the San Jose Mercury News
specifically looks for visitors from her hometown or the San Francisco Bay
area to construct a “typical” narrative. When previously reporting from Somalia, she stood in front of a line of tanks with a “San Jose” sign and shouted once
every few minutes for someone from “home” who could probably help to
throw some light on what’s going on. The growing influence and profile of Chinese-Canadians prompt the media to rely on both ordinary and other not-so-ordinary Canadian citizens of Hong Kong origin as key news sources. To mimic
western methods of professional objectivity, a local Guangdong television station interviews a parade of clearly arranged “passersby” against the breathtaking Victoria Harbor, as if each were wholeheartedly joining the chorus of
national patriotism in unison. One of them, allegedly retired from the Taiwan
army, chokes with tears, “I have been waiting for this day all my life.” The old
animosity seems to have magically dissolved all of a sudden, but poor editing
reveals artificiality of the atmosphere. The Australian notes something as trivial as the glass-and-chromium interior of the handover hall that was made by a
Melbourne company.
Distant events may stand out more visibly if cast in larger political or historical contexts. Most of the New York Times pieces are highly interpretative
rather than straightforwardly factual, focusing on how life will be in Hong
Kong under Chinese rule. Mike Chinoy of CNN in an interview with us argues
that one has “to keep coming back to the big issues and themes” and “to try to
put the local thing into a broader perspective.” His point is to make people understand the handover not just as boring local politics but as an important issue
related to China and the U.S.-China relationship. The story line should not be
too detailed to be incomprehensible, but it is important to “to realize that you
are talking to people who do not necessarily understand Hong Kong.” Chinoy
illustrates with this example:
I am working on a story on housing. Although it is interesting, it is not an international story. It will be if people start rioting and burning down apartments. Anyway, it is a significant social issue here. But how Tung Chee-hua,
the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, deals with it is a test of his leadership and
(of his claim) that Hong Kong people are more concerned about standard of
living issues than freedom issues. . . . I put it in that kind of context, so that
somebody seeing it in Argentina, who did not care about housing in Hong
Kong, will watch it.
Domestication of Global News
47
In reporting foreign stories, correspondents naturally turn to their personal
frame of reference based on their upbringing and their understanding of comparable events, historical antecedents, and equivalent concepts in their home
culture. They make direct or indirect comparisons, draw analogies, and use
metaphors or similar historical allegories to illuminate the ramifications of the
foreign event on their home country (Cohen, 2002). In the summer of 1997, the
majority of media outlets take the high stock market and real estate values in
Hong Kong as an assurance of continued economic vibrancy despite political
trepidation. Only Japanese journalists read the same “data” as a precursor to the
bursting of a “bubble economy”; they are to be substantiated by the Asian financial crisis in less than a year. Japanese journalists’ insight or “foresight”
bears the conspicuous imprint of their own recent painful economic meltdown.
A journalist from a former Communist country in Europe, still beset by the
memories of past political brutality and repression, makes the bleakest forecast
about the plight of Hong Kong. American visions of Hong Kong are filtered
through the lingering images of the Tiananmen crackdown and the long-term
memory of the Cold War, thus linking the handover to the capture of a beautiful lady by an ugly beast. Moreover, journalists generally develop preconceived
notions, likely scenarios, and journalistic hypotheses that would inform them
where to look for what kind of facts, even before the events occur. Many western media assume that the PRC would lose little time in teaching the outspoken
Apple Daily the first lesson through forced closure. Chris Yeung, political editor of the South China Morning Post, describes this journalistic instinct as a
“perspective” rather than “purposive spinning.”
Journalists produce “color” stories—a genre that uses a lot of anecdotes as
supports for the main theme of the story—to reduce the audience’s resistance
to distant or general ideas and happenings. To Kristi Khockshorn of the San
Jose Mercury News, a “color story” means “something that gives you a sense of
place, that has real people talking, not the officials,” and people will feel “more
attached” to a story that has “real people” in it. Chris Wood of Canada’s
Maclean’s magazine thinks that his readers look for a mix of “color” and “texture” that gives the “sight, sound, smell, and voices of a story.” On June 19,
Edward Gargan of the New York Times wrote a front-page story recounting the
life experiences of a teacher, a waiter, a fishmonger, and a tycoon—families
across the socioeconomic ladder—“to show what makes up Hong Kong.” To
catch the mood of the first day after the handover, Seith Faison of the New York
Times talks to diners at a small noodle shop. The Chicago Tribune interviews
colonialists, born and bred in Hong Kong, who were saddened by the end of
their era. The Washington Post (July 5) publishes a feature contrasting a former
mainland refugee who now owns a stylish Italian restaurant—once burned by
the Communists, she is afraid of going near the fire again—with her aunt who
has led a nightmarish life in Shanghai.
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Global Media Spectacle
We ask the journalists what story in their minds would epitomize the
essence of Hong Kong. Invariably their answers point to the ability of the story
to elicit the attention and emotion of the home audience. Fiona Anderson, the
BBC Hong Kong Bureau Chief, says:
My colleague made a story that had me in tears. It was a story about a father
of a family who came here from over the [Hong Kong] border in the 1950s
and 1960s, the most difficult years. They filmed with him, talking about his
memories about his days in Hong Kong. And his family is doing really well.
His daughter is a senior executive officer in the Hong Kong Bank, his son as
well. The father had not given up any chance; he created something for his
children and they built on it. And they are now doing well, so they are looking
after the father. And they were filming him eating with his grandson on Sunday. To me this is what Hong Kong people are like: Start with nothing and
made something out of nothing. And that’s what I like about here. That’s a
beautiful story because it tells the Hong Kong story.
This is a specific story endowed with generalized human values that readers
can share with empathy. It also involves a considerable degree of simplification, by way of personification, that enhances its accessibility. The reductive
quality of labeling the complex political setup as “the Beijing-appointed Provisional Legislature” makes freedom and democracy black-and-white issues that
the unsophisticated audience at home can comprehend on ideological cues.
Secondary Factors of Domestication
Given the relative stability of nationalist interest and its important location
as a basis for domestication, national differences in international newsmaking
tend to overshadow the internal differences within a nation. Other secondary
factors may influence the process of domestication: medium type, nature of target audience, organizational constraints, journalists’ biographies, and the local
news perspectives.
Medium Type
Television thrives on exciting action-packed pictures. Seeing is believing.
Network television news lives with the contradiction between the prestige of
elite journalism and the mass appeal of television. As a “cool medium”
(McLuhan, 1967) it thrives on live images rather than traditional print-media
linear flow of logical reasoning. This visual logic abhors pictorial stillness and
dullness, as compelling images often overwhelm the words uttered. Acknowledging television as not a good medium to “convey subtle ideas,” Mike Chinoy
Domestication of Global News
49
of CNN says that journalists must work around technological constraints by
“looking for visual images and talking to people.” War over television ratings
further intensifies oversimplification of foreign news lest the viewers who lack
requisite background knowledge would not put up with details. Jane Hutcheon,
an Australian television reporter, concurs that television is most effective when
it presents a few simple ideas with an ensemble of contrasting images in almost
black-and-white terms. While television caters to the taste of undifferentiated
mass audiences, elite newspapers have to be more thoughtful in offering causeand-effect interpretations to their more sophisticated readers.
Inasmuch as CNN has a global presence with a need to satisfy the needs
of multinational and multicultural audiences, Mike Chinoy claims that its news
represents a global view—not from the U.S. perspective but “from nobody’s
perspective.” As a parallel, Epstein (1973) recounts in his study that many U.S.
network news people disavow any personal biases and argue that they produce
news from nobody’s point of view but faithfully reflect the reality. Epstein proceeds to debunk this myth of neutral objectivity by analyzing the immensely
powerful political, regulatory, and economic influences on network news. He
shows network news to be primarily shaped by organizational considerations:
the budgetary requisite, the demand for the news division to maintain the ratings, the high value placed on action or motion footage, and the government’s
requirement for network news to conform to standards of fairness. Our analysis finds little differences in the ideological structures between CNN and CBS,
or between the BBC and ITN. If whoever pays the piper calls the tune, then
CNN and other western media organizations active on a global scale will
clearly cater to the values of “the global class” in the First World. Even the editors for CNN’s World Report admit, “To say that we do not have a point of
view is dishonest” (Flournoy, 1992: 23). Poor clients from the Second and
Third Worlds are obviously of marginal concern, particularly if their sensibilities clash head-on with those of clients from the First World (van Ginneken,
1998: 44). Even the primary audience members in the subsidiary markets are
English-speaking elites. Wire services, supposedly more factual than interpretative, are not free from “national” prisms either (Lee and Yang, 1995). In addition, “local” television stations largely regurgitate national narratives, with
little new perspectives to add.
Correspondents vs. Home Editors
Domestication works smoothly when the theme of the news reports agrees
with the preconceptions of the home editors and audience; in that case, journalists need not justify their stories. Experienced journalists, especially those
whom Tunstall (1971) calls “specialist correspondents” with expert knowledge,
should have the trust of their editors and enjoy considerable autonomy—after
50
Global Media Spectacle
all, they share the same professional ideology and organizational culture
(Breed, 1955). Edward Gargan of the New York Times, who had previously stationed in Beijing and New Delhi, claims with pride that all his five colleagues
have a reservoir of knowledge to “get below the superficial stories” rather than
“do cliché stories.” Gargan and others, like Graham Hutchings of the Daily
Telegraph, all emphasize that they take charge of the news agendas with a minimum of interference from their editors. Jonathan Mirsky of the Times of London is quick to correct us: “Look, I don’t get assignment. I work on stories. I
decide on the topics.” Joseph Kahn of the Wall Street Journal seems to suggest
that the editor may intervene more often in how the story is presented rather
than what it is about:
As long as you can present substance in an interesting, proactive and wellwritten way, they are quite enthusiastic. But if you take absolutely accurate,
very well reported information and present it to them in a dry, just-the-facts
kind of manner—even if it is completely right—they would say ‘ah, not interested in that.’ Quite boring, you know. That is the influence the editors
exert. They want you to be kind of provocative and intelligent, and forceful as
a writer.
Veteran editors, of course, command greater authority. Chris Wood, the world
editor of Maclean’s magazine who had worked for a newsmagazine in Hong
Kong for ten years, insists that he only “discusses” with his reporters about
what should be covered, but to avoid confrontation he does not “dictate” his
agenda to them.
Parachute vs. Resident Correspondents
The summer of 1997 sees a swarm of parachute journalists pulled off from
their regular posting—mostly from Beijing or from their home headquarters—
and flown into Hong Kong either as lone crisis managers or as reinforcement to
the existing organizational strength. Their lack of proficiency in language or
culture makes their task of covering a flood of competing activities at the same
time difficult if not impossible. They have to rely quickly on local media to get
their bearing. They establish alliances and exchange stories with various colleagues who are not their direct competitors, preferably from a different country or from a different type of medium, to “scratch one another’s back.”
Parachute reporters, lacking resources, must then turn to institutionally organized tours, seminars, and symposia for strategic assistance; many have indeed
reported about their tour trips arranged by the GIS. A most striking example is
the lavish international media attention given to the “cage men,” people who
live in crowded space, courtesy of the arrangement by some local social service
organizations.
Domestication of Global News
51
We observe a parachute reporter, representing a reputed midwestern newspaper from the United States, at work. Upon arriving from Beijing, she rushes
to attend a symposium of invited speakers in a crowded room at the Foreign
Correspondents’ Club (FCC). Midway through the question and answer session, she manages to put in a rather cursory question about land prices to a
speaker who is a pro-Beijing banker. Having furiously scribbled down his zealous but uninspiring answer on her notebook, she immediately stands up and
leaves the room—presumably to file her story or to scramble for other stories—
without bothering to listen to other parts of more substantive conversation. Sitting beside her, we follow her to the door and ask for an interview with her. She
nervously replies that she would be too busy to do it before the handover, inviting us instead for an interview about the conditions of press freedom in Hong
Kong. (She had promised to call us back after the handover to honor our request, but the call never came. When we called her again, she apologized for
having forgot it. Was she available now? “No, I am leaving for vacation before
heading back to Beijing.”) We later check on her FCC story in her paper—
decidedly shallow, clichéd, and probably not one of her proudest moments.
Generally but not invariably, resident journalists command better grips of
the local conditions with a wider network of contacts to consult as sources. A
self-described supporter of democracy in Hong Kong, Marcus Eliason of the
Associated Press says that he is convinced that China will not make Hong Kong
Communist, but instead will carry out “one country, two systems,” though not
necessarily in all its details. Instead of solely blaming China for disbanding the
elected legislature, he opines that journalists should explain why Chris Patten
insulted the Chinese by changing the rules without consulting them in the first
place. On the other hand, veteran China correspondents may also have their
own liabilities; their knowledge of China and its leaders have made them excessively cynical. The most cynical journalists before the handover are those
who have worked in Beijing, especially those who saw the Chinese system at
its worst in the spring of 1989.
In 1989, awed by the student protesters in the Tiananmen Square, Dan
Rather of CBS announced to the world, “China will never be the same again.”
But it should be noted that CBS News has not maintained a bureau in Hong
Kong for two decades and has paid scant attention to China in the 1990s when
the country underwent the most profound change. Suddenly, in 1997, the first
time in eight years, Rather takes his team back to Tiananmen to set the motif
for Hong Kong, constantly mixing the handover with the bloodshed to create
the scenario of “Tiananmen II” (see chapter 5). (Several of our American colleagues teaching in Hong Kong received phone calls from their relatives and
friends who, having seen the network reports on the PLA, urged them to “get
the first plane out of Hong Kong tomorrow morning.”) CNN’s old China hand
in Hong Kong, Mike Chinoy comments:
52
Global Media Spectacle
One of the things that I am proud of is that, unlike some of our competitors,
CNN took a much measured approach, not Hong Kong is to be raped by the
butchers of Beijing. We are pretty level-headed even in the issues like the arrival of the PLA. This is where my experience in China pays off. It is pretty
obvious to me that a lot of the fussing about the dispute between the British
and the Chinese over the PLA had to do with the issues of face and sovereignty, and rectifying historical injustices. While some of the other presses
think that the PLA coming in are the storm troopers into Hong Kong. . . . My
gut feelings in those last few days is that the Chinese wanted to make the
point that as soon as Hong Kong was theirs, they had the right to station
troops here. It is a matter of sovereignty. I think my experience in China
makes me understand how emotional an issue this was to China.
Chinoy of CNN and Joseph Kahn of the Wall Street Journal are among those
who have regularly visited China since 1989 to see a more “positive” and more
“upbeat” country.
Lastly, the drawback of parachute journalists should not be overstated. If
they are good journalists, they can see with clarity what is sometimes invisible
to resident colleagues. A resident journalist looking for nuances and subtleties
may also lose the broader picture. Journalists, as Graham Hutchings of the
Daily Telegraph maintains, “should, up to a point, jump the hurdles of language
and culture” (Knight and Nakano, 1999: 130).
The Situs News Perspective
All journalists, whether resident or parachute, must read the situs press
either by themselves or through translators to identify important concerns to
the community. But this is only the beginning, not the end of their job. They
get tips to follow up on. News is a mutually confirming definition of reality,
and the journalists proceed to frame local (situs) issues in national and global
contexts. The situs press is a necessary point of reference, but as Steve Vines
of the Independent argues, the best stories invariably are obtained from the
contacts, friends, or people journalists know, rather than from reading the
situs press.
There are 13 Chinese newspapers and two English dailies to span the entire ideological spectrum. Most foreign journalists interviewed name the South
China Morning Post, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and online newspapers as
major sources of information. Fiona Anderson, BBC Bureau Chief, discloses
that they carefully watch the local media, especially the pro-Chines press, for
“good tips.” The daily digest of the Chinese press published by the GIS is also
accessible and useful. Other journalists proficient in Chinese also expand their
reading range to include major Chinese newspapers and critical political journals. In fact, many Beijing-based correspondents follow these political journals
Domestication of Global News
53
also. NHK buys local television programs, which are translated and edited for
Japanese consumption. The fact that foreign journalists in Hong Kong rely on
the local media for information and news clues is similar to those in Washington, D.C., who must rely on the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the
Foreign Broadcast Information Service to shape their news (Cohen, 1963).
What looms large in the Hong Kong media tends to capture their attention, and
they may continue to use local reportage as a major source of information,
though the story will eventually be cast in domestic terms and logic.
Consequences
We expect that domestication would lead to systematic differences among
various national media systems in terms of the origins of news sources, the tone
of coverage, and the political orientation of news sources. This is borne out by
the results of our content analysis (for more information, see Appendix IV).
Table 3.1 summarizes media references to the prospect and direction of
changes thought likely to occur after the handover of Hong Kong. Each story
may (a) mention that changes will occur, (b) mention that changes will not
occur; or (c) not mention this prospect at all. If the story mentions possible
changes, it may indicate (a) changes for the better; (b) some changes for the
better and some changes for the worse; (c) changes for the worse; or (d)
changes hard to determine. What we have measured is, in essence, a conservative estimate of the media’s explicit references; given its implicit and embedded
nature, the ideological overtone in the text should be much stronger.
One distinct pattern is, as expected, that China differs significantly from
the rest of the world. Its media report virtually no change in Hong Kong in any
of the aspects; whenever they do, the change tends to be positive. They avoid
any substantive issues related to Hong Kong’s reality in order to present the festivity of a national celebration. The media from all the other societies, however,
predict changes to occur. The four English-speaking media systems—the
United States, Britain, Australia, and Canada—make more references to
changes than do the Hong Kong and Taiwan media, partly because western
media are more interpretative and hew more closely to western values of
democracy and human rights vis-à-vis Communist authoritarianism. Hong
Kong and Taiwan seem more realistically concerned about preserving their
own autonomous status than about waging an impossible fight against the
Communist regime in Beijing. Most notable changes are expected in these specific areas:
•
Democracy: Australia (36.5%), the United States (34.8%), Canada
(28.6%), Britain (23.4%).
Table 3.1
References to the Prospect of Changes after the Handover1
Autonomy
Democracy
Press
Freedom
Rule of
Law
Economy
Daily Life
N
0.8
34.8
23.4
11.2
6.6
36.5
28.6
0.0
14.0
7.7
3.1
2.2
10.2
2.4
0.1
10.4
1.4
4.7
1.2
10.9
7.1
3.6
7.6
2.6
3.9
3.2
4.4
13.1
1.4
13.7
3.1
4.2
3.0
8.0
16.7
739
328
351
1351
500
137
84
0.0
50.0
40.0
34.4
66.7
53.3
50.0
0.0
0.0
11.1
9.4
6.3
16.7
18.2
0.0
57.8
54.5
15.8
25.0
8.3
21.4
44
314
157
444
99
105
77
% of asserting change2
PRC
USA
Britain
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Australia
Canada
0.0
15.2
6.6
5.8
3.6
6.6
9.5
Of the changes mentioned, % of claiming that they will be for the worse3
PRC
USA
Britain
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Australia
Canada
—
27.5
34.8
38.0
33.3
44.4
0.0
0.0
73.7
61.0
41.7
45.5
62.0
58.3
—
54.3
51.9
36.6
45.5
42.9
50.0
1. Categories: (a) Autonomy of HK SAR: Refers to the relationship between HK SAR government and Beijing, HK’s ability to handle its own affairs without Beijing’s interference, and the workability of the “One Country, Two Systems” policy; (b) Democratization, Civil Liberties: Refers to the promises and activities related to democratizing HK SAR
political institutions (e.g., setting up the timetable and procedures for Legislative Council election and potentially for electing the Chief Executive) and individuals’ rights to association and speech; (c) Press Freedom: Refers to change in media policies, media structure, journalists’ self censorship, and professionalism, as well as any influences or attempted influences of political forces (including the PRC forces) on Hong Kong’s media; (d) Rule of Law: Refers to HK’s legal independence, continued functioning and
independence of the ICAC, changes in or maintenance of the Common Law system and its relations with the Basic Law and Chinese legal system; (e) Economy: Refers to the
activities, performance, and structure of the consumer and financial markets, the manufacturing, real estate, and service sectors. Examples include relocation of manufacturing
factories, rise or plunge of the real estate market, injection of mainland capital; (f) Political/Social Realignment: Refers to changing political orientation, allegiance and posture
of various associative and political organizations, influential individuals, and commercial firms (e.g., Jardines repositioning itself to mend the fence with Beijing); (g) Daily Life
in Hong Kong: Refers to the livelihood of people not directly systemic in nature or scope (if it is, it will be in one of the above six categories).
2. 1 ⫽ Hong Kong will change after the handover, 2 ⫽ Hong Kong will not change after the handover, and 3 ⫽ no changes mentioned.
3. 1 ⫽ Changes will be for the better, 2 ⫽ Some changes will be for the better and some will be for the worse, 3 ⫽ Changes will be for the worse, and 4 ⫽ Cannot be determined
or hard to tell.
Domestication of Global News
•
Press freedom: the United States (14%), Australia (10.2%).
•
The rule of law: Australia (10.9%), the United States (10.4%).
•
Autonomy of Hong Kong: the United States (15.2%), Canada
(9.5%).
•
Daily life: Canada (16.7%), the United States (13.7%).
55
In this context, changes in Hong Kong’s democracy and civil liberties
clearly are the most salient areas of concern. Six or seven in ten stories in the
English-speaking media systems (compared with four in ten stories in Hong
Kong and Taiwan media) predict democracy will deteriorate in Hong Kong.
The U.S. media seem to be most pessimistic, followed by Australia and
Canada. Insofar as Britain touts its good legacy and is a cohost of the handover, its media may be somewhat self-congratulatory and somewhat defensive, and do not go overboard to be extremely cynical. The western media
also hold a gloomy view about the preservation of press freedom and local
autonomy, but they are rather optimistic about continued economic prosperity in Hong Kong. These points will be sharpened by the discourse analysis
(chapters 5–9).
Table 3.2 shows the tones of the media’s references to the PRC. The categories include (1) positive; (2) positive in some aspects but negative in others;
(3) negative; and (4) no indication of any direction in coverage. The pattern appears to confirm that displayed in Table 3.1. While the PRC media are supportive of their government, most others tend to cast a negative shadow on Beijing
to a varying extent. The U.S. (42.3%), Canadian (39.3%), and Australian
(34.3%) media are more negative than the British (20.9%), Taiwan (22%), and
Hong Kong (10.9%) media.
The domestication hypothesis expects the media from a given nation to
seek information from sources from the same origin. If the sources of that origin are not appropriate for a particular issue, the media will go for the sources
that best approximate their own. Table 3.3 tabulates the news sources by their
origins. The PRC media derive the highest proportion from domestic sources
(44.7%). Sources from Hong Kong are otherwise the most popular, which account for the majority of sources in Canadian (62.8%), Hong Kong (62.5%),
British (49.7%), U.S. (48%), Australian (42.2%), and Taiwan (34.9%) media.
The PRC media have more mainland sources (44.7%) than Hong Kong
sources (33.8%), reflecting the power gap between Hong Kong and the central
government. Domestic sources also stand out in Taiwan (28.9%), British
(23%), and U.S. (13.9%) media, though by no means as dominant as in the
PRC media (44.7%).
Table 3.2
Tones on the PRC Government (in %)1
PRC
USA
Britain
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Australia
Canada
Positive
Positive/
Negative
Negative
None
N
53.9
6.2
0.6
3.8
8.6
2.2
1.2
0.0
15.7
9.4
1.8
5.4
3.6
2.4
0.0
42.3
20.9
10.9
22.0
34.3
39.3
46.0
35.8
69.1
83.6
63.9
59.8
57.1
714
324
1352
1352
499
137
84
1. The figures across each row do not add up to 100 due to rounding error.
Table 3.3
News Sources from Different Countries
PRC media
(N ⫽ 767)
PRC sources
UK sources
HK sources
Taiwan sources
U.S. sources
Sources from other
Asian countries
Sources from other
non-Asian countries
Britain
(N ⫽ 880)
Hong Kong
(N ⫽ 1795)
Taiwan
(N ⫽ 470)
44.7%
3.5%
33.8%
0.5%
2.0%
6.8%
12.3%
23.0%
49.7%
3.8%
3.9%
1.3%
14.8%
8.8%
62.5%
3.9%
4.5%
1.6%
15.1%
8.9%
34.9%
28.9%
7.0%
2.8%
8.7%
6.3%
4.0%
2.3%
U.S. media
(N ⫽ 757)
PRC sources
UK sources
HK sources
Taiwan sources
U.S. sources
Sources from other
Asian countries
Sources from other
non-Asian countries
Canada
(N ⫽ 196)
Australia
(N ⫽ 344)
World
(N ⫽ 5719)
15.9%
14.0%
48.0%
4.6%
13.9%
1.1%
7.7%
9.7%
62.8%
1.0%
1.5%
1.0%
11.1%
13.1%
42.2%
8.7%
4.7%
3.8%
18.0%
11.5%
50.6%
6.0%
5.5%
2.57%
2.6%
16.3%
16.6%
5.9%
57
Domestication of Global News
Table 3.4 shows that the media rely heavily on official sources from their
own country and from countries of cultural and political proximity. More than
half (53.6%) of the official sources in the PRC are from within, and 24.7%
more from Hong Kong. Official sources also figure prominently in Taiwan
(40.2%), British (39.4%) and U.S. (18.4%) media that are concerned with the
implications of the handover to their own national interest. Media in the two
more marginal members of the western camp—Canada and Australia—also
use high proportions of British official sources.
Table 3.5 sums up the ten most frequently cited sources by country, further confirming heavy media reliance on domestic officials. Six of China’s top
ten sources are from its own leaders (President Jiang, Prime Minister Li, VicePremier Qian, Qiao, Chui) and the official Xinhua News Agency; others (Tung,
Fan, Fok) are pro-China figures in Hong Kong. Governor Patten heads Britain’s
list, followed by Foreign Secretary Cook, Prime Minister Blair, Prince Charles,
and the Foreign Office. Taiwan focuses on its representative in Hong Kong
(Cheng), the vice president (Lian) who was interviewed by foreign media, and
other officials (Gu, Li, and Zhang). The American media include Secretary of
State Albright and President Clinton. Canadian media include Foreign Minister
Axworthy and a diplomat in the list, as Australian media feature Foreign Minister Downer. Besides domestic officials, top Chinese (Jiang), Hong Kong
Table 3.4
Official Sources from Different Countries
China media
UK media
HK media
Taiwan media
U.S. media
Others
China media
UK media
HK media
Taiwan media
U.S. media
Others
China sources
(N ⫽ 263)
Britain
(N ⫽ 388)
Hong Kong
(N ⫽ 706)
Taiwan
(N ⫽ 214)
53.6%
5.7%
24.7%
0.4%
1.9%
13.7%
16.2%
39.4%
28.1%
5.2%
4.1%
7.0%
18.4%
17.4%
44.2%
6.9%
6.2%
6.8%
18.7%
11.7%
17.3%
40.2%
7.9%
4.2%
U.S. sources
(N ⫽ 207)
Canada
(N ⫽ 47)
Australia
(N ⫽ 164)
World
(N ⫽ 1990)
20.3%
29.0%
21.3%
6.8%
18.4%
4.4%
8.5%
29.8%
40.4%
4.3%
4.3%
12.8%
12.8%
20.1%
25.0%
14.0%
4.9%
23.2
22.2%
21.3%
31.5%
9.8%
6.6%
8.7%
Table 3.5
Top Ten Most Frequently Cited Sources by Country
Ranking
China
(N ⫽ 739)
Britain
(N ⫽ 881)
Hong Kong
(N ⫽ 1795)
Taiwan
(N ⫽ 470)
1
Jiang Zemin
(China’s president)
(N ⫽ 28)
Chris Patten
(HK governor)
(N ⫽ 47)
Chris Patten
(HK governor)
(N ⫽ 34)
Cheng An-kuo
(Taiwan’s
representative
in HK)
(N ⫽ 11)
2
Tung Chee-hwa
(HK chief
executive)
(N ⫽ 24)
Tung Chee-hwa
(HK chief
executive)
(N ⫽ 39)
Tung Chee-hwa
(HK chief
executive)
(N ⫽ 31)
Lian Zhan
(Taiwan’s
vice-president)
(N ⫽ 9)
3
Xinhua News Agency
(N ⫽ 23)
Martin Lee
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 26)
Martin Lee
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 22)
Chris Patten
(HK governor)
(N ⫽ 9)
4
Li Peng
(China’s prime
minster)
(N ⫽ 14)
Robin Cook
(British foreign
secretary)
(N ⫽ 25)
Robin Cook
Xinhua News Agency
(British foreign
(PRC’s official
secretary)
voice)
(N ⫽ 21)
(N ⫽ 8)
5
Qian Qichen
(China’s
vice-premier)
(N ⫽ 13)
Jiang Zemin
(China’s president)
(N ⫽ 25)
Rita Fan
(Head of
HK’s new
legislature)
(N ⫽ 20)
Tung Chee-hwa
(HK chief
executive)
(N ⫽ 8)
6
Rita Fan (Head
of HK’s new
legislature)
(N ⫽ 7)
Emily Lau
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 9)
Jiang Zemin
(China’s president)
(N ⫽ 17)
Gu Zhenfu
(Taiwan official)
(N ⫽ 7)
7
Prince Charles
Tony Blair
(N ⫽ 7)
(British prime minister)
(N ⫽ 9)
Elsie Leung
(HK official)
(N ⫽ 15)
Li Dawai
(Taiwan official)
(N ⫽ 7)
Emily Lau
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 15)
Robin Cook (British
foreign secretary)
(N ⫽ 6)
8
9
10
% of total
no. of
quotations
Qiao She (Head of
China’s legislature)
(N ⫽ 5)
Prince Charles
(N ⫽ 8)
Henry Fok (pro-Beijing
Britain’s
Madeleine Albright
Zhang Jingyu
tycoon in HK)
Foreign Office (U.S. secretary of state) (Taiwan official)
(N ⫽ 4)
(N ⫽ 8)
(N ⫽ 14)
(N ⫽ 6)
Chui Tiankai
Michael DeGolyer
(China’s foreign
(HK academic
ministry spokesman)
pollster)
(N57)
(N ⫽ 13)
17.5%
(N ⫽ 129)
23.0%
(N ⫽ 203)
Szeto Wah
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 5)
Martin Lee
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 4)
11.3%
(N ⫽ 202)
16.2%
(N ⫽ 76)
(continued)
Table 3.5 (continued)
Top Ten Most Frequently Cited Sources by Country
Ranking
U.S.
(N ⫽ 759)
Canada
(N ⫽ 222)
Australia
(N ⫽ 344)
1
Tung Chee-hwa
(HK chief executive)
(N ⫽ 36)
Tung Chee-hwa
(HK chief executive)
(N ⫽ 12)
Tung Chee-hwa
(HK chief executive)
(N ⫽ 19)
2
Chris Patten
(HK governor)
(N ⫽ 34)
Chris Patten
(HK governor)
(N ⫽ 7)
Martin Lee
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 15)
3
Jiang Zemin
(China’s president)
(N ⫽ 24)
Martin Lee
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 7)
Jiang Zemin
(China’s president)
(N ⫽ 11)
4
Martin Lee
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 22)
Emily Lau
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 5)
Chris Patten
(HK governor)
(N ⫽ 11)
5
Madeleine Albright
(U.S. secretary of state)
(N ⫽ 15)
Jiang Zemin
(China’s president)
(N ⫽ 4)
Alexander Downer
(Australian foreign minister)
(N ⫽ 8)
6
Emily Lau
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 13)
Andrew Wong
(head of HK’s legislature)
(N ⫽ 3)
Zhang Jingyu
(Taiwan official)
(N ⫽ 7)
7
Prince Charles
(N ⫽ 9)
Lloyd Axworthy
(Canada’s foreign minister)
(N ⫽ 3)
Li Denghui
(Taiwan president)
(N ⫽ 6)
8
Bill Clinton
(U.S. president)
(N ⫽ 9)
Lee Cheuk-yan
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 3)
Tony Blair
(British prime minister)
(N ⫽ 5)
9
Xinhua News Agency
(PRC’s official voice)
(N ⫽ 7)
Lee Yee
(HK commentator)
(N ⫽ 3)
Emily Lau
(HK democrat)
(N ⫽ 5)
10
Tsang Yok-sing
(leader of a
pro-Beijing party)
(N ⫽ 7)
Garrett Lambert
(Canadian Commission
in HK)
(N ⫽ 3)
Robin Cook
(British
foreign secretary)
(N ⫽ 4)
23.2%
(N ⫽ 176)
22.5%
(N ⫽ 50)
26.5%
(N ⫽ 91)
% of total
no. of
quotations
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Global Media Spectacle
(Tung, Patten), and British leaders—plus leading democrats (Lee, Lau) in
Hong Kong—are favored sources for almost all media. Australian media surprisingly give Taiwan sources a rather high profile.
Conclusion
The notion of “glocalization” (Robertson, 1995; Featherstone, 1995) captures the global media production of the local and the local media production
of the global. In this nexus, the nation-state serves as the primary definer of
global news. Domestication takes place because the home audience ultimately
consumes international news. The relevance of global news is defined from a
domestic perspective in relation to the international political economy, the prevailing ideological framework and cultural symbols, as well as the authority
structure. The domesticated news tends to represent a national perspective, with
a narrower and more unified scope of ideological field than domestic news.
Partisan differences over domestic issues often are transformed into bipartisan
support of a national policy on international issues. Officials are privileged.
Stories are simplified, personified, and put in a national context. Television is
more patently ideological than elite newspapers. Explicitly or implicitly, various domesticated national perspectives join battles in the international discursive terrain.
Domestic media outlets compete within national boundaries; the San
Jose Mercury News, for example, regards the San Francisco Chronicle as its
chief rival. The global-scale media have to compete within and across national
borders; CNN battles not only with the three U.S. networks (and increasingly
with such cable operators as Fox and MSNBC) but also with the BBC, which
has the largest international reach. Chinoy admits that the BBC “keeps us on
our toes.” The global-scale media must first of all serve their primary markets
in the United States and Britain, even if they have also to allow for an assortment of other national perspectives from the “secondary” markets. Even the
viewers in the secondary markets are likely to be English-speaking elites who
have affinity for western values. Volkmer (1999: 156) notes that CNN journalists are dedicated to “fact journalism,” trying to stay away from ideological
overtones—“value-laden terms” and “words that could potentially have some
values injected into them”—as far as possible. But the question is that facts do
not speak for themselves without political or historical contexts. As van Ginneken (1998: 42) puts it: “Naïve empiricism thus often becomes a way of
recycling ideologies into ‘hard facts.’”
We find little ideological differences either between CNN and CBS or between BBC and ITN. These global-scale media probably do not deliberately
trumpet the prevailing ideology of their turf, but they undoubtedly see the
Domestication of Global News
61
“global perspective” through the prisms of generalized western values—and,
doing so in the name of objectivity. Mike Chinoy does not consider CNN a U.S.
network; if CNN sometimes carries an American angle, it is because that angle
is meaningful beyond the United States. Canadian and Australian journalists are,
however, quite vocal in our interviews in chastising American journalists’ selfpresumed monopolistic interpretations of democracy and human rights. Chinoy
stakes his claim of objectivity partly on his long residence in—and cultural understanding of—China and Hong Kong.
Many national media are subscribers of the global-scale media, including
CNN, the Associate Press, and Reuters. They often adapt (even twist) imported
materials to suit domestic angles (Boyd-Barrett, 1980). News agencies and elite
media have been known to exert agenda-setting influences on the media at
large in the Untied States. When the wire services interpret a series of protests
against Japan’s occupation of the disputed Diaoyu Islands as a sign of rising
Chinese nationalism, Kristi Khockshorn frames it more as anti-Japanese sentiment than as the rise of Chinese nationalism. Her editor at the San Jose Mercury News asks for an explanation; she defends herself by citing the empirical
evidence gathered by local scholars in Hong Kong.
To conclude, all news is selective through inclusion and exclusion of information and through the use of particular logic and frames. Domestication is
an inherent logic of international journalism. International reporters are trained
“to find the story in unfamiliar, often chaotic, situations, to give their reports an
attention-getting angle based on a judgement about what their desk editors will
and will not like and will go over with their home audience” (Flournoy, 1992:
23). International news represents the global production of the local and local
production of the global. The mediating mechanism of the global-local linkage is domestication.
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Chapter 4
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
The Global Media War breaks out in Hong Kong.
—Headline, the Oriental Daily News, June 24, 1997
It is nothing like the Tiananmen in 1989, the coup in Moscow in 1991.
The whole thing (in Hong Kong) is choreographed.
—Andrew Higgins, East Asia Correspondent, the Guardian
In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life
presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything
that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.
—Guy Debord (1987: 2)
We live in the age of live television and a world of “hyped” media reality.
Our cognitive and emotional experiences have been shaped and changed by
media spectacles: popular uprisings against the Communist regimes, televised
wars, “live” TV handshakes between enemy leaders, moon landings, and so on
(Dayan and Katz, 1992). The change of regime in Hong Kong is a global
media spectacle of pageantry, personalities, emotions, and contrived dramas.
This is so even though (perhaps because) many journalists concede that the
event, contrary to their hypotheses, has little news other than a series of carefully scripted ceremonies.
In presenting a media spectacle, the media have increasingly infused the
logic and format of entertainment into newsmaking, thus challenging the established codes of media representations and also blurring the boundaries between fiction and news, or between myth and reality. When drama or ritual
“becomes” a fact and when news objectivity gives way to aesthetic authenticity, how would journalism as “the strongest remaining bastion of logical positivism” (Gans, 1979: 184) be eroded? Are journalists simply “storytellers”—or,
63
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Global Media Spectacle
are they performers, annotators, and mythmakers of scripted events? This chapter, by analyzing the world media coverage of the Hong Kong handover,
addresses these questions.
News Paradigm and Media Events
News is not a “mere occurrence.” It is a “cognized happening” that takes
shape in the context of complex institutionalized relationships among purposive
actors (Molotch and Lester, 1974). Journalists, working in a paradigm-based
field (Kuhn, 1962), apply a set of broadly shared understanding about what constitutes news and how to “frame” the reality through the selective gathering and
packaging of facts. Such understanding, codified as professional norms and
canons, is embedded in the established social order (Bennett, Gressett, and Haltom, 1985; Gitlin, 1980; Reese, 1989; Tuchman, 1978). The news paradigm enables media organizations to “reduce environmental uncertainty by routinizing
their recurring task activities, enforcing organizational norms and values, and
exercising social control in the newsroom” (Chan and Lee, 1991: 24). Journalists rely on the authoritative sources and standard narrative codes (including
positivistic methods of determining the facts as well as the storytelling conventions) to reproduce standard themes (Bennett et al., 1985; Bird and Dardenne,
1988). Gans (1979) argues that these journalistic codes and themes constitute
and are constituted by the “enduring values” in the larger U.S. society: ethnocentrism, altruistic democracy, responsible capitalism, small-town pastoralism,
individualism, and moderation. Therefore, a news paradigm operates within the
larger framework of ideological hegemony; different national systems breed and
follow different national news paradigms, albeit with minor internal variations.
A news paradigm is as stable as its underpinning foundation of “enduring
values” and social consensus, inherently conservative, and hence resistant to
change. The dominant assumptions are internalized, thus unrecognized by journalists and media organizations. These assumptions are stable unless and until
challenged by such irreconcilably “anomalous” situations as economic meltdown, a political crisis, social protests, collapse of elite consensus, or regime
change. Even then, the first instinct of the media would still be to “repair” the
existing paradigm (Bennett et al., 1985) to the extent that modifying parts of
the assumptions can help to preserve the paradigmatic whole. To this end, they
may cull more facts to confirm their assumptions; twist new facts to the old
conceptual framework; fit the emerging reality into the established news genre;
or concede such ruptures as exceptions to (rather than a refutation of ) historical continuities. In addition, the interpretive community of journalists reflexively reinterprets exemplary cases in history to rearticulate the professional
principles and the accepted practices (Zelizer, 1993).
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
65
Sometimes repairing work is good enough to prolong the life of a news
paradigm, but other times it may require an overhaul. Bennett (1990) argues
that media discourses “index the range and dynamics” of elite discourses.
Media discourses are most wide-ranging and diverse when different forces—
none of which hold a monopolistic, even privileged, access to media representations—hotly contest the power. But suppression of insurgency or resolution
of power conflicts would necessitate the media to reorient their perspectives
and “news net” toward the new authority structure. Therefore, change in the
news paradigm stems more often than not from change within the power establishment—and only occasionally from social movements—which does not
necessarily lead to a change of the system itself. For example, the U.S. media
had cheered for President Johnson’s war against Vietnam for years before the
alliance between antiwar national leaders and antiwar movements began to take
hold and alter the contour of national discourses. At that point, what had been
safely assumed as a terrain of “consensus” and “deviance” became problematic. The news paradigm underwent major shifts to admit a wider scope of official and dissenting voices with regard to a national issue of “legitimate
controversy” (Hallin, 1987).
Challenges to the news paradigm may also arise from changes in the practices of news production (Zelizer, 1992). Technological change, such as CNN’s
continuous live broadcasting of the Gulf War, may have altered the gatekeeping
process, but it has left the core of the news paradigm unaffected. The rise and
prevalence of “media events” may present a greater challenge in that they have
been modifying the traditional concept of news—in terms of taste, judgment,
and news definitions—among media professionals and the audience. Jacobs
(1996) shows that in the midst of the unfolding drama of a media event, broadcasting journalists had to change their news routines accordingly. The event
generates a huge buzz of excitement, expectations, and emotional hysteria in
society and the newsroom. Journalists are then drawn into the swirl of the event
to catch the latest development and to satisfy the escalating audience expectations. Thus, there is a powerful dynamic of “ritual separation” (Jacobs, 1996:
389) that distinguishes the practices of producing media events from those of
routine news.
Media events are constructed to fit the media appetite for drama and spectacle (Becker, 1995), whose “excitement” factor satisfies the “pleasure” of the
consuming-public-cum-passive-spectators. As media events unfold “live”
around the clock, television becomes a “kind of control center for decisions
about news” (Sharkey, 1994). The “aesthetics of television” (Dayan and Katz,
1992: 18), responsive to the audience’s incessant expectation for a “good
show,” has in part displaced the traditional canon of professional objectivity.
The elevation of Princess Diana’s unexpected tragic death into a worldmedia spectacular (Cleghorn, 1997) illustrates how a media event turns into
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Global Media Spectacle
media hype. Not long before the incident, the BBC news team had rehearsed its
operation in the unlikely event of “the death of a leading royal in a car crash in
a foreign country” (Bridgman, 1999). This rehearsal was more than installing
an “emergency routine” to cope with nonroutine news (Berkowitz, 1992). It enabled the BBC to retrieve from the archive photogenic footages of the
Princess’s life and to script a ritual of mass mourning. The resulting spectacle
mixed news reports with archived footages over a soundtrack of Candle in the
Wind and created a tale of modern-day Cinderella turning into a saint (Bridgman, 1999). In contrast, the story of Mother Teresa, who died around the same
time, was all but buried under an avalanche of media attention for Diana (Martin, 1999).
The Media Logic and Hyping
In media events, the entertainment-based “media logic”—the rules and
formats of drama, emotional display, personalities, primacy of visuals, and the
rhythm and tempo mimicking the real life with varying intervals (Altheide and
Snow, 1979)—is infused into news production. This media logic is driven by
business and ratings; it not only shapes the media organizational dynamics but
also incorporates “the perspectives and activities of audience members,” making its organizing features taken-for-granted reality (Altheide and Snow, 1991:
53–54).
As the media occupy the center stage of contemporary politics, political
actors interact according to the rules of “popular reality” that the media help to
perpetuate (Edelman, 1988; Hartley, 1992). The media do not simply report
news; they stage a social performance in which “the knowns”—individuals and
agencies of power and authority—become “star performers” (Becker, 1995;
Gans, 1979). Media events whet the public’s voracious appetite for more excitement; the public then naturalizes them as a reality. Public sphere is turned
into a media arena for spectacles, in which audiences play as supporting members of the cast or as spectators (Becker, 1995; MacAloon 1984). A major news
story becomes an occasion, a “creative moment,” for the power structure to be
enacted in what has been variously called “press rites” (Becker, 1995; Ettema,
1990; Real, 1989), “press performance” (Elliot, 1982), “media drama” or
“media spectacle” (Manning, 1996; Tomlinson, 1996).
Hyping conforms to this media logic to generate “an artificially engendered atmosphere of hysteria” (Aronson, 1983: 23) to the point that a news
story is larger than life. Hyping is a set of rhetorical strategies that helps the
journalist to fit a story into the genre of media event, thus turning up the voltage of the report to garner a wider appeal. It uplifts entertainment to reality and
enlarges the voltage to enthrall a large audience. With its attendant hysteria, a
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
67
media event may interrupt the routines of newswork and draw journalists into
the whirlpool of intense competition. Live broadcasting of a big media event,
such as assassination of kings and presidents, can also interrupt the flow of the
public’s daily life (Dayan and Katz, 1992).
Media events are not necessarily hyped to disrupt the status quo; indeed,
many of these ritualistic performances promote social cohesion, consolidate
communal experiences, and reaffirm shared beliefs that are steeped in tradition
(Alexander and Jacobs, 1998; Hallin and Gitlin, 1994). Often, media events are
hyped as “hot moments” for a society to overcome tensions in the established
system; hyping relies upon the existing power and serves to strengthen it.
Through its well-publicized performances in the mourning spectacle of
Princess Diana, the British royal family ridded its image of aloof and dysfunctional patriarchy.
In this chapter, we identify four major methods of hyping, based on our inductive categorization of media texts and interview protocols coupled with the
literature. They are certification, visualization, amalgamation, and mystification. Certification refers to the way in which the media inflate the significance
of an event by resorting to authoritative “news personalities,” celebrity politicians and star journalists. The media deploy journalists at various locations to
“lift” a media event from routine to extraordinary. The star performers, placed
as the central cast, express social power and imbue media narratives with energy from the authority in the real world. Media events thus “anthropomorphize” politics and legitimize power in society (Sigal, 1986: 30).
Visualization involves selecting and collating images of certain activities
that typify the key elements of an event and objectify the flow of the event in a
“real” temporal sequence. It creates an “event reality” through the application
of the rules of “sampling” and “ordering/sequencing” (Manning, 1996). By
presenting a bundle of images in “real time,” the event draws audiences to “witness the history”—a participatory experience that is objectively illusive but
subjectively real. Using the tempo and rhythm of reality entertainment, media
presentations also authenticate an event as a “social drama” (Turner, 1982).
Mystification takes place at two levels: first, it involves the uses of mythical images and symbols of a culture to create a majestic aura of authoritative
figures and cultural icons. These mythical images and symbols reify “essential
qualities” of the power relationships in society. Secondly, it involves narrating
a media event in the myths of a culture and its bearers, and authenticating it in
the meaning system of the culture (Bird and Dardenne, 1988).
Amalgamation refers to juxtaposing images and activities from diverse locales and moments to build a narrative flow and thematic unity. It extends the
core plot of a media event and draws out a historical causal sequence embedded in the event. In this process, tidbits are signifiers disguised as “facts,” becoming meaningful as part of a particular grand historical narrative. As a result,
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Global Media Spectacle
in narrating a media event, “opinion is metamorphosed into reality” (Said,
1981: 108) and even certified as historical in a particular ideology.
The Hong Kong Handover
The Hong Kong handover is typical of “prescheduled” news events culminating in a series of carefully choreographed ceremonies. Much is predictable
about the outcome of this scripted event. If the outcome of a race in the Olympic
Games is already known, it must be anticlimatic to report about the process of
winning and losing. No wonder Chris Wood, a Canadian reporter, complains
about its being a “nonevent.” Jonathan Mirsky of the Times of London thinks it
“ridiculous” to send an army of reporters to Hong Kong, whereas Edward Gargan
of the New York Times believes that the ceremony is “only good for television.”
Why does this event receive such overwhelming attention from the global media
in the post-Cold War order and in the post-Tiananmen milieu? Each nation seems
to have some sort of vested interest at stake in Hong Kong.
The large number of journalists becomes the cover story of Asiaweek
(May 19), entitled “The Media War at the End of the Century.” It also prompts
the People’s Daily to proclaim that Hong Kong is the center of world media attention. There are more journalists covering the event than there are members
of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sent in to symbolize Hong Kong as part
of China. The handover does not turn out as traumatic as most of the visiting
world journalists had envisaged—which, as CNN’s Mike Chinoy said, “probably is good for Hong Kong, but not good for the media because it does not lend
itself to easy coverage.” Having expected civil disturbances and police arrests,
Newsweek’s Dorinda Elliot quipped, on June 30, “Nothing happened; just a
bunch of nice ceremonies.” Guardian’s Andrew Higgins complains that there is
no drama in the handover “like in the Tiananmen event, the Russian coup, or
the war in Africa.” Daily Telegraph’s historian-cum-China watcher, Graham
Hutchings, observes, “If I were a journalist who wants to jet around the world,
going to big journalistic stories, I would have found the Hong Kong thing very
boring.” Many Taiwan journalists are surprised, upon arriving in Hong Kong, at
its apparent calm. Summing up his professional frustration, a Los Angeles
Times reporter wryly notes, “Thousands of competitive egos who were thrown
into one land-starved city woke up every morning feeling the pressure from
home to justify the $450 per night hotel room and $5 cups of coffee.”
Before arriving in Hong Kong many foreign journalists had concocted
various worst-case scenarios of political disorder. Facing the contrary evidence,
they hang on to their presumptions. Instead of admitting to their own epistemological biases, they advance ad hoc hypotheses to explain away what they
see as a “momentary calm” before a big storm hits. To make up for the lack of
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
69
suspense, drama, and excitement in these staged ceremonies, they choose to
“hype up” the stories, especially when they are all hunting for the same object.
Otherwise, why did 1,000 journalists turn up to cover Governor Patten’s
farewell ceremony, which was only attended by less than 10,000 people
(Knight and Nakano, 1999: 27)? And why did foreign journalists often outnumber protesters at the scene (Xu, 1997)? Hyping the handover story becomes
a necessity to repair unconfirmed assumptions of the news paradigms and to
justify enormous commitment of media resources.
Certification
In a warlike atmosphere fraught with professional tension and intrigue, topnotch journalists arrive in the ideological battlefield of Hong Kong. The sight
of densely concentrated journalists, along with the conspicuous camera crews
carrying their equipment roaming about the crowded streets, only heightens the
frenzy and hysteria in the air. Andrew Higgins, the East Asian correspondent for
the Guardian, speaks of the “combustion” factor in the journalistic herd:
The story that would have cut to 500 words now gets printed twice as big because the momentum makes it seem more important. It’s like 8,000 journalists
suddenly show up in New York and they write about McDonald’s. News
events acquire certain momentum—a weird combustion occurs once you have
certain cameramen, journalists, radio people cover the same thing. Even if the
focus is on the ashtray, when editors in New York or in London are bombarded with pictures of the ashtray, the story gets built up; they begin to think
that the ashtray is interesting and something they don’t want to miss . . . There
is a lot of herd mentality to the story.
For Taiwan, however, Higgins may have missed the point. News value or
not, Taiwan will be China’s next target now that Hong Kong is back to the fold.
The Liberty Times, favoring Taiwan’s secession from China and usually paying little attention to China, this time sends in a team of ten reporters led by a
deputy editor-in-chief to cover the handover stories. The Central Daily News,
the organ of the KMT that has been rapidly marginalized by political democratization on the island, finds itself in a particularly awkward position because
Hong Kong is after all returned to the Communists, not to the Nationalists. The
paper, having a much smaller presence, is an “also-ran.” The competition between the two press conglomerates, the China Times and the United Daily
News, is rancorous. Through the aid of a noted pro-KMT journalist who had recently been befriended by Beijing, the China Times holds an exclusive interview with Zhou Nan, the head of China’s command post in Hong Kong. Zhou
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Global Media Spectacle
does not say anything new, but his sensitive status is enough for the China
Times to outsmart its chief rival.
Competition in an imaged ideological war cries out for the attention of the
world’s top TV anchors and reporters. CBS flies Dan Rather in from half a world
away; with him are Washington Chief Correspondent Bob Scheiffer and two veteran foreign correspondents, Bob Simon and Tom Fenton. CNN’s familiar faces
include Bernard Shaw at the anchor desk, Richard Blystone and Tom Mintier
from home, and the specialist correspondents Mike Chinoy in Hong Kong and
Andrea Koppel in Beijing. All four U.S. network anchors (Tom Brokaw, Dan
Rather, Peter Jennings, and Bernard Shaw) are on the scene to “move the show”
and to inflate the significance of the event. Undeterred by the criticism, Brokaw
insists, “I do think that I bring in here a pretty general good understanding of
what the situation is, and when I don’t know something, I have quick and easy
access to the correct answers before I put on the air” (Buerk, 1997). Ignorance
necessitates their further reliance on ready-made cliché and stereotypes. Dan
Rather claims that “the quality and depth of our coverage, particularly inside
China, sets us apart” when, in fact, CBS’s reportage is most ideologically laden
(chapter 5).
A celebrity anchor performs as a chief narrative organizer. Usually a middle-aged man looking dignified, assuring, and authoritative, he occupies the
center of a TV broadcast, directing the narrative flow with a macrointerpretive
framework. Using the “language of transportation” (Dayan and Katz, 1992:
11), he connects the studio live with field reporters. His familiar “star” quality
brings remote realities from afar closer to the audience at home and authenticates the event as a “real” occurrence. He is a condensed icon of the taken-forgranted authoritative structure in news.
Media and their celebrity journalists, no matter where they are, certify—
even amplify—news values of a story. China’s national channel, CCTV, rents
the largest booth in the Press and Broadcast Center as a show of national pride.
Its coverage team consists of 289 people in Hong Kong and 22 crews in various cities at home and abroad. A popular prime-time public affairs program
anchor, Shui Junyi, hosts the program from Hong Kong. He teams up with
four regular evening anchors in Beijing headquarters, rotating to host the 72hour “non-stop live broadcast.” CCTV heavily promotes the millions of dollars it had invested into equipment and its grand-scale live show. At 7 am, June
30, as the live broadcasting is about to begin, chatting with the anchors in Beijing, Shui assures the home audiences that he and his colleagues have “well
rehearsed the live coverage.”
Media feed on one another’s frenzy, not only to heighten the intensity of
a story but also to prolong its life cycle. When the journalistic herd competes
for the same drama, it creates pressure on the political actors to perform certain
tasks for the media. This logic was vividly displayed in 1989 by the interaction
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
71
between the escalation of student uprisings in Beijing and the world media that
happened to gather there to cover the Soviet leader Gorbachev’s visit (Lee,
1990; Esherick and Wasserstrom, 1994). This time, in Hong Kong, it comes
alive again. As the handover is to take place under the watchful eye of the world
media, British and Chinese negotiators struggle to hammer out minute details
of the ceremony; such tense negotiations in turn provoke the media to speculate
if Hong Kong is going to survive. Under similar pressure, the G-8 leaders,
holding an economic summit in Denver, Colorado, pledge support to Hong
Kong’s continued freedom; such remarks in turn make the headlines of such
papers as the New York Times and the Times of London. Similarly, in Hong
Kong, the democrats’ staged protest is geared primarily toward the foreign
media. To dramatize the expectation of encountering difficulties with the authorities, Martin Lee, its leader, vows that if necessary, he would “climb a ladder” to reach the second-floor balcony to deliver his speech. His remark ignites
the imagination of western journalists, who had come to Hong Kong to see how
Beijing would oppress civil liberty (Knight and Nakano, 1999: 42–61).
Newsweek’s Dorinda Elliot muses afterwards, “We were all waiting to see Martin Lee getting arrested.” Lee is not arrested. The protest proceeds without an
incident. However, all but the PRC media outlets are present to await the anticipated drama. Lee’s speech is covered “live” on CNN, and the protest is given
two segments of “live” coverage on the BBC.
Visualization
Pictures speak louder than words. Given the awesome power of television,
a story gets hyped up through visual authentication of events; it creates a sense
of intimacy and produces a good “reality show.” A Taiwan TV reporter says,
“Camera is the story!” He is elated over a compliment he had received from his
home editor, not for the substance of his story, but for the careful use of lighting. Good pictures are good stories, especially when the stories lack substantive
significance. The official script of the handover is heavily loaded with emphasis on generating good visuals—pageantry, rituals, fireworks—for television
cameras. Using inflated terms to describe the event, journalists intensify the visual spectaculars. At one point on the night of June 30 in Beijing, Andrea Kopple of CNN gasps that the Tiananmen Square is now a “sea of joy.” CCTV uses
even stronger terms to elicit emotive responses throughout the evening.
Visual images crystallize the overall theme of each country’s coverage. Although we do not do a quantitative count, some visual images appeared in newspapers and TV so frequently as to catch our attention (Table 4.1). Some of these
images might even have achieved the status of an icon—a vivid and memorable
image that crystallizes an ongoing news story, evokes larger cultural themes, and
Table 4.1
Key Visual Devices from the Media Coverage
China
1.
2.
Count-down clock
Chinese national flag raising
in Tiananmen
3. Deng Xiaoping
4. Fireworks, dances, and
music
5. Hong Kong and mainland
having the “affection as
close as bones and flesh”
6. Mother and lost child
7. The Yellow River, the
Great Wall
8. The tomb of the Yellow
Emperor
9. The Forbidden City
10. Bell of National Awakening
in Nanjing
Hong Kong
1.
Horse racing and dance
continues
2. The PLA soldiers and
armored personnel carrier
3. The Royal emblem and
insignia
4. Chris Patten
5. Lu Ping, Deng Xiaoping
6. Anson Chan, the Chief
Secretary before and after
the handover
7. Hong Kong people run
Hong Kong
8. Union Jack and the
Chinese national flag
9. Broken-legged caldron
10. Bauhinia
11. Torrential rain
Taiwan
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Taiwan’s democracy
One country, one better
system
“Say no to China”
The Nanjing Treaty original
Seating arrangement for
Taiwan emissary, Gu Zhenfu
U.S.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
PLA soldiers in battle-ready
posture in Tiananmen
Lone man facing a tank
column in Tiananmen
The PLA armored personnel
carrier
“Hand-picked” “shipping
tycoon” as the Chief
Executive
“Freely elected” legislature
dismantled
Martin Lee, the leading
Hong Kong democrat
Capitalist jewel, jewel of
the Orient
The Trojan Horse
Australia
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Tiananmen Square Massacre
PLA soldiers
Horse racing
Skyscrapers and Central
District of Hong Kong
Demonstrations by democrats
British and colonial emblems
Chris Patten
Martin Lee
Emily Lau
Canada
1.
Canadian soldiers’ graveyard
in Honk Kong
2. Tiananmen Square massacre
3. Stock market and Hang Seng
Index
4. Handover souvenirs
5. Hong Kong immigrants to
Canada and return migrants
6. Junk
7. Star Ferry
8. Rickshaw
9. Sampan
10. Fortune-teller
11. Temple
Britain
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Chris Patten
The Royal Yacht Britannia
The Union Jack
Bagpipes
Buglers playing Sunset
Patten bowing to the Union
Jack
7. PLA soldiers in battle-ready
posture in Tiananmen
8. Lone man facing a tank
column in Tiananmen
9. Skyscrapers of Hong Kong
10. Torrential rain
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symbolizes values (Bennett and Lawrence, 1995). It is obvious that both the
British and Chinese media make effective uses of visual images as dramatic displays of emotive condensation. In Beijing the countdown clock at the Tiananmen
Square is the media icon, where the feelings of patriotism and national pride are
elevated. On the British side, Governor Chris Patten, hailed as a “guardian” of
democracy in Hong Kong—and to a lesser extent, the “beautiful and graceful”
Royal Yacht Britannia—personifies the dignity and popularity of Britain. In contrast, other media systems, notably those from the United States, Canada, Australia, and Taiwan, constantly peg the handover to the Tiananmen crackdown
with footages from 1989 showing roaming tanks and soldiers in battle positions.
Hong Kong media have many scattered visual images—horseracing, the Royal
emblem, the bauhinia, the PLA, the broken-legged caldron, and so on—and yet
none of them stands out, reflecting its prevailing ambivalence toward the handover. In pursuit of good visuals despite the heavy torrential rain, the media deploy
cameras at various points of the territory, including the border crossing, where the
PLA troops roll into Hong Kong in the early morning of July 1.
Even the print media increasingly follow the visual logic to spice up their
stories. The People’s Daily publishes special photo sections featuring the former supreme leader Deng Xiaoping and jubilant mass celebrations in cities
across the country. On July 1, all the major newspapers in China publish special photo sections to capture key moments of the handover activities. On the
same day, the English-language South China Morning Post carries on its front
page President Jiang Zemin’s address at the ceremony, alongside a frontal
close-up shot of him looking grim and solemn. Looking up from the bottom of
the page is, notably, an array of photos of world leaders, each accompanied by
a brief well-wishing message, as if to create the impression that “the whole
world is watching.” Habitually using outlandish and eye-catching photos, the
leading market-driven mass paper, the Apple Daily, carries a full front-page
photo of the hoisted Chinese national flag and Hong Kong SAR flag, with a
huge-size caption at the top of the page that reads, “Hong Kong Ought to Have
a Tomorrow” (emphasis added). This photo and caption express the mixed feelings of hope, anxiety, and desperation.
Spatializing the Stage
Visuals help to map out the geography of an event. Manipulation of space
in the symbolic terrain is a significant feature of what Foucault (1986: 22) calls
“the epoch of simultaneity,” meaning that the historical depth is compressed by
emphasis on the spatial configuration. Popular wisdom in the media age presumes that the geographical reach of an event, especially if reported “live,”
connotes its profundity. TV anchors serve the narrative function of weaving different sites into a single stage for a media event. Through the extended geographical coverage, the ideologically intoned script for a media event is given
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
75
added dramatic excitement. For CBS, the world is the stage. Dan Rather deliberately takes his handover coverage beyond the city of Hong Kong when he
frames it as part of the larger “China story.” His revisit in Beijing, his train ride
from Beijing to Hong Kong, and the computer-generated graphs of his travel
route are all broadcast to “appropriate” the visual space for the spectacle.
The home-base orientation of news parallels the spatial arrangement of
anchors. The PRC media shape the event as an unprecedented celebration for
all-inclusive ethnic Chinese, but by using the countdown clock to synchronize
all celebratory activities, they are visually and ideologically oriented toward
Beijing as the center of the family-nation. All reports, including those from the
outpost of Hong Kong, must be sent back to Beijing before they were relayed
to the whole nation. Reflecting this center-periphery relationship, CCTV’s Beijing anchors serve as the control center for reports from home and abroad,
whereas the Hong Kong anchor is but a coordinator of local activities. Similarly, for BBC and ITV, London is the main anchor with the Hong Kong studio
as an outpost. Traffic control of Taiwan’s TTV originates from Taipei and
reaches out to Hong Kong and China. As an exception to this pattern, the center of gravity for U.S. television networks moves with the anchors, who direct
their evening news shows from Hong Kong and pass the microphone back and
forth between the anchors and reporters in Beijing, London, and other cities in
the United States. The language of transportation (“We now take you to . . .”) is
invoked to create pseudorealism in light of the “eyewitness news” tradition.
Other production techniques—split screens, quick cuts, field reporter’s
stand-ups, and so on—are employed to connect various sites into a single stage
of performance. On the night of the handover, CNN uses split screens repeatedly
to show the activities taking place at different locations. Around midnight on June
30, the lower-left screen shows Bernard Shaw talking to guest analysts in the
Hong Kong studio, while the other screen shows the ceremony about to commence, the buzz and background music from the Convention Hall laying over the
conversation between Shaw and his guests. A few minutes later, a split screen appears again to show simultaneously the scenes of the ceremony in the Convention
Hall and those of the ticking countdown clock in Tiananmen Square. CCTV uses
quick cuts in MTV style to flash a string of euphoric celebratory scenes: an ocean
of national flags, cheering crowds, fireworks, from one city to the next.
Even newspapers “spatialize the stage” of the handover spectacle through
both their layout and their selective reporting from various sites. For days, the
People’s Daily fills its “International News” page with reports of celebration
around the world and official statements by leaders of other nations. On July
2, five feature articles of equal length, arranged from the left to the right in a
rectangular box, take up half of the page, featuring celebrations in five Chinese
embassies or Chinese communities in London, Washington, Tokyo, Melbourne,
and Johannesburg (each city representing a continent). The selection of these
capital cities is ostensibly to convey a sense of global significance of the event.
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Simulating the Tempo and Rhythms of “Reality Entertainment”
Compressing space is simultaneously compressing time. As official organizers script the handover activities for the media, the media rescript them for
their presentation. Spatializing the stage conveys a realistic flow of activities,
making media coverage conform to the internal tempo and rhythm of TV entertainment. Using split screens by CNN and CCTV to show the countdown
clock continuously ticking gives suspense and anticipation to what is clearly a
flat and boring ceremony of raising and lowering flags. At the precise moment
of midnight on June 30, as the Chinese national anthem is played, CNN cuts its
camera to Tiananmen Square, and then interlaces scenes in the Convention
Center with the thunderous applause and fireworks in Tiananmen Square, juxtaposing the soundtracks from both sites. As President Jiang speaks solemnly,
the screen is periodically cut to the giant TV screen in Tiananmen Square, the
nightly tranquility of the Victoria Harbor, only to be interrupted later by scenes
of protest staged by democrats in the Legislative Council under heavy rain.
Correspondent Mintier covers Martin Lee’s speech in full. Lee concludes, “We
ask ourselves this question: Why is it that our Chinese leaders will not give us
more democracy, that they will take away the modest democracy that we fought
so hard to win from the British government?” As Lee utters his last word, the
camera changes to the Royal Yacht Britannia—carrying Prince Charles and bynow former Governor Patten—sailing away. Then comes Bernard Shaw’s
voice, “That (the protest) comes as the protector of the fragile democracy in
Hong Kong is sailing into the dark” (emphasis added).
CCTV manufactures theatrical elements of its handover coverage by mixing
the live coverage of key moments, prerecorded interviews, historical images, and
MTV videos. The chief official organs—CCTV, the People’s Daily, and Xinhua
News Agency—all participate in the orchestrating of the “live spectacle”; mixing
news with the entertainment logic, ideologically they follow in the footsteps of
the commandist mode of propaganda campaigns (Lee, 1990; Liu, 1971). CCTV’s
marathon coverage starts with highly charged anchors introducing the network’s
“game plan,” followed by reporters in Hong Kong, other cities in China and
abroad, who introduce their “local” activities. CCTV also announces that it
would wrap its “live coverage” with a selection of MTV videos from a nationwide competition to show patriotic passion and festival elation.
Lacking the advantages and constraints of TV live coverage, print journalists have to use their descriptive power of language to convey a vivid sense
of reality. For example, on July 1, Edward Gargan of the New York Times reports the sovereignty transfer night under the title “Time of Uncertainty Begins:
Will Beijing Honor Vows?” In the seventh of this 41-paragraph-long feature article, he uses short, action-packed sentences to convey quick pace of change.
The precise midnight moment is a device for him to “hang” a stream of events
together to a narrative:
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
77
Changes came quickly as the territory’s new rulers assumed control. At the
stroke of midnight, Hong Kong’s elected legislature was abolished, and a Beijing appointed body of lawmakers took its place. A range of Hong Kong’s
civil liberties were rolled back as new constraints were placed on the right to
protest and association, and any form of speech promoting the independence
of Taiwan and Tibet was banned.
Different national media systems appear to share the similar visual
grammar: they “sample” the same pool of leads, themes, and visual images in
the same spectacle; they all use anchors as star performers; and they employ
action-oriented production techniques. Visual images play a central role in
media hyping, as the contemporary public life is increasingly mediated
through “pictorial representation” (Hartley, 1992). However, this grammar
is harnessed to amplify the ideological framework of each media outlet’s
home country, rendering a country-specific “preferred reading” to the handover event.
Mystification
Hyping transforms an “occurrence” into a media performance by drawing
the scripts from cultural rituals (Becker, 1995) and traditionally prescribed format (Esherick and Wasserstrom, 1994). The performance inscribes “star performers” to the established authority structure (Elliot, 1982), enacts familiar
symbols and images of a culture, adds majestic aura and mythical qualities to
the media event, and normalizes public displays of cultural drama. In the
process, journalists may suspend their professional suspicion of the authority
and the staged nature of the event to annotate and interpret the officially
scripted symbols and rituals with ceremonial reverence. Meanwhile, journalists’ annotation completes what Barthes (1982) calls the “second-order signification.” Through such “mythological narrative” (Bird and Dardenne, 1988), the
“star performers” are further distanced from the viewers in ordinary life routines. They become majestically associated with—even part of—mystified cultural icons. Such mythological narratives are not referenced to the “facts” but
to certain culturally acceptable meanings.
In annotating a series of Patten’s last-minute ceremonial activities, BBC
personifies Patten as representing the best of British legacy in Hong Kong. The
media frame bolsters the official British “script”—British successes, honorable
and dignified withdrawal, and continued moral support for Hong Kong. After
Patten makes a speech at the Sunset Ceremony, he is shown fighting back tears in
several close-up shots, with the buglers playing the tune of Sunset, as the Union
Jack and British Hong Kong flags are being lowered. Then, a lone piper plays the
Immortal Memories. BBC correspondent Hanrahan reverently comments on this
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“defining moment” as “the lament for those who gave their lives for us.” From
the dock of East Tamar, before Patten boards the departing Royal Yacht Britannia, correspondent Eric Robson describes him as “a great man of the people.”
“Patten says, we put up a scaffolding,” he remarks emotionally, “My goodness,
what we did with that scaffolding!” Robson describes the yacht in the tone of a
romantic lover (chapter 6). At one point, he was so taken as to simply exclaim,
“Marvelous!”
Likewise, on June 26, the Times of London runs a full-page feature story
on Lavender Patten, “I am here to hold his hand.” Here is the tale of an affectionate wife committed to her hero husband who had battled against the powerful evil forces of a Communist regime and received consolation from her. On
July 1, under the headline, “Final Farewell to Hong Kong,” the Times reports
that when “tears mingle with rain as retreat is beaten,” Chris Patten “was
cheered to the skies for his role in introducing democracy to Hong Kong and
for standing up to Chinese pressure.”
Such annotation involves journalists as “aesthetic designers” for media
spectacles. They do not only select scenes and camera angles, or adjust lighting
to create eye-pleasing shots; they also prepare footages, some specially made
for the occasion. Following Patten’s final address at the Sunset Ceremony,
while the orchestra plays Elgar’s Nimrod, BBC shows a series of beautifully
shot and smoothly edited scenes of Hong Kong at dusk. The ceremony, held
under a heavy rain, is accompanied by the live symphonic performance and the
beautiful scenes of the Victoria Harbor, the green mountains, and fishing boats
scattered on the serene sea under a dusk light.
The official CCTV annotates the handover events with similar techniques
in accordance with the official master frame, while tapping into a reservoir of
Chinese cultural symbols. In the evening of June 30, CCTV gives live coverage
to a drum performance by workers and police forces in Beijing, all in the splendor of traditional costumes, while fireworks shoot vividly into the sky. In one
of the specially prepared MTV videos, 100 top pop singers join in to sing the
chorus of “1997, the Eternal Love.” With the camera roving from one singer
after another to the choir, they sing,
With my heart,
Rings the 5,000-year-old bell;
With your love,
Awaken from the 100-year sleep.
1997, I love you.
In another video, the chorus takes place against the backdrop images of the
Great Wall, the Yellow River, the Forbidden City, the rising rocket, the Bank of
China skyscraper in Hong Kong, all flashed by in rapid succession:
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
79
The descendents of the dragon,
Leaning on the Yellow River and Yangtze River;
After a hundred years of suffering,
China is prospering, Hong Kong is returning home.
In addition, the official Chinese media mystify Deng’s ingenuity and his
tie to Hong Kong. The People’s Daily, in a typical article (June 23), portrays
Deng Xiaoping as “a great man of this century” with “extraordinary courage,”
whose “one country, two system” conception is “an ingenious innovation.” In
addition, China’s economic reform under his guidance is said to have brought
strength to the country and made it possible to “wash away the 150 years of national humiliation.” The media keep bringing Deng, by now dead, back to life.
In covering President Jiang’s arrival in Hong Kong and his delivery of a speech,
CCTV keeps turning close-up shots to Deng’s widow, who is so frail as to need
support from her daughter but is said to be there to fulfill Deng’s long-cherished wish of setting foot on Hong Kong as part of Chinese soil. On June 30,
CCTV carries a “live report” from Shenzhen, a city adjoining Hong Kong, with
a group of students gathered in front of a huge poster of Deng. Under the
poster, one student is shown thanking Deng “from the bottom of our heart” for
“bringing Hong Kong back to the embrace of the motherland.” In CCTV’s
heavily promoted 12-part documentary series, “Deng Xiaoping,” he comes to
iconize the reclamation of Hong Kong. It further mystifies Deng with repeated
showing of his handwritten note: “I am a son of the Chinese people. I am
deeply in love with my country and my people.”
The media’s ritual performance, as Carey (1989: 18–19) argues, does not
improve “intelligent information” to be transmitted or the efficiency of information transmission, but it contributes to the “construction and maintenance of
an ordered, meaningful cultural world which can serve as control and container
for human action.” This performance thus tends to follow the aesthetic criteria
of entertainment, rather than the empirical criteria of news, in ways that mystify the political authority and blunt the public’s critical faculty. Further, by
drawing resources from the mythology of a culture, such performance transforms private feelings into public expressions, ordinary persons into extraordinary heroes, secular objects into sacred symbols, and socially constructed
features into culturally essentialized qualities (Becker, 1995; Turner, 1969).
Amalgamation
The script of cultural rituals serves to build a narrative flow and achieve
thematic unity by functioning as a template for journalists to amalgamate “microbits” of an event. Amalgamation expands the historical and spatial scope of
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an event. By so doing, news invariably evokes the past, the present, and the future to suggest causes and consequences of the event (van Ginneken, 1998:
110). In this sense, a ritual performance also explains an event in a grand historical narrative.
The People’s Daily, in its editorial on June 30, forges a connection between
the first day of China resuming sovereignty over Hong Kong and the official
“birthday” of the Chinese Communist Party:
Tomorrow, July 1, is the 76th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party,
also the happy day of Hong Kong’s reunification with the motherland that
washes away 100 years of national humiliation. Having two celebrations in
one day is a rare moment . . . All Party comrades, people of different ethnic
groups…warmly celebrate the reunification of Hong Kong and praise our
great Party!
Thus, reclamation of Hong Kong was the heights of national salvation and revitalization under the strong leadership of the Communist Party; the handover
was congealed into a historical narrative of Communist state building.
Amalgamation is thus an ideological process, rhetorically connecting
what otherwise seem disjointed realities and imparting significance to them.
Vertically, the narrative ties personal experiences to high political drama; horizontally, it links different life experiences to create some kind of “mood” or
“color.” National “master frame” endows the media with their interpretive coherence and unity.
In one of its programs, CCTV features a diplomat who had participated
in negotiations with Britain over the future of Hong Kong and had once lived
with his family in Macau and Hong Kong during his youth. The camera focuses
on his dying father, a historian, in a hospital bed. Then comes the diplomat’s
voice: “The return of Hong Kong has been my father’s lifelong wish. Now that
people of my generation have won back Hong Kong, we can face history, our
ancestors, and offspring.” In another program, CCTV shows villagers on the
Hong Kong side crossing the border to congratulate a family on the mainland
side who moved into a new house. Explaining his family tree, the 70-year-old
owner of the new house tells his grandchildren “never to forget that you are
Chinese.” This implies that with Hong Kong’s returning to China, the blood ties
should dissolve the artificial border. This story loses sight of many complex
historical interpretations, including the fact that that the PRC has continued to
control the border after 1997.
Contrived contrasts within a specific ideological framework serve to amalgamate the homologous bits and pieces of reality into a historical narrative;
thus, the differences between Hong Kong and the PRC are told through personal life experiences. Steven Mufson of the Washington Post files a story on
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
81
July 5 contrasting the life of the owner of a stylish Italian restaurant in Hong
Kong with that of her aunt, who had been left behind and suffered a lot in
Shanghai after the Communist takeover. Gargan of the New York Times plans a
series on the lives of four families across the socioeconomic ladder: a fishmonger, a waiter, a teacher, and a tycoon. Showing how their lives might have been
under Chinese rule fits the grand narrative of freedom-versus-authoritarianism.
Dan Rather of CBS refers to Hong Kong and China as “two worlds in one
country” and “tales of two cities,” while linking the festival mood in Tiananmen Square to the military crackdown of eight years ago. To counter Beijing’s
“one country, two systems,” Taiwan’s media drum the official slogan of “one
country, one system—the better system.” The PRC media contrast past images
of poor, weak, and humiliated Chinese people against present scenes of smiles,
dances, and songs.
Amalgamation also involves rendering the same signifier to alternative or
even opposing ideological decoding. The heavy rain falling on the night of June
30 and July 1 is read by the Chinese media as an act of the Heaven to “wash
away 150 years of humiliation”; to the British media, however, God is “mingling rain with tears” over the loss of empire. The Los Angeles Times (July 3)
calls Hong Kong’s new emblems a “sterile hybrid” (bauhinia) and a “nearly extinct” animal (pink dolphin); yet CCTV describes the pink dolphin as “very active, energetic, obedient, lovely” and possessing “a strong sense of kinship.”
The PLA crossing the border into Hong Kong is a monument to national sovereignty, as CCTV’s reporter exclaims in a live report from the border crossing
point: “The PLA vehicle is moving! It’s getting close . . . It has now crossed the
border! The mighty and civilized PLA has now entered Hong Kong!” This
reading could not have been more different from CBS’s, as Bob Simon declares, “For folks here the PLA means the Tiananmen Square.” CNN, BBC,
and ITV adopt the same narrative, frequently showing the picture of a lone man
facing a tank formation in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The genre of “color” stories attempting to catch the general “mood” helps
to extend the main plot of the handover as a media event. These stories subtly
but powerfully hype up the event by adding humor, irony, and human emotions
to the core element of news, thus enhancing the values of realism, intimacy, and
entertainment. They humanize the stern face of a seemingly hard and cold
event. “Reporter’s Notebook” on the New York Times allows reporters to write
more freewheelingly and more subjectively when they bring diverse tidbits into
the handover narrative. Most western media relish on writing about rags-toriches refugees in capitalist Hong Kong, the popularity of fortune-telling in
times of anxiety, the exotic Orient that might no longer be as exotic under Communist rule, and the tough time ahead for gay and lesbian communities because
of the Communist regime’s supposed intolerance of them. The People’s Daily
writes about families happily wrapping dumplings, late-night phone calls to
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congratulate one another on the return of Hong Kong, patriotic poems and letters. Taiwan’s media report a psychiatrist who advises people on how to maintain mental health amid hysteria, about entrepreneurs who sell bottled “colonial
air,” and about the soaring price of the shark fin (a Chinese delicacy). The Hong
Kong media interpreted as a “bad omen” that the tripod gift from the central
government in Beijing to Hong Kong had broken a leg.
Through amalgamation, each national narrative is coagulated into a discursive conglomerate, filled with not only the main plot and star performers, but
also personal stories of ordinary folks and tidbits of seemingly marginal relevance. While adding historical and cultural texture to the media narratives, these
“microbits of reality” (Manning, 1996) serve other rhetorical, narrative, and ideological functions. Rhetorically, they bring the handover event, as remote as it
is, closer to a home audience. At the narrative level, such microbits tell the handover story from the vantage point of the people who experienced it with accounts that resonate with common sense. Finally, the power of amalgamation is
that the process is so transparent for those sharing the dominant ideological
framework that the constructed narrative is authenticated as historical reality.
Conclusion
The Hong Kong handover shows that production of a media spectacle involves the entertainment-based media logic and much repairing work done on
the news paradigm. Such repairing work elevates the handover event into a
media spectacle, makes it larger than life, and lifts it up to being historic and
theatrical. This hyping process involves first certifying the significance of the
event, which in turn justifies the commitment of a massive army of journalists.
Then the media set up a visual stage for persons in power to perform, while
narrating such performance in historically and causally coherent narratives. As
Max Frankel of the New York Times (June 29) writes, the “media mob” parachuted to Hong Kong “will not teach us as much as the handful of Chinesespeaking reporters who have been tracking the gradual commercial and
political accommodation between Hong Kong and Beijing.”
The handover ends up consisting of “a bunch of ceremonies,” mostly boring
and tedious, against the anticipation of, in the case of the western media, a supposed clash between systems and ideologies, and in the case of the PRC media,
a watershed event that would electrify the population. Something should have
happened, but did not. Hyping becomes important to bridge the gaps between
news and reality, and between anticipation and outcome, especially in the rising
climate of “reality entertainment” or infotainment. In the process, reporters act as
performers, annotators, and narrators of the media event. Hyping “repairs” the
news paradigm by infusing the logic of media event into news.
Hyping and Repairing News Paradigms
83
The logic of hyping belongs to “general structure” (Douglas, 1975) found
in all media narratives regardless of political systems, ideological contexts,
and national interests. But as Thompson (1995: 173) reminds us of the relationship between “globalized diffusion” and “localized appropriation,” the
hermeneutic process of news production calls for applying the “particular
structure” of the dominant ideology in each nation (Douglas, 1975). These
particular structures give rise to different national media narratives. The images, symbols, authoritative structure, and historical narratives used are all
culturally specific, and they play specific ideological functions in the cultural
and political contexts.
There are significant implications when a major news story is turned
into a spectacle of theatrical performance. First, a media event, like that of
the handover—complete with symbols, enacted through rites according to a
script—is bracketed from the flow of everyday life. It is a staged performance
with presumed realism. The central cast—authorities that symbolize national
sovereignty—are presented with reverence. The narrative of media events
thus softens the critical edge of conventional news narrative. Second, while
the media set up a stage for the political authorities to perform, the audiences,
as spectators, are only allowed to “watch what happens next” but will “never
act” (Debord, 1990: 22). Thus, media spectacle reinforces the existing power
relationships by drawing clear boundaries of actors and spectators and by imputing passivity and inaction to audiences (Abercrombie and Longhurst,
1998; MacAloon, 1984). The performance of media spectacle thus mars the
liberal democratic premise of news as a means of informing the public and
encouraging political participation. Third, staged media performance confers
identities on the audiences. In some media spectacles, participants possess
“double identities” (MacAloon, 1984): for example, athletes in the Olympic
Games are both individuals in their own right (with medals awarded to individuals) and “sons and daughters” of the nation they represent (with national
flags raised and national anthems played at award ceremonies). In the spectacle of the Hong Kong handover, individuality is largely suppressed; media
spectators—euphemistically called “the audience”—are simply members of
the national family to reify political, ideological, and cultural differences. In
sum, with media hyping, the story of Hong Kong’s handover acquires the features of a mythical ritual, celebrating and renewing the symbols of authority,
nationhood, and political systems.
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Chapter 5
Banging the Democracy Drum: From the Superpower
There is a sadness in seeing this jewel of Asia transfer to the hands of a
dictatorial regime, only 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
—Chicago Tribune, editorial, July 1, 1997
In the American view of the past, the United States was not a classical
imperial power, but a righter of wrongs around the world, in pursuit of
tyranny, in defense of freedom no matter the place or cost.
—Edward W. Said (1993: 5)
They can walk freely now, how long will that last?
—CNN shows pairs of walking shoes in Hong Kong.
They played it up. I had friends in the States who called up and thought
there was martial law in Hong Kong.
—Mike Chinoy, CNN Hong Kong bureau chief,
referring to CBS’s treatment of the menacing sight
of the People’s Liberation Army crossing the border
(Knight and Nakano, 1999: 68)
In the era of “high modernism,” Hallin (1994) argues, American journalism domestically followed the New Deal liberal policies and defined foreign
policy in terms of bipartisan consensus on Cold War containment. Has the era
of “high modernism” indeed passed as he claims? As far as the transfer of
Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997—at a time when the
West had supposedly won the Cold War—is concerned, the U.S. media’s political reason, agendas, and narratives remain defined primarily by the mighty
icon of Americanism. The end of the Cold War, according to Fukuyama’s
(1992) controversial thesis, represents the total exclusion of viable systemic
alternatives to western liberalism. The collapse of the Soviet Union has made
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the United States the only superpower and the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) a major hurdle to reconstructing a U.S.-dominated liberal international
order (Burchill, 1996), not to mention that China’s growing nationalism is a
source of regional, if not world concern. Against this backdrop, the handover
of Hong Kong becomes a theater, a site and a moment for various national
media communities to engage in a discursive struggle.
The transfer of Hong Kong sovereignty reportedly attracts a contingent of
1,047 U.S. journalists from 108 news organizations. They cover Hong Kong
but aim at China. American exceptionalism is the motif for this ideological
confrontation. Where a Communist power is concerned, the United States—
along with its media—always sees itself as “a righter of wrongs around the
world, in pursuit of tyranny, in defense of freedom no matter the place or cost”
(Said, 1993: 5). Chang (1993) documents that the elite U.S. press has closely
followed the foreign policy toward China throughout various administrations.
The handover of Hong Kong is but a new chapter in the oscillating history of
U.S. media coverage of China between cycles of romanticism and those of cynicism (Lee, 1990), this time perceived through vivid lenses and lingering memories of the brutal Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. During that uprising, the
U.S. media strongly and perhaps justifiably endorsed the students’ ideological
causes, in contrast to the Japanese media, whose primary concern was the impact on Japan’s economic interests in China (Lee and Yang, 1995). Dramatized
by the televised bloodshed, the U.S. media made what Herman and Chomsky
(1988) call “worthy victims” out of Communist China’s wanton killings because they “proved” the superiority of capitalist democracy.1 Since 1989 the
U.S. media have continued to portray the PRC as an invariant dictatorship, in
fact the last Communist giant to be struggled against, whose promises regarding Hong Kong are not to be trusted. For its part, having issued an unrestrained
torrent of threats, China is suspicious of the West’s motive to make Hong Kong
a base of subversion against the motherland.
Notwithstanding its historical significance, the handover is a “set-piece
journalism,” a staged spectacle, and a rather bland “media event” with its script
written in 1984. Journalists had concocted likely scenarios of riots and disturbances that did not come to pass. Short of surprises and unexpected ruptures,
they could only do “theater criticism,” a review of some sort of performance
not keeping pace with a moving story (Knight and Nakano, 1999: 129). However, even the presumably detached theater criticism flaunts strong ideological
underpinnings. The fact that the U.S. media drum up the democracy theme in
Hong Kong “recall(s) and celebrate(s) events and persons that are part of their
jointly acknowledged generational and cultural identity and common understanding” and “silence(s) the contrary interpretations of the past” (Middleton
and Edwards, 1990: 8).
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The Sociology of News
Six “prestige papers” (Pool, 1952) are selected: the New York Times, the
Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago
Tribune, and the Des Moines Register. (The Des Moines Register, relying heavily on the wire services, is included in the content analysis but not in the discourse analysis.) In the absence of a national press tradition in the United States
(Bagdikian, 1971) they are highly influential, both reflective of and catering to
elite constituencies. The unity or division of elite opinion can influence the effect of mass media on public opinion (Zaller, 1992). These “newspapers of information,” vis-à-vis “newspapers of story,” provide rational and contextualized
analysis that appeals to “the more respectable faculties of abstraction” rather
than “the less respectable feelings” (Schudson, 1978: 119). Even the New York
Times finds it difficult to do “micro stories” on Hong Kong. Edward Gargan, its
local bureau chief, tells us that everything has to be placed in a wider context
with “some sweeping quality,” “with history in it,” and “with as much descriptive power in it as you can.” But many of its “soft” stories seem to appease “the
less respectable feelings” also.
The content analysis of 335 stories (news, features, commentaries, and editorials) is distributed as follows: the New York Times, 54 stories (16%); the
Washington Post, 47 stories (14%); the Wall Street Journal, 32 stories (9.6%);
the Los Angeles Times, 54 stories (16%); the Chicago Tribune, 36 stories
(10.7%); the Des Moines Register, 22 stories (6.6%); CBS News, 35 stories
(10.4%), and CNN, 55 stories (16.4%). Table 3.1 shows that the United States
is most doubtful among all western nations about the future of Hong Kong’s
democracy and press freedom. Changes in democracy and civil liberties clearly
top the list of U.S. media concerns (34.8%); of these references, seven in ten
(73.7%) suggest that these changes would head for the worse. Other major explicit concerns include press freedom (14%), the daily life (13.7%), and the
rule of law (10.4%)—more than 50% of these references claim that Hong Kong
will deteriorate in these areas. Some 15.2% of media references mention possible, but not necessarily disastrous, changes to Hong Kong’s autonomy. The
U.S. media seem confident about Hong Kong’s continued economic prosperity after the handover.
The size of the news team and the amount of resources vary. The New York
Times team consists of five experienced China hands, all with a reservoir of
knowledge about China and Hong Kong.2 Gargan explains that since his paper
“covers the world” with 44 correspondents, Hong Kong’s handover is prominent but not overwhelming. Most of the writing is lengthy and highly interpretative rather than straightforwardly factual. The Washington Post also has an
equally formidable team headed by its bureau chief, Keith Richburg, and
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follows similar news routines. (When asked to name the most influential media
leaders, a senior British journalist credits these two papers.) The Wall Street
Journal, besides its own staff, is augmented for local advantages by the Asian
Wall Street Journal, which it owns. The Los Angeles Times has a somewhat
more modest presence. The Chicago Tribune only parachutes in a reporter from
Beijing, whose reports are more event-oriented, shorter, and sprinkled with
quotes from a lot of different sources. It also relies on wire services and excerpted foreign press opinions to fill up the missing holes in the news net. Other
regional or local papers have different considerations of audience taste. The
San Jose Mercury News caters to a significant Asian-American community that
it serves in California. A reporter from the Baltimore Sun admits that a “small
fish” like him is disadvantaged to compete with the New York Times or the
Washington Post, so he tries to do something others don’t do, but the question
is what topics are left uncovered.
The New York Times seems to typify the “news net” (Tuchman, 1978) of
U.S. coverage. First, topical emphasis is placed on reports of formal and structured aspects of the handover activities. Secondly, in a “Waiting for China” series, journalists take turns to do more informal, interesting, and colorful writing
to capture the “mood,” allowing their personal values to seep in. Thirdly, corollary reports come from other parts of the world, covering China’s nationalistic
rallies in Tiananmen Square as well as reactions from Taiwan and other Chinese communities in North America and England. In other words, this news net
is centered on the “here and now” of Hong Kong in a web of temporal and spatial significance that is tied to the United States, the PRC, Britain, and Taiwan.
All papers in this study publish editorials and commentaries by staff columnists
or contributors.
The two networks selected for analysis are CBS News and CNN. CBS
Evening News was being broadcast daily in Hong Kong via satellite transmission during the study period. Despite a steady decline in network ratings, television news still has a wider audience reach than the elite press by virtue of its
ability to cut across different social strata (Wilensky, 1964). CNN is a quasiglobal network watched in many major cities around the world (Volkmer,
1999); its signals are often received and edited by various national television
systems for particular ideological emphasis. The active role of both networks,
especially their anchors, during the 1989 Tiananmen uprising was noteworthy
(Chinoy, 1999; Salisbury, 1990). The presence of CNN in the Gulf War was a
special, albeit controversial, chapter in the history of live broadcasting
(Zelizer, 1992). Even though China has been undergoing dramatic transformation, it has almost disappeared from the news maps of ABC, CBS, and
NBC since the Tiananmen crackdown, while CNN has narrowly focused on
China’s dissidents, human rights, and Sino-American diplomatic conflicts
(Chinoy, 1999: 413–414).
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This study confirms Hallin’s (1986) finding that, due to its greater need for
simplified thematic unity, television is a much more ideological medium than
the elite press. If the elite press provides “knowledge about,” television offers
“acquaintance with” at best (Park, 1940). Television news knits bits and pieces
of images into a plot line, appealing not to understanding but to imagination
(Nimmo and Combs, 1990: 49). The anchors perform television’s thematizing
function by furnishing leading and concluding remarks in the newscast as well
as by moderating, interspersing, and posing questions between various reporters. Television narratives also move back and forth between “straight” reporting and commentary; their language is “peppered with phrases strongly
charged with moral and ideological significance” (Hallin, 1986: 120).
The four globe-trotting television anchors (Dan Rather of CBS, Peter Jennings of ABC, Tom Brokaw of NBC, and Bernard Shaw of CNN) are flown in
to pull off a technological feat. Their celebrity status—projected as more glamorous, wiser, and larger than life, a fame that is beyond the reach of any print
journalists—is a creation of modern mass mediation. Despite their well-publicized journeys, South China Morning Post gives these anchors a simple test on
name recognition and finds them “decidedly hazy on some general knowledge
of Hong Kong” (Buerk, 1997). Ignorance does not seem to hamper them but,
instead, necessitates their greater reliance on a stock of stereotypes. Nor are
their culturally embedded clichés likely to meet with critical challenge from a
home audience generally ignorant about world affairs.
CBS News starts broadcasting live from Hong Kong on June 25, six
days before the handover.3 Under the heading of “Red Flag Rising,” the network frames the handover “in the context of the ongoing story of China trying to be a world superpower” (Buerk, 1997). Rather claims that echoes from
the huge and increasingly more powerful China “reverberate in every American country and town” (Buerk, 1997), but he does not acknowledge that CBS
has for years had no presence in Hong Kong. The CBS team consists almost
exclusively of its own star correspondents (including Bob Simon, Tom Fenton, and Bob Scheiffer), but these prominent “tourists of history” suffer from
a lack of substantive knowledge about China. The anchor, contrary to illusion, is transfixed by the glare of lights and remains in a fixed location. CBS
casts a narrow news net with a predictable slate of interviewees: top leaders,
English-speaking democrats, a few Britons, a pro-Beijing Hong Kong legislator of British origin, and a controversial radio talk show host. Despite Hong
Kong being a foremost center of China studies, curiously, the only person invited to proffer insight in a shallow special live coverage is Sidney Rottenberg, an American sympathizer of Mao’s revolution who lived in China until
the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. Having introduced his guest as “a man
whose expertise in and of modern China, as an American, is unmatched, from
Mao to the market economy, from prison time to information age,” Rather
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asks him: “With your experiences, what do you think?” Live coverage is a
most ahistorical and least reflective news genre, one that Katz (1992) has
taken to task as the “end of journalism.” A noted U.S. journalist describes
CBS’s overall performance to us as “disgraceful.”
CNN has a bigger slab of airtime to fill, in both its regular Worldview program (one hour on weekdays and 30 minutes on weekends) and the special
coverage. Bernard Shaw brings in a crew of 59 people, adding to the strength
of 16 members in the local bureau led by Mike Chinoy, and reinforced by the
Beijing bureau headed by Andrea Koppel. Shaw starts reporting from Hong
Kong on June 23, two days ahead of Dan Rather, and anchors a nonstop live
coverage of the handover ceremony from 11:30 p.m. on June 30.4 Shaw claims
that CNN tries to cover the handover “as thoroughly as possible” for people
“around the world” (Buerk, 1997). It casts a somewhat wider news net than
CBS News, albeit primarily with prowestern sources and no official Chinese
voices. There are two studio panel discussions, each made up of a local academic and another American professor of Chinese descent (all with American degrees). CNN also depicts the light side of Hong Kong with segments of what
could be called an “alien and exotic Orient” theme to close off—and to provide
texture for—its Worldview program. These lighter pieces include horse racing
(2:48 minutes), the life of the boat people (5:25 minutes), rickshaw (1:46 minutes), shoes and the “frenetic pace” and fortune telling in Hong Kong (1:53
minutes), a ferry ride (2:06 minutes), the fishermen’s life (1:53 minutes), and
the handover souvenir on sale (1:19 minutes). Many of them seem to match
with the sites of tours and visits arranged by the Government Information Services. These seemingly neutral stories contain strong ideological messages. Describing the fast pace of local life, CNN shows a shot of walking shoes: “They
can walk freely now, how long will that last?”
Media Framing
We identify four “ideological packages” in the U.S. media narratives that
are causally related and internally consistent (Table 5.1). First, the United
States is now the “new guardian” to protect Hong Kong from China’s abuse.
Such claims of responsibility are ideologically based on the second package: as
the leader of the Free World, the United States has the right and duty to lead in
an emerging Cold War. These two abstract packages are concretized by two
other packages. The third package concerns how Communist dictatorship will
wreck Hong Kong’s democracy and freedom, whereas the fourth package
posits that the capitalist Hong Kong will eventually spread democracy and freedom over to change Communist China. These two seemingly opposite packages, in fact, postulate the same heroes and villains.
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In the arena of international newsmaking, national similarities in media
narratives tend to dwarf their internal differences. Television networks and the
elite press, despite their fierce competition, play different variations on the
same ideological themes. They operate within the same institutional relationship to the power structures and share the broadly similar ideological and cultural prisms. They embrace and reproduce—rather than challenge, weaken, or
subvert—elite consensus. The handover of Hong Kong as a political issue
never enters into the sphere of “legitimated controversy” in the United States
(Hallin, 1986), so the media need not “index” divided opinions, if any, among
the elites (Bennett, 1990). It is appropriate to speak of a nationally defined
media narrative.
New Guardian
The United States is said to have taken over Britain’s “guardian responsibility” to protect the treasured capitalist enclave from Communist atrocity. This
guardianship is not based on sovereignty or territorial claims but justified on
ideological grounds. It should be remembered that as a political candidate Bill
Clinton had chided President Bush for “coddling Beijing butchers,” and that
during the first two years of his administration President Clinton sought to link
trade with China to its human rights record. Clinton found his linking policy ineffective and decided to pursue a policy of “positive engagement” instead. Now
gingerly announcing that he would make the preservation of Hong Kong’s
freedoms as part of America’s China policy, he also claims that he wants to
“draw China in” rather than to “shut China out” (Washington Post, June 14).
Hence, Secretary of State Albright reiterates that no single issue, not even Hong
Kong’s transition process, can control the “multifaceted relationship” the
United States has developed with China. Columnist David Broder (Washington
Post, June 24) quotes former U.S. ambassador to China, James Lilly, as arguing that the United States should renew “most favored nation” trade status to
China but engage China at every point.
This “engagement” policy is criticized by a hard-hitting Washington Post
editorial (June 24) for failing to spell out what might be at stake for China if it
should trample on Hong Kong’s freedoms. Citing China’s treatment of the leading dissident Wei Jingsheng and Hong Kong’s “puppet legislature,” it claims that
“sometimes it seems as if the administration wants to champion human rights
without risking goodwill in the relationship with China.” The editorial urges Clinton to ensure that “China does not feel emboldened to mistreat Hong Kong’s 6
million citizens with the same impunity.” Similarly, columnist Jim Hoagland
scolds Clinton for “sniff(ing) up a version of the old ‘quiet diplomacy’ excuse”
for doing nothing about China’s human rights (June 29). He concludes that Hong
Kong’s reversion “provides an opportunity, and an obligation, for Washington to
Table 5.1
Ideological Packages of the U.S. Media Coverage
New Guardian
New Cold War
Erosion of
Democracy and
Freedom
Trojan Horse
Frame
U.S. takes over guardian
responsibility toward
Hong Kong.
China is a threat to the
liberal world order after
the fall of Berlin Wall.
China’s takeover leads
to the erosion of democracy
and freedom in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s capitalism
and democracy will
spread to China.
Metaphors
The whole world is
watching.
ATM machine as the
most “efficient
diplomatic tool”;
the Berlin Wall.
China “will put its
virus in Hong Kong’s
software”; a puppet
handler awaits his cue;
“nearly extinct” pink
dolphin, “sterile
hybrid” bauhinia.
“The tail that wags the
dragon”; “colossal
Trojan Horse.”
Exemplars
Clinton wants to “draw China
in”; hold China accountable
in Hong Kong.
Losing a “capitalist jewel”
to the Communists after
the fall of Berlin Wall;
“Tiananmen bloodbath.”
Tiananmen crackdown;
democratic Taiwan;
authoritarian Singapore.
Soaring Hang Seng Index
and Red Chips Index.
Catchphrases
“Exit Britain, enter
America.”
“Hard-line and old-line
communism”; “Red
flag rising.”
“One country, no system.”
Red star over Hong Kong
is the end of Maoism.
Depictions
Albright “snubbing an
undemocratic body
appointed by China’s
leaders.”
Chinese troops “rolling
in”; China “trying to be
a world superpower.”
China’s “handpicked
legislators”; “democratic
legislature dismantled”;
Hong Kong as the
only decolonized
place with less freedom
and democracy; Hong
Kong media “bend even
before the wind starts to
blow.”
Hong Kong as “a base
of subversion”; “Hong
Kong capital is reshaping
China’s landscape”; Hong
Kong fever will spread
across China; China is
big, old, and heavy,
while Hong Kong is young,
light, and mature.
Visual images
A “jewel of Asia”
falling into a dictatorial
regime; Patten sailing
into the dark.
Tanks, armored
personnel carriers.
Tales of two cities;
Tung as a “shipping
tycoon”; two worlds
in one country.
Hong Kong as “crystal ball”;
“a flagship of what Chinese
people can do”; bullish
Hang Seng Index.
Principles
Positive engagement.
Liberal democracy in
the post-Cold War era.
Press freedom and free
election.
Capitalist democracy.
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Global Media Spectacle
think and speak more clearly about the future, of China and of U.S. expectations
in China.”
The conservative Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Jessie Helms, writes a tough op-ed page commentary titled “Exit
Britain, Enter America” (Wall Street Journal, June 25). He asserts that the
transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China “signals the handover of responsibility for Hong Kong’s fate to the United States.” Helms laments about
America’s “undeniable mistake” not to seek to influence Sino-British negotiations in the 1980s. No matter whether Britain is able to pursue its agenda at the
international court, Helms holds that the United States should “employ tactics
well beyond legal challenges,” until China lives up to its commitments. With
Britain gone, he concludes that only the United States “has the will and the way
to stand up for Hong Kong.” Another critic of China, the New York Times’s
columnist A. M. Rothenthal, accuses the “China trade lobby” of trying to persuade Clinton to kill human rights as a part of U.S. policy (July 4). The title of
his column is: “Laughing in Beijing.”
New Cold War
Although almost all western media display antipathy toward China, only the
U.S. media frame the handover from the global superpower’s vantage point. Because of or notwithstanding its human rights record, China has stepped in as
America’s convenient enemy in place of the Soviet Union. The Chicago Tribune
says in its editorial (July 1), “There is a sadness in seeing this jewel of Asia transfer to the hands of a dictatorial regime, only less than 10 years after the fall of the
Berlin Wall.” The New York Times’s editorial on the same day strikes a similar
tone. Both invoke the Berlin Wall metaphor to suggest that Hong Kong—Milton
Friedman’s “wonderful experiment in free-market capitalism”—is in jeopardy.
It is graphically illustrating that Dan Rather embarks on his journey by revisiting, reminiscing about, and reporting from the Tiananmen Square, thus linking the absorption of Hong Kong to that crystallized symbol of Chinese
repression. On June 20, Rather reports from Beijing “a rare (housing) protest
against the Communist authority on the eve of Hong Kong’s transfer.” Coupling
these two unrelated events, he adds, “Today’s protest is notable more for its timing than for its size.” From Beijing, he takes a train passing through several
coastal and inland provinces to reach Hong Kong, as if to suggest metaphorically
that Beijing were pulling the string from behind. The network frequently pegs the
handover story to library footage of the Tiananmen bloodshed, not only creating
an emotional déjà vu against Communist dictatorship but also foretelling life in
the posthandover Hong Kong. Standing in front of the glistening skyline and the
magnificent Victoria Harbor, Rather announces that Hong Kong’s free enterprise
is “going back to the old-line and hardline Chinese Communists” (June 25).
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Wearing a safari outfit, the “war” correspondent Bob Simon comments, “A Communist regime gets control of a piece of real estate without firing a shot.” Compared with the U.S. getting out of Vietnam, Simon praises the British for doing it
with style, “without a tail between legs.” The war metaphors abound.
Amidst the prevailing doom and gloom, however, some predict that capitalism will triumph. The New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman (July
3) characterizes China as “one country, no system”—having largely abandoned
Communism but not fully embracing capitalism. If China fails to live up to its
obligation toward Hong Kong, China “will be punished by that most brutal, efficient and immediate of diplomatic tools: the ATM machine.” He refers to the
more than $100 billion in foreign investment in Hong Kong, most of it in
highly liquid funds. Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas W. Freeman Jr. also writes in the New York Times (June 22) that most people in Hong
Kong clearly believe that China would honor its words, given the booming
stock and real estate markets. He scolds Governor Patten for “jumping the gun”
by staging elections in Hong Kong in 1995, defying what Deng Xiaoping had
in mind for Hong Kong: “benevolent autocracy” that is economically libertarian but politically authoritarian. Obviously no fan of Hong Kong’s fragile
democracy, Freeman charges that “American politicians, suffering from apparent ‘enemy deprivation’ and calling for a new Cold War with China, unnerve
Hong Kong more than they do Beijing.” His view draws rebuttals from Patten’s
press secretary (June 22) and another letter writer, arguing that a flourishing
market economy is “compatible only with a free society” (June 24). Of course,
neither Friedman nor Freeman anticipated that an Asian financial crisis would
erupt only a year later to prick Hong Kong’s economic bubble.
The Wall Street Journal appears to be even more uncompromising toward
China, both in the three editorials and in the invited commentaries (by Jessie
Helms, Margaret Thatcher, and Martin Lee). The language used is generally
stronger, more biting, and without pretense to fairness. An editorial (July 1)
claims that “no amount of complaining from its citizens, or from Washington,
London and any other capital can stop Beijing from behaving as it wishes” or
from having “absolute control” in Hong Kong. Another editorial (June 26) invokes “Tiananmen bloodbath” twice to question if China’s promised “high degree of autonomy” for Hong Kong would be turned into a mockery. A third
editorial (July 2) condemns European leaders—including German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl, French President Jacques Chirac, and the former British Foreign
Secretary Geoffrey Howe—for kowtowing to Beijing, to the neglect of Hong
Kong’s rights.
The handover is an ocassion for the PRC media extravaganza to celebrate
nationalistic triumph over western imperialism. To counter this, the British
media emphasize that their small island nation has brought modern civilizations
to the world and has left a good legacy—freedom, prosperity, the rule of law,
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Global Media Spectacle
and an efficient civil service—in Hong Kong. Margaret Thatcher uses Hong
Kong to reaffirm herself as “an unashamed defender of the record of the British
Empire in bringing the rule of law and the prospects for self-improvement to
millions who would never otherwise have known them” (Wall Street Journal,
June 27). Imperial nostalgia notwithstanding, she is eager to fend off the criticism that while as prime minister she “sold out” free people of Hong Kong to
the Communists. Thatcher’s rhetoric attempts to de-essentialize the virtues of
Chinese nationalism and the evils of British colonialism, in ways that shockingly exemplify the caricature made by Said (1993) of the imperial construction
of Orientalism: the notions that Britain brings civilization to primitive or barbaric peoples (p. xi) and that “you are what you are because of us; when we left,
you reverted to your deplorable state” (p. 35).
While positive British legacy constitutes the main frame for the British
media, it is treated only as a secondary frame by the U.S. media to bolster
their own ideological contestation over capitalism versus Communism. A
New York Times editorial (July 1) argues that even if Hong Kong’s Chinese
rulers will dwell on the evils of colonialism, a decent respect for truth “requires an acknowledgment that Britain’s legacy also includes Hong Kong’s
yearning for democracy and its material prosperity.” A story praises “Britannia’s indelible mark” (June 29), quoting sources to say that colonialism
brings “important benefits.” Western media largely give prominence to Governor Chris Patten’s (1997) rhetoric that Hong Kong is “an astonishing Chinese success story with British characteristics.” Prince Charles summarizes
British legacy this way: “Britain is part of Hong Kong’s history and Hong
Kong is part of Britain’s history. We are also a part of each other’s future”
(Chicago Tribune, June 30). Few if any British or U.S. journalists have noted
Britain’s antidemocratic record in the colony, especially in the background of
“the crude bluster regularly emanating from Beijing” (Chinoy, 1999: 397).
Historian Maurice Meisner (Los Angeles Times, June 29) takes a rare exception by noting that all modern Chinese leaders have wanted to abolish colonial rule, but it was Churchill who opposed Roosevelt’s support of Chiang
Kai-shek to reclaim Hong Kong.
There is a strong media suggestion that “the whole world is watching”
over China, an icon imported from the civil rights movement of the 1960s to
imply putting international pressure on that authoritarian regime. The Los Angeles Times (June 23) quotes Christopher Cox, a member of the U.S. congressional delegation to the handover ceremony, and German Chancellor Helmut
Kohl to that effect. A letter to the editor from a Taiwanese American (July 17)
echoes the same sentiment. Even President Clinton vows to “keep a close
watch” over Hong Kong’s freedom (Washington Post, June 15).
The Washington Post doubts that “authoritarian China” can succeed in
using Hong Kong as a model to bring “democratic Taiwan” back into its fold.
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An editorial (July 1) argues that Taiwan is not a colony, as was Hong Kong, but
a democratic polity entitled to decide its own future. Another story (June 27)
reports that Taiwanese greet news about Hong Kong’s handover with such apathy, ambivalence, or outright hostility that television ratings are consistently
low. To counter Beijing’s “one country, two systems” policy, Taiwan officially
appeals to international media for sympathy by advocating “one country, one
system—the better system,” a reference to its own democratic reform.
Besides Taiwan, an assortment of countries or entities—ranging from
Tibet, Vietnam, India, to Singapore—are implicated. Thus, international politicians and media fight an ideological battle in the site of Hong Kong on the occasion of its sovereignty transfer. Citing China’s violation of agreements with
Tibet, a consultant to Refugees International implores the free world to keep a
“vigilant watch on Hong Kong” (July 2). Like CBS, the Washington Post compares the Hong Kong handover to Communist North Vietnam’s takeover of the
capitalist South, although the latter was a forced wedding after a long and
bloody civil war (June 29). In reference to the Indian independence, Jim Mann
of the Los Angeles Times (July 2) evokes the image of Nehru’s famous speech:
“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to
life and freedom.” Mann says that Hong Kong is already full of life, but its
freedom “remains the big question mark.” Having praised Nehru, Mann needles the wooden President Jiang, noting that his cliché-laden speech is not
something to be remembered.
Next to the Tiananmen crackdown, Singapore and its authoritarian patriarch, Lee Kuan Yew, emerge as favorite media referents. First, Singapore’s
Straits Times, toeing the official line, reprimands “the British nation’s surrogate
mourner (in Hong Kong)—the western media, human rights lobbyists and crusading politicians in Washington and parts of the European Union.” It claims
that China “will no doubt again thwart the ill-wish of its detractors in the
months and years ahead” (quoted by New York Times, July 3). The New York
Times notes editorially Chief Executive Tung’s fondness of Singapore’s authoritarian system (June 29). Tung’s praise of the Singaporean model in an interview with CNN is deemed as “wholly out of touch with Hong Kong’s
freewheeling reality” (Chinoy, 1999: 396). Kristof brings up Singapore twice
in the same New York Times story (June 25) as a negative example of viewing
press freedom as a luxury, not necessity. Richburg reports in the Washington
Post (June 30) that Tung has appointed pro-China politicians, several of whom
had been pro-British, to his advisory Executive Council, which “closely resembles the island-city state of Singapore, a place where political debate is
muted, where government is authoritarian and paternalistic but efficient.” The
Los Angeles Times (June 28) opines that Beijing and Hong Kong’s new leaders,
drawn from the business elite, see Singapore as a model for different reasons.
Finally, Governor Patten gets a lot of media mileage out of lashing back at Lee
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Global Media Spectacle
Kuan Yew, his critic, as an “eloquent advocate of authoritarian government” not
necessarily Asian or Confucian. He retorts: “Why do we assume that Lee Kuan
Yew is the embodiment of Asian values rather than Aung San Suu Kyi or Martin Lee?” (Washington Post, June 25).
Erosion of Democracy and Freedom
The new Cold War is translated locally into struggles over the erosion of
fragile democracy and freedoms. Reversing Britain’s antidemocratic record in
Hong Kong for 150 years, Governor Patten implemented the last-minute electoral reform in 1995 as a British legacy and as a preemptive measure against
Communist abuse of power. While Beijing denounced him as a “sinner of the
millennium” (Dimbleby, 1997), Bernard Shaw of CNN describes his farewell
as “the protector of Hong Kong’s fragile democracy sailing into the dark.” As
a New York Times editorial (July 1) declares, “By habit and ideology, Beijing
is quite capable of quashing freedom in Hong Kong” (emphases added). The
new regime is dissolving the assembly of elected legislators, supplanted by a
“Beijing-handpicked” “puppet” (Washington Post editorial, June 24). A New
York Times editorial (June 29) praises Secretary of State Albright’s decision to
skip the inaugural session of Hong Kong’s provisional legislature as “rightly
snubbing an undemocratic body appointed by Chinese leaders.” It also proclaims that democracy supporters “may be harassed by the authorities if they
stage demonstrations in the days ahead”—a scenario that did not materialize.
Many U.S. print journalists had requested interviews with Tung for weeks
to no avail, although he did talk to CBS and CNN. Bernard Shaw asks Tung
bluntly: “Are you a puppet of Beijing?” By and large, U.S. journalists are sympathetic to the outgoing governor, who rails against Hong Kong’s business elite
for switch of allegiance to Beijing. The New York Times writes that most wealthy
executives “managed to secure U.S., British or Canadian passports as escape
hatches before undertaking their pro-China proselytizing.” These executives tell
reporters not to pay attention to the “negative” democratic advocate, Martin Lee.
The Washington Post also identifies prominent leaders who have given up
British passports or knighthood (June 29) to pursue an award being created by
Tung (June 30). If Tung is portrayed as a shipping tycoon with Beijing’s backing, Martin Lee is hailed as democracy’s hero. Lee recounts in the Wall Street
Journal (June 30) how freedom brought his parents and their generation as
refugees from the mainland to create Hong Kong’s economic success, vowing
that his generation should continue to fight for freedom. As a media icon, Lee
knows that “the foreign press expected something will happen,” and his speechwriter thinks it is a “good sell” for Lee to be packaged by foreign journalists as
anti-China (Knight and Nakano, 1999: 43). But Lee always prefaces his public
speech by claiming to be “proud to be Chinese, more proud than ever before.”
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Most western journalists have liberal access to the democrats being ousted
from the provisional legislature. But in what seems typical of journalistic search
for formal balance, the New York Times also interviews two pro-China legislators
in an otherwise critical story (June 15): David Chu, a “positively ebullient” realestate developer who claims that nothing will have changed; and Allen Lee, a
Liberal Party leader harshly criticized by Patten for switching allegiance to Beijing (Dimbleby, 1997), who claims that the handover is “not the end of democracy.” The Washington Post (June 29) also quotes a local police inspector, as an
obligatory antidote to show journalistic objectivity, as saying, “We don’t want to
switch our loyalty and cannot serve the Communist government of China.”
The “rolling in” (CNN) or “pouring in” of the “much feared” (CBS) People’s Liberation Army is widely regarded “with trepidation” and “gives many
people jitters” (New York Times). To CNN’s Chinoy (1999: 400), “the imagery of
military occupation, added to the weight of the Tiananmen history, was not . . .
a particularly good omen for the new, postcolonial Hong Kong.” A Washington
Post editorial (July 1) criticizes that the PLA “makes something of a spectacle of
itself, arriving at a time and in places where local residents and millions of watchers worldwide cannot fail to draw some unpleasant conclusions.” On June 27,
Bob Simon of CBS reports that the British “are going off with music” and the
Chinese “are coming in by tanks.” On June 30, CBS News once again calls up the
images of the Tiananmen crackdown:
Dan Rather: After 156 years of colonial rule that created the wealthiest city
in the world . . . (Turning to Bob Simon, who was standing by and facing the
camera.) First of all, let’s talk about the army. I think the whole world is talking about that . . . 4,000 troops, armored personnel carriers. You’re in Hong
Kong now, folks are pretty saddened about that?
Bob Simon: Yes, it is very sad. It brings back memories. For the folks here, the
PLA means the Tiananmen Square. On June 4 in 1989, right after the massacre in Tiananmen Square, one million people took to the street here. That’s
one in six people in Hong Kong.
On the handover night of June 30, Rather introduces a “festive celebration” in Tiananmen Square and continues: “This is how the pro-democracy
movement started in April, eight years ago.” He reports, “Near dawn, a truckload of troops arrived (in Hong Kong). None of the soldiers appeared to be
armed.” The image is nonetheless cut to show the scene of June 4, 1989, in
Tiananmen Square with soldiers holding rifles and firing in the background.
The unsaid message, more powerful than said, suggests that Tiananmen II is
possible in Hong Kong. Situating the image within such a political context, the
media could “disseminate bias without serious reservations or opposition”
(Said, 1981: 45).
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Both CBS and CNN allude to the historical irony—and Patten’s favorite
rhetoric—that Hong Kong is the only decolonized place with less freedom and
democracy (Patten, 1997). Patrick Tyler writes in the New York Times that Beijing may crush a “base of subversion” for about 100 mainland dissidents who
were smuggled into Hong Kong after the Tiananmen crackdown with the help
of the underground Operation Yellowbird (June 22). The Washington Post
quotes the popular Chief Secretary Anson Chan as saying, “Minding our own
business is the best guarantee of our autonomy” because China will clamp
down hard “if it suspects we are allowing Hong Kong to be used as a base for
subversive activities” (June 23). In retrospect, this scenario was born in a
broadly anxious mood under Beijing’s pre-handover bluster, which became so
punishing that the colonial administration advised the dissidents to leave before
July 1. In reality, as soon as the PLA entered into Hong Kong, the mood
changed overnight: it retired to barracks not to be seen in public. Scenes of
some crowds greeting the PLA along its parade route must have confounded
journalists who had expected an explosive protest to occur.
Erosion of press freedom is forecast with frequency.5 In a typical article
(New York Times, June 25) Kristof predicts that China’s critics will have “a
major confrontation in the next few years with Communist hardliners who
never met a publication that they did not like to censor.” Beijing may exert
pocketbook pressure on such outlets as Dow Jones and Reuters, he warns, and
put Hong Kong’s role as an information hub for all of Asia at risk. The Wall
Street Journal reports that major media in Hong Kong “bend even before the
winds starts to blow.” Contradicting the “officially optimistic” mood, both papers (Wall Street Journal editorial, June 26, and New York Times, June 25)
quote polls to show that 50 percent of the public and 86 percent of business executives fear the loss of freedom under Chinese rule. In a different story, however, Faison (New York Times, June 30) notes that “even at this climatic turning
point in Hong Kong history, the bulk of newspaper fare consists of tales of robbery, sexual harassment and bizarre moments of human tragedy.”
Trojan Horse
While it is common to see Hong Kong as the recipient of abuse and negative influence from China, the U.S. media also invoke a complementary
frame—deriving from the famous Greek “Trojan Horse” mythology—to suggest that Hong Kong will be a harbinger of economic, even political, change for
China. The media celebrate the myths of Hong Kong’s continuing economic
boom, replete with visual charts of the soaring Hang Seng Index and Red Chips
Index (the PRC stocks sold in Hong Kong)—without, of course, expecting the
subsequent Asian financial crisis to wreck them. As the New York Times reports,
virtually none of the even most optimistic forecasters “foresaw this almost rau-
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cously bullish sentiment on the eve of such a precarious historical moment”
(June 25). Characterizing Hong Kong as “the tail that wags the dragon,” it
states that 13 years of transition have made it China’s money capital (June 27).
Accompanying the article is a photo juxtaposing the Bank of China tower with
the Hong Kong Club, as if to show a convergence of new money and old power
in Hong Kong’s capitalist way.
Kristof states: “The central question is whether Hong Kong amounts to a
colossal Trojan horse: a prize so glorious that China’s Communists cannot leave
it outside the gates but which, once inside, will destroy those in power” (New York
Times, July 1). He mentions Sun Yatsen, the founder of the Republic of China, as
someone who had been inspired by British achievements in Hong Kong. He
quotes a local columnist in comparing Hong Kong to a bran tablet: “These things
are small and inoffensive as you take them, but they kind of invisibly expand in
your stomach when they are in there, and have a beneficial effect.” Red star over
Hong Kong, it is concluded, may be the end of Maoism. Foreign affairs columnist Friedman writes on July 1, “Auld Lang Syne,” accompanied by a drawing
that depicts Hong Kong as the head of a dragon that is China. Drawing on the
metaphors of speed and weight, he suggests that while China is big, old, and
heavy, Hong Kong is young, light, and mature in the age of information technology. China is the past, and Hong Kong is the future of China “when it grows up.”
Margaret Thatcher claims that a future generation will “look back on the
ceremonies of June 30 not so much as marking the end of Hong Kong’s colonial past, but as marking a new impulse toward freedom and democracy in
China and the rest of Asia” (Washington Post, June 27). In responding to a
question posed by CNN’s Bernard Shaw, she emphatically stresses that the
Hong Kong fever will spread across China. As “an example and a flagship of
what Chinese can accomplish,” she says, Hong Kong is “a small crystal ball for
a big solution.” Another article by Peter Stein (July 1) in the Wall Street Journal illustrates that Hong Kong’s tycoons now bet their future on China’s big
market. Similarly, the Washington Post quotes a local tycoon who builds highways and hotels in China as saying that although the difference between the development in Hong Kong and China is “like France and Bulgaria,” it might be
more like “France and Spain” in 50 years (June 15).
Soft News and “Local” Perspective
Having examined the four ideological packages, we would like to pursue
two more theoretical issues. First, in the inferential process, the “soft” news—
be it light-hearted anecdotes, historical episodes, or the “mood” pieces—is
likely to be as ideological as the “hard” news. Even a frivolous topic may well
disguise the serious ideology embedded in it. Second, as we have argued, the
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“local” perspective in the age of globalization is likely to reproduce the “national” perspective. “Local” may not be subnational; in foreign news, local is
national. Local differences either do not exist or are suppressed.
American journalists are committed to facts, but facts “lack a framework of
theory or ideology from which to deduce evidence or infer explanations” (Carey,
1986: 167). Journalists can establish causes, consequences, and motives often
through intuitively and spontaneously weaving selected facts, words, and images together. Generality is inferred from facts; personal tales build up a large
claim about the contour of collective fate. These mediated realities are not as important to be demonstrably true as they are presented to be believable and offer
“dramatic proof of one’s expectations” (Nimmo and Combs, 1990: 9). Insofar as
their stories conform to cultural expectations, journalists seem at liberty to impute causes and consequences without fear of challenge. For example, media
spectacles prize on stories of conflict resolution with “good guys” beating “bad
guys.” A real conflict satisfies the elements of a melodrama: the actors, acts, a
scenario, crescendos, and motives; in the absence of a real conflict, a contrived
one can be staged. All U.S. elite newspapers have made all sorts of sharp constrasts in life experiences to make the basic point that many refugees have made
it in Hong Kong compared with their relatives left behind in China. There are
many similar stories of different permutations to portray that a “good Hong
Kong” is being beaten by a “bad China.” By so doing, they ignore contradictory
stories and make all sorts of inferential leaps; their selection of interviewees is
intuitive, unexplained, yet assumed to be “typical.”
Even as benign and exotic as fortune-telling—a favorite western media
topic—deserves scrutiny for its rich ideological meaning. Take for example a
story by Faison in the New York Times, “Any Omens? Colony’s Soothsayers
Won’t Say” (June 23). He starts by saying that Hong Kong people go to fortune-tellers because their future “remains firmly in the realm of the unknowable.” With an ironical twist, even the fortune-teller cannot tell the future of
Hong Kong. Although China bans fortune-telling stalls, nightclubs, and racetracks, he says that few fear such a crackdown after the handover, but he then
launches into possible loss of civil liberties. Fortune-tellers say that many of
their customers are visiting midlevel Communist Party officials who no longer
believe in the system, and most vocally optimistic people in Hong Kong are not
working-class people, but wealthy business people. Fortune-telling thus foregrounds media distrust of the new sovereign. Fortune-tellers are certified as
critics of China with an aura of credibility usually vested in highly placed
sources. This cutely written story is a classical example of “displacing the reality with a ‘plausible explanation’ of the reporter’s own” (Said, 1981: 110).
Furthermore, journalists amalgamate the formally homologous (sometimes only ambiguously related) events or issues into a paradigmatic framework to build a narrative flow or to achieve thematic unity. News invariably
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evokes the past, the present, and the future, for it selectively implies “some of
the probable causes, relevant contexts and possible consequences of the reported events” (van Ginneken, 1998: 110). In the process of news domestication, journalists “refigure cultural scripts” (Bennett and Lawrence, 1995)
and reaffirm the core values with their public and sources. On July 4, Independence Day, a Los Angeles Times editorial says that the British handover of
Hong Kong is at least “a voluntary, long-planned and bloodless passing of
power,” whereas the American Revolution, the first of British jewels
wrenched away, was violent. “After July 4, 1776, there was no going back,”
the editorial claims, “In time, the dominoes toppled.” In this cultural script,
Hong Kong is not incidental to the commemoration of a highly mythologized
Fourth of July, but—standing at the end of the line of steady British decline—
a descendant of the American Revolution. Likewise, CBS uses the handover
of Hong Kong as a “feeling good” factor for celebrating American democracy
on Independence Day.6 Thus the separately selected episodes of Britain’s,
America’s, and Hong Kong’s past are now coherently congealed into a grand
historical narrative.
In some cases the internal connection between cases or events is tenuous
or cursory. Typical is a story in the New York Times: even Bermuda gets into the
act because, with Hong Kong gone, it is the largest in what little is left of the
British Empire. Another story (July 1) says that Britons “find stronger reason
for national pride in the current success of their tennis players at Wimbledon
and rugby team in South Africa than for nostalgia over their imperial past.” It
proceeds to quote the Daily Telegraph as saying that British conquerors “benefited mankind.” Hong Kong, mixed with sports, is nothing more than a ploy for
rehashing British glory!
In other cases, this discursive practice of amalgamating does less to illuminate this internal tie than to reveal the interpreter’s cultural framework. Typical is Karl Meyer’s essay in the “Editorial Notebook” of the New York Times
(June 28). He writes about Warren Delano, an ashamed American opium trader
in China who returned to the United States and married his daughter to the father of Franklin D. Roosevelt. According to Meyer, the Opium War was denounced in British Parliament, and the same outrage was expressed in the
pulpit and the press in America and England. Based on this experience, Meyer
writes, Americans pulled out of the opium trade. He concludes: “It is precisely
this conviction that underlies efforts to attach human rights condition to trading
relations—to temper the amorality of the market—a point that, alas, seems to
elude the Socialist soon-to-be masters of Hong Kong.” Delano is not only of
considerable historical interest but also of contemporary relevance as a precursor to western morality. In this perverted historical script, western opium
traders have set themselves morally right, while China, the victim of the opium
trade, has clung to the “amorality of the market.” Journalism indeed becomes
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self-fulfilling prophecy when “opinion is metamorphosed into reality” (Said,
1981: 108). The nineteenth-century Chinese dynasty and the current Communist regime become an intermingled entity, historically invariant and temporally contiguous. How western opium traders became enlightened defenders of
human rights is undisclosed.
Finally, we come to the point about the “local” perspective. Hallin and
Gitlin (1993) argue that war coverage is a ritual of consolidating the community
unity. Alexander and Jacobs (1998) similarly observe that media ritual, especially
created by television, helps to sustain shared beliefs and a common cultural
framework essential to the fostering of collective identities and solidarities. This
kind of media ritual draws on cultural frames defined by the power establishment
(Curran and Liebes, 1998: 6). We contend that the “local” perspective is mostly
derivative of the national narrative on international issues. We checked the Des
Moines Register and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, only to find them relying heavily on the AP wire stories. The Chicago Tribune and the San Jose Mercury News,
each sending correspondents to Hong Kong, do not differ ideologically from such
quasi-national outlets as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
The Chicago Tribune, like most local newspapers, looks for the “Chicago
connection.” Correspondent Liz Sly points to the gleaming Convention Center, “perhaps an appropriate commentary on Hong Kong’s hopes for the future,”
as a product of partnership between a Chicago firm and a Hong Kong firm
(June 29). With that architectural icon she surmises that the 1,000 U.S. companies (including 90 from Illinois, of which she singles out Caterpillar) based
there remain stubbornly optimistic. Moreover, on July 1, a reporter writes about
three Chicagoans of Chinese descent who bought tickets to watch Hong Kong
“before it changed.” The story is headlined, “For many, scene is well worth the
ticket.” The “many” in the headline actually refers to three people in the text.
As expected, the paper reports about Chicago’s Chinese community greeting
the handover with pride and anxiety.
A sharper example comes from comparing the national network, CBS,
with its affiliate, Channel 9 “Eyewitness News” advertised as “the most
watched news” in the Washington, D.C., area. CBS sees the Hong Kong handover as a quasi-ideological war, albeit of elusive nature, that serves to renew the
dominant consensus, whereas local media habitually create personal and geographical immediacy by sourcing laypersons from hometown who happen to
be on or near the spot, no matter how little light they may have to throw. At
noon on July 1, Channel 9 has been showing network feed depicting a sequence
of ceremony activities. Then the local anchors cut in. They phone Lisa Spivey,
the publisher of American Technology, who is at a hotel on the Kowloon side
just across the Victoria Harbor and the Convention Center. The anchors field a
series of six personalized and predictable questions, hardly deviating from the
network’s stereotypical frames:
Banging the Democracy Drum
•
What do you see from where you are?
•
How much concern is expressed about the presence of Chinese
troops?
•
Do businesses feel they will be back to business or (there will be)
any changes?
•
Do you expect to see things going back to normal tomorrow?
•
I have to ask you personally: What does it mean to witness all this?
•
Just want to know: Do you see any sign of protest?
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Having finished the interview, the female anchor expresses awe at the “very
impressive color and lights” and comments on “very interesting look on his
(Prince Charles’s) face.” Apparently needing a crash course, she mentions that
Prince Charles “wishes the province success in its transition” and that “the
jewel is back to the crown of the People’s Republic of China.” With that remark, “now we turn to a very tragic story: drive-by shooting of a boy,” followed
by news about Mike Tyson biting off his opponent’s ear. National and local
news agendas converge, not diverge. This personalized interview, trivially enveloped in the conventional anti-Communist frame, is a “strategic ritual”
(Tuchman, 1978) aiming to objectify the reality and to create a pseudosense of
realism and intimacy.
Conclusion
Banging the democracy drum is an American tradition. In 1845 John
O’Sullivan (1976) coined the phrase “manifest destiny” to define the spirit of
American expansionism and to promote and justify the spread of democracy
across the North American continent, especially with regard to the annexation
of Texas, and later, Oregon. American and other western Christian proselytism
in China was more than a religious movement but played a central role in the
expansion of the West and the regeneration of China (Barnet and Fairbank,
1985). This chapter clearly shows that that U.S. media coverage of the handover reveals as much about Hong Kong’s plight as about America’s “manifest
destiny.” Throughout the 1990s, in the wake of the Tiananmen crackdown,
there has been a prevailing mood of gloom and doom in Hong Kong, as reinforced by Sino-British rows, China’s incessant threats, and Governor Patten’s
rhetorical eloquence (Patten, 1997). This ideological canon proves to have
strong staying power on Fortune magazine, among others, which had prognosticated the death of Hong Kong months ahead of the handover.
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As the only superpower left in the post-Cold War world, the United States
and its media pay so much attention to the handover not simply because of their
burning interest in this little island. Rather, the United States steps into Hong
Kong as the chief voice of the West. Giving away Britain’s last and most prosperous colony to the world’s remaining socialist giant, albeit as its special capitalist region, is viewed as an assault on western-cum-universal values. The
U.S. media rally around and behind the star-spangled banner to bang the
democracy drum. They frame the event in terms of the U.S.’s self-perceived
role as a “new guardian” in the context of another emerging Cold War, which is
marked not only by an imminent erosion of freedom and democracy in Hong
Kong under China’s pressure but also by an eventual victory of Hong Kong’s
capitalist democracy over China’s socialist authoritarianism. In an interview
(May 6) with the Los Angeles Times columnist, Tom Plate, Chief Executive
Tung implies that his job could become impossible if the United States and
China constantly are at each other’s throats. He argues that there are no truly
major strategic fault lines between the two countries, and deplores how the
West views China through CNN broadcasts from Tiananmen Square on June 4,
1989. He claims that the changes in China are so astounding that the Tiananmen massacre will not happen again.
The U.S. media privilege the frames of democray and freedom over others
by drawing on elite consensus and cultural assumptions as articulated by national foreign policy. Thanks to ideological consonance, these frames seem to
be naturalized by journalists—even in the face of what seem to be contradicting evidence—without meeting critical challenge from the (un)informed public. The universal validity of U.S. media ideology, unless compared against
alternative national media narratives, is generally to be assumed and untempered. Media not only renew national consensus and the dominant values but
also reinforce the foreign policy. We have demonstrated that the state, especially its foreign policy, remains central to defining international news, despite
various postulations about “global modernity” (Tomlinson, 1999) or about the
decline of the nation-state vis-à-vis international and local entities (Braman and
Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1996; Featherstone and Lash, 1995; Waters, 1995). For
the U.S. media rhetoric at least, also in contrast to Hallin’s (1994) claims, the
Cold War logic and metaphors seem very much alive and overwhelming. We
find little ideological difference among various U.S. media, although television
may have played a cruder and more naked role. Journalists have the reputation
of being cynics, but in the deep structure of things, their worldview is unmistakably American.
In retrospect, the media may have covered a heightened pseudo-event,
much ado about nothing. For various reasons, the handover turns out to be not
as bad as anticipated. Under such circumstances journalists only have so many
ways to outwit their competitors. Even if they only talk to the same slate of 20
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to 50 people and to other journalists, they still have to give their stories “sweeping,” but in many ways reductive, interpretations. By no means is the ideological contestation less intense. When the event refutes their hypotheses,
journalists must do something to save the integrity of their news paradigmatic
structure (Bennett et al., 1985; Chan and Lee, 1991). The U.S. media resort to
“hyping up” (Aronson, 1983) their stories through staging the conflicts, amalgamating homologous events, localizing the news significance, and fixing visual presentation. The media ritual thus created does not result in radical
abandonment of the original ideological tenets, but produces latent consolidation of them in different guises. Even the most lighthearted accounts are ideologically loaded—some subtle but many blatant.
Finally, the audience seems indifferent to foreign stories of this magnitude
that are not unexpected occurrences within their ideological expectations, despite the media’s best hyping efforts. Hong Kong news has quickly faded out of
the radar screen of the U.S. media, which have moved on to look for other
wrongs to be righted. Short of major calamities, it will be difficult to keep
Hong Kong news alive, which has lost its unique identity and will be treated as
part of the larger China story. For good or for bad, the transfer of sovereignty
will prove to be the peak of world-media attention showered on Hong Kong.
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Chapter 6
Essentializing Colonialism: Heroes and Villains
We provided the scaffolding that enabled the people of Hong Kong to ascend: the rule of law, clean and light-handed government, the values of
a free society, the beginnings of a representative government and democratic accountability. This is a Chinese city, a very Chinese city with
British characteristics.
—Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, July 30, 1997
I feel like a child who has grown up under the care of a foster mother, but
now it is time to reunite with my natural mother. I treasure the warmth I
feel in the arms of my foster mother and worry my natural mother is a
fierce woman. I feel anxious.
—A Hong Kong citizen, South China Morning Post, June 20, 1997
History has demonstrated unequivocally that without the Chinese Communist Party, there would be no socialist new China, and there would be
no smooth return of Hong Kong.
—The People’s Daily, editorial, June 30, 1997
“To thank the Opium War” is not an appropriate way of saying it, but to
say thank you for what colonial rule has brought to Hong Kong would be
consistent with the facts.
—Lee Yee, a columnist, June 30, 1997
Great Britain lost its first colony with the American Revolution in 1776 and
may have lost its empire with India’s independence in 1947. Even so, turning
over the “capitalist jewel” of Hong Kong (as the media call it) to Communist
China in 1997—eight years after the crumbling of the Berlin Wall—symbolizes
the end of global colonialism. If India’s independence marked the beginning of
dismemberment of the British Empire, by the time Britain bids farewell to Hong
Kong, its world hegemony had already long receded. All Britain could do was to
reminisce about its past glory and to grumble about the likely Chinese abuse, but
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it was totally powerless to sway the contour of history. It is significant to note
that while Indians ousted the British with vehemence, Hong Kong people wistfully implore the British to stay, only to be repulsed by the PRC, whose rise on
the international stage has been met with the West’s consternation. Amidst the
ending of the Cold War, the struggle over the closing of British colonial rule in
Hong Kong is a center of global ideological theatre for almost two decades.
Under colonial domination, as Osterhammel (1997: 16–17) writes, the fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the indigenous people are made and implemented by a minority of foreign invaders, who convince themselves to have
“ordained mandate to rule” and to pursue “interests that are often defined in a
distant metropolis.” Fanon (1968) characterizes colonialism as exploitation, manipulation, suppression, mistrust, racism, deceit, and imposition—definitely antithetical to the now universally accepted democratic values. The ugly arrogance
of old British colonial officials and their discriminatory practices in Hong Kong
was vividly caricatured by such renowned Chinese writers as Lu Xun. On the
other hand, what the British managed to achieve in Hong Kong was said to have
fathered Sun Yatsen’s revolutionary thought that led to the toppling of the corrupt
Manchu dynasty in 1911. Since 1949 Hong Kong has been a source of ideological construction as a “beacon of freedom” at the door of the “Iron Curtain” or as
a symbol of colonial oppression against a people’s revolution. Is British colonialism in Hong Kong markedly different from the characteristics of classical
colonialism? Has British rule been continuously evil, inhuman, and ruthless for
150 years, or has it become “kinder and gentler” in its latest stages? What does
“the end of Hong Kong” imply to China and to Britain? History is a Rorschach
test. Picking certain aspects for selective emphasis at the expense or to the exclusion of other equally salient aspects is an inherently ideological process. We shall
show in this chapter that as the PRC media seek to essentialize colonialism as
something inherently evil, the British media seek to de-essentialize it as something that may bear positive results. Hong Kong media, however, find themselves
caught in split loyalty and identity.
Like any form of foundationalism or fundamentalism, essentialism is a
process by which the rich, complex, and even contradictory dimensions of a
people replete with culture and history get reduced to certain oversimplified,
innate, natural, or immutable properties (Said, 1993). These “fundamental”
properties serve to “define what something is, and without which it could not
be what it is” (Edgar and Sedgwick, 1999: 131). With this “something” so
crudely defined, however, the interpreter tends to ignore the concrete processes
of change, struggles, discontinuities, and internal contradictions. He or she may
secure a discursive or ideological closure by freezing “the fluidity of meaning”
(Hall, 1997: 245). The contemporary cultural politics has, for example, focused
on the hegemonic implications of essentializing gender to sex and ethnicity to
race. If gender is reduced to sex, a fluid discourse becomes a sterile concept:
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the social processes of shaping the gender role are made irrelevant to (or buried
under) the “constant and dichotomous,” biologically defined sexual categories
(Howard and Hollander, 1997: 28). To the extent that the difference between
men and women is seen as “natural”—an act of God—then there is nothing that
we can do about this difference because it is “beyond history, permanent and
fixed” (Hall, 1997: 245). Nor is it desirable to tamper with “nature.” Therefore,
gender inequity gets perpetuated. Likewise, the concept of ethnicity—created
through human action, and open socially and ideologically to multiple interpretations—should not be reduced to that of “fixed and inherent” race (Hall,
1996a, 1996b, 1997).
Essentialization stereotypes, naturalizes, and fixes the difference of others
to a few simplified characteristics: American exceptionalism, British civilization, Japanese industrialism, German ingenuity, or Chinese (Confucian) harmony. A moment’s reflection would prompt us to ask: How does the Confucian
philosophical musing reconcile with the historical reality of the Cultural Revolution? This act of essentialization is crucial in international discursive contestation. Various discursive contestants decide on whether or how to essentialize
a certain issue or symbol according to their situational needs and interests at
stake. This process does not necessarily call for distortion of facts, but for selective accentuation or interpretation of them, thus is highly dependent on “who
the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is in interpreting, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place” (Said, 1981:
154). This process signifies “otherness,” constructs exclusion, and tends to gloss
over the internal difference within a group.
Edward Said (1978, 1993) documents in his seminal work how the oriental discourses have historically been orientalized in and for the West. The varied life of the billions of Islamic people scattered across various states,
societies, histories, geographies, and cultures has been reduced to “one simple
thing” by western media (Said, 1981: x). The Orient is essentialized “for” the
West in that it is a shorthanded approach to otherness that often serves to legitimate the internal order and enhance the identity of the self. This otherizing
process has more to do with the West than with the Orient. As Stuart Hall
(1997: 258) puts it, essentialization enables the “bonding together of all of Us
who are ‘normal’ into one ‘imagined community,’” and “sends into symbolic
exile all of Them—‘the Others’—who are in some way different—‘beyond the
pale.’” For this reason, in the realm of international news, internal differences
of a national perspective are usually insignificant by comparison to the differences between national perspectives. The media in Taiwan and South Korea
have “otherized” China and North Korea to achieve internal cohesion against
the Communists (Chung, 2000). British colonialism in Hong Kong, as this
chapter will show, also is a living concept subject to social construction and
reconstruction for ideological advantages.
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Colonialism implies, according to Osterhammel (1997: 4), (a) “colonization” as a process of territorial acquisition, (b) “colony” as a particular type
of sociopolitical organization, and (c) “colonialism” as a system of domination. Domination is at the heart of a colonial relationship. The colonized people, often non-Europeans, were subject to unequal relationship imposed by
their conquerors, often Europeans, with the installation of an undemocratic
and exploitative mode of social organization. Colonialism assumes that the
dependent and immature non-Europeans stand in need of guidance from the
more civilized Europeans (Osterhammel, 1997; Said, 1993), who are given a
universal and historical mission of messianic liberation. The British pushed
this point to its fullest by permeating the feelings of “imperial nostalgia” in
official and media discourses and by drawing a sharp comparison between the
“advanced Hong Kong” and the “backward China” (Patten, 1997). This narrative was nothing but repugnant and racist to the PRC. British discourses
seem to agree with Marshall (1996: 370) that the origins or intentions of colonial rule are not as significant as its (supposedly positive) consequences. Both
China and Britain have brushed aside the issue of representation of Hong
Kong people, who had no say over their own future and could do nothing but
accept the fait accompli negotiated on their behalf by the two hostile sovereigns (Chan and Lee, 1991).
Journalists Coming to Town
As many as 63 British media outlets and 688 journalists come to cover the
handover of Hong Kong. For our study, the British sample includes BBC, ITV,
the Times, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times. All of
them have Hong Kong news bureaus, which started their planning process one
or even two years before the handover was to take place. They started filing stories about various aspects of Hong Kong months before the handover and
steadily increased their frequency as time neared, leading up to one page per
day for newspapers in the week prior to July 1. Television ran documentaries or
special series on a prescheduled basis. While the local bureaus provide main
news contact and set the news agenda, their home offices also send in major reporters as reinforcements to meet the journalistic competition.
Logistics—ranging from the satellite feed, the camera, the wires, to the
crews—can be a journalistic and technical nightmare for television news, all
requiring massive investment in equipment and human power. The BBC’s
huge operation that rivals the Gulf War coverage and surpassed the coverage
of South Africa’s 1994 election courts criticisms of overkill from some members of the British Parliament. To that charge, a BBC spokesman retorts:
“This is an historical milestone and we feel it is entirely appropriate that the
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BBC should cover it fully, both from a news-value point of view and under
our public service remit” (Times, June 28).
The PRC authorities orchestrate a massive media mobilization to stage a
“national event” of nationalism (chapter 7). For the Hong Kong media, the
handover story started long before the conclusion of the Sino-British Joint
Declaration in 1984 and had lived through eruption of conflicts between China
and Britain since then (Chan and Lee, 1991; Lee, 2000a). Despite the handover
fatigue, the media compare this event to a war mission. TVB alone commits
400 people. A total of 2,816 journalists representing 106 media outlets are registered to cover the story.
The Chinese Media: Essentializing Colonialism
British colonialism is often thought to have started in 1497 when John
Cabot claimed “the New Found Land” for Henry VII (Marshall, 1996). At its
height, before the Second World War, the British Empire covered territories
ranging from Africa, Canada, South America to Australia and Asia. The empire
virtually terminated in the late 1960s, with its ties to the colonies cut off during
the war and with Britain’s will and ability to rule the global reach considerably
weakened after it (Darwin, 1988; Fieldhouse, 1966). The decline of the old
British and French empires took place against the backdrop of the rise of the
United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers and of the general decolonization process under the auspices of the Untied Nations.
Hong Kong, which China ceded in 1842 after losing the Opium War, was
one of the last colonial acquisitions by the British Empire. For Chinese, the loss
of Hong Kong, which spearheaded 150 years of national humiliation at the
hands of western powers, has been (some say forever) scarred in history books
as a “national shame.” Having overturned the Manchurians in 1911, the Republic of China started to make claims on sovereignty over Hong Kong. While
China succeeded in forfeiting most of foreign-held territories, concessions,
spheres of interest, and extraterritorial rights in the late 1920s and 1930s, Hong
Kong remained firmly in the British grip (Lane, 1990). After the Second World
War, President Franklin Roosevelt supported Chiang Kai-shek in his attempt to
recover sovereignty over Hong Kong, only to be aborted by opposition from
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Mao’s rise to power touched off an acrimonious debate over “who lost
China” in the United States. Sir Alexander Gratham, Governor of Hong Kong,
said in a 1954 speech that Communist China was the most likely source of invasion, yet the “barbarous Communism” could not conquer civilized China.
The Communists declared that they intended to reclaim Hong Kong eventually,
but for pragmatic reasons they would maintain its colonial status quo for a long
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while (Chan, 1997; Jin, 1998). This was based on Mao’s policy of “long-term
calculation and full-scale utilization.” In other words, the PRC was ideologically opposed to but economically compliant with the fact of Hong Kong as a
British colony. A cross point city of strategic importance (a “bridgehead of the
free world”) in the Cold War, Hong Kong was a thorn in the eyes of the PRC,
who prided itself on nationalism, patriotism, self-reliance, anti-imperialism,
and support for national liberation movements in the Third World. In 1973
China asked the United Nations to remove Hong Kong and Macau from the list
of the world’s colonies and put them in “the category of questions resulting
from the series of unequal treaties left over by history” (Lane, 1990). Facing international blockade, however, Beijing found itself absolutely having to rely on
Hong Kong as a window to the outside world and as a source of trade and foreign exchange, to the point that Mao Zedong himself decided at several key
junctures against removing British jurisdiction from the territory. In the 1960s
the glaring division between China’s high moral ground of anti-imperialism
and its practical considerations of economic benefits came into Soviet lashings
as “collaborating with British and American capital in Hong Kong” to exploit
the working people (Lane, 1990: 65).1 Even during a local riot in 1967 that
erupted as a spin-off of China’s radical Cultural Revolution, Beijing did not
change the political status quo in Hong Kong. For this reason, Beijing refused
to accept Portugal’s offer to return Macau in 1974 after a leftist riot. (Macau
was returned to China in 1999.)
By the 1970s and 1980s, Hong Kong began to be recognized as “by far the
most lustrous jewel of the once-Imperial Crown’s otherwise residual adornments,” and one whose economic light outshone its nominal possessor’s (Connell, 1998: 1). No sooner had China emerged from the ruins of the Cultural
Revolution than Britain began to seek out Beijing to clarify the status of Hong
Kong after the lease of the New Territories expired in 1997. Painful negotiations
produced the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, under which Hong Kong
was to be absorbed by China as a capitalist special administration region in Deng
Xiaoping’s “one country, two systems” policy. From 1984 to 1997 both countries
experienced rounds of diplomatic bouts; wars of words and insults became a
daily media fare in the 1990s, when the British decided to undertake limited
democratic reform in the final years. Polls, media accounts, and massive outflow
of emigrants all pointed to a prevailing sense of doubt, distrust, and anxiety.
The handover narratives of the Chinese media tend to essentialize the evil
and unjust British colonialism clothed in nineteenth-century imperialism. The
media make preponderant references to the Opium War as an irascible icon of
China’s humiliated national psyche. Further, anticolonialism and anti-imperialism have been defined almost as synonymous with mobilizing Chinese nationalism and patriotism around the cause of national salvation. The PRC also
acknowledges the weakness of the Qing dynasty for the loss of Hong Kong; this
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recognition exonerates the PRC from historical responsibilities and credits the
Chinese Communist Party and Deng Xiaoping for righting the historical wrong
(chapter 7). The media stop short of launching a full-scale attack on the present
conditions of British colonial rule, for fear of contradicting China’s policy of
leaving Hong Kong’s capitalism intact after the handover.
The Chinese media—quoting the authorities, or trying to provide a logic or
argument in news and commentaries—often attribute Hong Kong’s astonishing
economic prosperity not to British rule, but to the hard work of the local Chinese
(People’s Daily, June 20) and the support of mainland China throughout all
these years (People’s Daily, June 3). CCTV produces features to show how the
Chinese workers tried unselfishly to ensure that Hong Kong compatriots got
their cheap water and food supplies from the motherland. These activities are
not portrayed as business transactions but as supports out of national care, and
the fact that Hong Kong provided the PRC with approximately 40 percent of its
foreign exchanges is never mentioned. Whenever the PRC media stress the importance of maintaining the cherished social framework to protect Hong Kong’s
prosperity, they largely ignore the role of the British in establishing such legal
and economic infrastructures.
In sum, by honoring the Chinese Communist Party and Deng Xiaoping for
redeeming Hong Kong from British colonialists, the Chinese media have constructed a story and a history that are exclusive and reductive. In other words,
they construct a totalistic narrative to tell a very partial history that has lost
sight of at least five key points:
(a)
The sovereignty reversion of Hong Kong is by no means as
unique or unprecedented as the Chinese media have claimed. In
view of the general and worldwide decolonization process,
Hong Kong in fact stands as one of the last remaining colonies
at the end of the twentieth century. It is particularly peculiar for
a revolutionary Communist regime to tolerate the existence of a
colony at its doorstep.
(b)
A succession of Chinese leaders long before Deng had made
failed attempts to reclaim Hong Kong. Instead of actively seeking to redress the colonial conditions in Hong Kong, the PRC’s
decision to “resume the assumption of sovereignty” (in official
terms) over it was passively prompted by the expiration of the
99-year lease of the New Territories.
(c)
Despite all the media’s patriotic clamors, it should be not forgotten that Mao himself set the policy of preserving Hong Kong’s
colonial status quo in order to take advantage of its economic
and political access. He did so even at the risk of Soviet ridicule.
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(d)
Hong Kong people, more than half of whom are refugees from
mainland China, reacted to the handover in an overwhelmingly
negative fashion (Chan and Lee, 1991). Culturally proud but politically loath to be Chinese, they appreciated the British legacy
and lacked confidence in the PRC to keep its promises. They did
not want to kick the British out; nor do they want to welcome
the Chinese in.
(e)
The Chinese media have not given due credit to Britain for establishing Hong Kong as the world’s leading financial center
with modern legal, bureaucratic, and commercial infrastructures. The PRC media credit Hong Kong’s glistening success to
the strong support of the motherland instead. Hong Kong did
profit from being the switch point between China and the outside world and from the supply of cheap goods and labor from
the mainland. The colony, however, has also had to bear the
brunt of enormous pressure to keep pace with successive waves
of mainland refugees in the provision of jobs, housing, and welfare in the past five decades.
The British Media: De-essentializing Colonialism
After the Second World War, Britain came to recognize that it no longer
had the might or resources needed to maintain the global reach of its empire,
and that the old conditions that favored colonialism had broken down.
Nonetheless, if the process of decolonization was well managed, Britain could
maintain its residual or extended politico-economic benefits in the former
colonies. Hong Kong being the last leg of this decolonization process, Britain
was predisposed to cooperate with China in the interest of securing a smooth
transition. British interests in Hong Kong remain considerable: apart from
more than 1,000 British corporations with billions of dollars operating in or
from there, Hong Kong is Britain’s gateway to Asia and China.
Equally important, Britain is determined to retreat from Hong Kong with
honor and dignity. Retreat was not a defeat. Insofar as the colonial beginning
was not justifiable, British officials and media prefer to concentrate on defining
the positive legacies they left behind in Hong Kong against the deplorable
record of the PRC. Governor Chris Patten is repeatedly quoted as lamenting
that Hong Kong represents the first instance of decolonization in which the
colony is to be handed over to a regime with much less freedom and democracy. Moreover, as frontline player in the western camp—and a staunch ally of
the United States—in its attempt to contain Communism (Sanders, 1990),
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Britain has defined its legacy as an integral part of the current geopolitics to
advance its own interests in the world.
British Legacy
Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997 apologized to Ireland for the nineteenthcentury potato famine. But when asked whether Britain would apologize for the
Opium War, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook says no. He adds that Britain could
condemn the Opium War, but to go around apologizing for what Britain did in
the last 150 years would take the full-time job of a prime minister (South China
Morning Post, July 27).
“Imperial nostalgia” reigns high. Graham Hutchings of the Daily Telegraph thinks that although many British people may not able to articulate the
feeling toward the empire, they still feel certain emotions about being reminded
of how great they once were. Playing upon this emotion, his paper’s headline
reads on July 1: “Farewell to Empire.” Of course, no British media or politicians would try to defend the Opium War, so they try to keep its historical origin at a distance or in the background. Among the little that is published on the
subject, England is portrayed to have grabbed Hong Kong through gunboat
diplomacy, the Opium War, and the need to force China to open international
trade (Times, June 28). In introducing a television segment on “how did the
British come here in the first place?” on the handover night, John Tusa, BBC’s
anchor, comments that “the answer is a great deal of uncertainty and plenty of
guilt.” But admission of guilt like this is far and few between.
The morality of the colonial origin is for the most part brushed aside. Instead of linking the “dark” Opium War to colonialism or imperialism, the British
media focus on the current “bright” conditions of Hong Kong. On the day of his
departure, Chris Patten urges all parties not to dwell on history. No one could
condone either the Opium War, which led to Britain’s acquisition of Hong Kong,
he insists, or the upheavals in China that have led to mass exodus of population
to Hong Kong (Financial Times, July 1). Apart from exonerating British imperialism from its guilt, this narrative also highlights the fact that British record has
outshone the PRC. After all, how bad could British colonialists be? On another
occasion, Patten asks rhetorically: “No one says what a rotten thing the Roman
Empire was, do they (sic)? It gave us law, transport, public administration, and
when it went, Europe descended into chaos.” To him, the British Empire, at least
in its later stage, was “an invariably honorable venture, conducted by honorable
people. We don’t need to creep around feeling guilty about it” (Daily Telegraph,
June 30).
The British legacy in Hong Kong is only a part of the “we brought civilization to the world” theme (Said, 1993). Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
calls herself “an unashamed defender of the record of the British Empire” in a
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Wall Street Journal article (June 27). “Because men who set off from our islands
conquered the world,” the Daily Telegraph asserted editorially (June 30), “English is now the world language of commerce, law, science, and a universal model
for good government.” It continues, “Hong Kong is Britain’s creation.” Likewise,
the Times (July 1) states that many Hong Kong Chinese look back “with gratitude,” and Britons could reflect “with pride” on what they and their ancestors
have “contributed not only to Hong Kong but to those dominions and colonies
over which the Union Flag once flew.” “Even the Chinese, recalling more than
150 years of ‘national humiliation’, admitted this week that British rule was not
all bad,” the paper adds. Further, John Casey, writing in the Daily Telegraph (June
30), has not the slightest doubt that the postimperial world order was “less just,
less stable and less civilized than what it succeeded.” Like the New York Times,
the Guardian (June 26) cites Dr. Sun Yatsen, the founding father of the Republic
of China, as someone to have admired the “British-led Hong Kong efficiency and
law, contrasting it with the chaos of the China in imperial decline.” Patten’s voice
should have joined Dr. Sun’s historical echo.
Emphasizing what Britain had done for Hong Kong and playing up the
emotional ties between them de-essentialize colonialism in such a way as to
strip Britain of its moral sin and to remind Hong Kong people how thankful
they should be. Colonialism is given a positive overtone for bringing civilization and modernization to the backward people (Said, 1993). Patten says eloquently in his farewell address under the pouring rain on June 30:
As the British administration ends, we are I believe entitled to say that our
own nation’s contribution here was to provide the scaffolding that enabled the
people of Hong Kong to ascend: the rule of law, clean and light-handed government, the values of a free society, the beginnings of a representative government and democratic accountability. This is a Chinese city, a very Chinese
city with British characteristics.
This “Chinese success story with British characteristics” theme, with the accent on the British part, pervades British media discourses. In a story broadcast
on the night of June 30, BBC reiterates that Hong Kong—where “decency” and
“fair play” ruled—was “the best-run” and the “most successful” of all the
British Empire. On July 2, the day after the handover, the Times recites a list of
British contributions in the colony. In a typical commentary entitled “Sealed
with a Golden Kiss,” Simon Jenkins reiterates that Britain had in 1997 left
Hong Kong “not only stable, educated, prosperous, free and administered by its
own indigenous civil service, but also represented by a publicly elected legislature of fellow-citizens.” Jenkins concludes, “For all the carping, Britain has
departed Hong Kong in better order than anyone dared to predict, blowing a
golden kiss as it goes.”
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The media personify Governor Patten as embodying the British legacy,
(Dimbleby, 1997) even though the Foreign Office had found him disagreeable. His chief critic among the professional diplomats, Sir Percy Cradock,
attacked him on Channel 4 News for taking a belligerent approach to Beijing,
which ironically led to the derailment of “the through train,” or the wholesale
transfer of the entire Hong Kong government on July 1. Siding with Patten,
however, the media typically portray him as a fighter for liberty and democracy with “the intelligence to govern well, the faith in democracy, the courage
to stand by the principle of liberty against the angry power of China” (Times,
June 30). By personifying Patten, the media translate the abstract “British
legacy” into something concrete and “empirical”: his waving hands out of his
car and shaking hands with people (ITN, June 18); the “best loved” and “best
remembered” governor of all times who gave Hong Kong people “new confidence” (BBC). Jonathan Mirsky of the Times writes on June 25, “As the last
British Governor leaves Hong Kong on Britannia next week, he bequeaths the
colony a political legacy which Beijing can no longer throw overboard.” Fergal Keane of the BBC (June 27) states that Patten’s democratic reforms
would “outlast the guns of China.” Two stories in the Daily Telegraph (June
27) argue that “the seeds of democracy he has sown will grow” to constitute
a “benchmark from which Communist China cannot deviate too far without
attracting the wrath of the western powers.” These profuse praises heaped on
Patten, however, belie Britain’s long-standing record of antidemocracy in
Hong Kong.
Summing up the British scoreboard, the Daily Telegraph (July 1) predicts
that the British influence—“an idea of doing things in a free, independent, creative, dynamic way”—would infect China rather than the other way around,
however much Beijing may try to prevent it. ITV’s Ian Williams similarly comments that Hong Kong has been influencing Southern China “not only in business terms, but in social terms, in political with a small ‘p’” and “five years
from now, probably we will say Hong Kong influences China and not the other
way round.” Andrew Higgins of the Guardian (July 1) has some reservations
about how long the British legacy will last, in a big story entitled “Tung’s
cheerleaders may live to eat their rich words.” It quotes Cheung Man-yee, the
director of Radio Television Hong Kong, as saying: “People thought the tail
could wag the dog. Then we realized we were dealing with a very big dog.”
After all, Hong Kong is too small as China is too big to sustain the “one country, two systems” for long.
Britain as Protector of Freedom
“Abandoning” Hong Kong affronts western triumphalism over Communism in the Cold War. The Tiananmen crackdown provided an impetus for
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Britain to harden its policy toward China. Governor Patten decided to implement limited democratic reforms as a British legacy in the colony (Dimbleby,
1997). China was adamant about dismantling the changes in political infrastructure that Patten had instituted. All western media discourses concentrated
in one way or another on the dubious prospect of freedom and democracy under
Communist rule.
Prince Charles is widely quoted as telling Hong Kong people, “We shall
not forget you, and we shall watch you with the closest interest as you embark
on this new era of your remarkable history.” In echoing British foreign policy,
the Times (June 23) says that Tony Blair had secured a commitment from world
leaders to defend Hong Kong rights by keeping China to its promises. On July
1, the Times runs a banner headline on the second page, “Blair Talks Tough
with Beijing Leaders,” with a subtitle, “Chinese Warned Against Abuse of
Power.” In the story, Blair claims that “Britain is the best guarantor of the liberties that the people of Hong Kong have.” Right next to the report is an unusually large picture showing rows of menacing People’s Liberation Army. The
Daily Telegraph (July 1) notes that Blair had told President Jiang Zemin that
Britain would hold China to account “at the court of international opinion” if
Beijing should violate the Joint Declaration. Hailing Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook as “freedom’s watchdog in former colony,” the Times (July 2) warns that
Britain would consider referring any Chinese breach of the Joint Declaration to
the United Nations. Similarly, the Guardian (July 1) editorializes that Britain
should and could play a “vital future role” in Hong Kong through the Joint Liaison Group and by continuous monitoring of the Joint Declaration. To walk
away quietly from Hong Kong would simply be “betrayal.” While urging
Britain to continue monitoring the progress in Hong Kong, the Times (July 1)
features a protest led by the Democratic Party over its ouster from the Legislative Council, with its leader Martin Lee asking, “Why must we pay such a high
price to become Chinese again?”
Patten is portrayed as a democracy fighter until the very end. A couple of
days before the handover, Patten warns on the BBC that China could not snuff
out Hong Kong’s freedom despite the fact that Tung Chee-hwa has set limits for
the advocates of independence for Taiwan and Tibet. Patten argues that China’s
plans to deploy troops in Hong Kong during the handover night would send an
“appalling signal” to the people of Hong Kong, many of whom had marched in
1989 to protest against the Tiananmen massacre by the PLA (Guardian, June 28).
The Times starts its leading story on the front page (June 28) by saying: “China
last night sent shivers through Hong Kong by announcing that thousands of
troops backed up by warships and helicopters would cross into the territory
within six hours of the change from British sovereignty.” Patten interprets the dispatch of Chinese troops as “bad signals to the world.” (In fact, the army was unarmed and fewer in number than the press corp.) Andrew Higgins of the
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Guardian concludes (June 27) in an interview that all the Chinese insults that had
rained down on Chris Patten had turned “a humble failed British politician into a
knight on a white charger” and Patten finally bowed out “with no regrets.”
Dignified Retreat
According to Dimbleby (1997: xiv), one of Patten’s primary missions was
“to convince public opinion in the United Kingdom and internationally that
Britain’s withdrawal from Hong Kong had been accomplished with at least a
modicum of dignity and honor.” He appears to have well achieved this mission
in view of the overwhelmingly celebratory, if also sad and sentimental, media
characterization. “Dignified retreat” by the British is depicted with imperial nostalgia, with the emotional attachment between the colonizer and the colonized.
The media vividly exhibit pictures, stories, and tidbits related to British
cultural icons or colonial symbols: a Black Watch soldier rehearsing a Highland dance for a Hong Kong farewell concert, the sailing of the Royal Yacht
Britannia, the lowering of the old Hong Kong flag for the last time, and Patten
bowing his head in meditation in a farewell ceremony. The pageantry was filled
with colored uniforms, military band, regiment in formation, and the Union
Jack. Besides, a central icon is the Royal Yacht. In covering the Britannia sailing away, BBC correspondent Eric Robson describes it with the tone of a romantic lover: “She is moving from the shore, . . . gliding through the glass
canyon of Hong Kong, in the busiest water of the world, where thousands of
various kinds of ships move through everyday, but none is as pretty as Britannia! After 80 state visits in her 47 years of service, she has not seen quite as
emotional a departure as this one.” Mixing history with attachment, the
Guardian reports on the “uncertain fate of the emblems of British sovereignty
in the packing up of an empire.” Andrew Higgins writes, for example: “The
mansion that since 1855 has housed 28 British governors—and wartime rulers
sent from Japan—is to be handed over to Hong Kong’s new proprietor entirely
shorn of the colonial crests, royal insignia, regal monograms and all other
emblems of British sovereignty. From Tuesday it will fly the red flag.”
The Times’s bold front-page headline on July 1, “Final Farewell to Hong
Kong,” is subheadlined, “Tears Mingle with the Rain as Retreat is Beaten.” The
leading paragraph reads: “The party is over. The British rule in Hong Kong
ended on the dot of midnight last night in torrential rain but with dignity and
panache. The Last Post had been sounded, the retreat beaten.” The story says
that Patten “was cheered to the skies” for his role in introducing democracy and
for standing up to China. The Daily Telegraph on the same day gives a one-page
account of Patten’s last day in Hong Kong. Entitled “Flag of Freedom is Lowered Forever,” the report features a large picture of a solemn and sad Patten stepping forward to receive the Union flag from an officer. It goes on to explain that
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this is the “simple moment,” amid the pomp and spectacle, that defines “a people’s sadness.” The only emotion betrayed by the governor is “deep, deep sadness.” Robert Hardman, the correspondent, adds that if anyone was to be
permitted a gentle sob, it was the governor himself, who had witnessed numerous “heartfelt gestures and piercingly moving sights.”
The British media question how genuine the “jubilant” display of national
patriotism in China and Hong Kong is. After showing the celebratory activities
in Beijing, Katie Adie of the BBC (June 30) is quick to add that they are held in
the shadow of the Tiananmen crackdown, noting the tight security and the
“controlled” celebration by “happy but dutiful” people. ITV interprets such orchestrated celebration as a sign of Chinese nationalism (June 27) and as part
of a “major propaganda coup” (June 26). Noting that Hong Kong people are
only “loyal to themselves” and have a weak identification with China (Daily
Telegraph, June 30), the media argue that the reunification “cajoled,” “persuaded,” and even “bullied” them into accepting that they are Chinese. The
Guardian (June 18) cites a poll to say that “the gap between reality and propaganda” was a “blow to China’s line on handover glee.” The poll reveals “a
phlegmatic population upbeat about making money, anxious about its liberties
and far less patriotic and politically apathetic than China’s propaganda portrait
of the colony.”
The British are “the best when it comes to ceremonies,” says Marcus Eliason of the Associated Press, who used to cover royal weddings in London:
They know how to do all the right little touches. The Governor departs with the
family and with the girls weeping; he could simply easily have said: “Lavender, girls, get in the car and leave, I would handle the ceremony.” They want to
make it as human; they want to make the Pattens part of Hong Kong, to make
it look like it is not just the Governor . . . The British did not leave here as hated
oppressors; they were in fact quite missed. A lot of people feel quite sad.
By depicting human emotion, television imparts dignity to ceremonies. BBC’s
Brian Hanrahan (June 30) talks about the “tears in the eyes” of the Government
House staff. As the band starts to play “God Save the Queen,” Patten bows
solemnly. It is raining, and a lone bugler plays the Last Post. The Union Jack is
being slowly lowered. Patten stands straight, looking on and trying to hold back
his tears. Raindrops start to wet his jacket, shining under the reflection of the
late evening light. Holding the folded Union Jack, Patten lowers his head to the
tune of “God Save the Queen.” Then the band plays “Farewell, friends.” Patten
gets into his car and circles the Government House once before departure (he
should have circled it three times according to the announced script). People
from all walks of life come to witness this occasion, making it what Hanrahan
calls a “family occasion.”
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At midnight British television broadcasts the formal handover ceremony
live in its entirety. Given the solemnity of the occasion, the BBC hosts function
merely as conduits, footnote providers, as well as aesthetic designers calling for
preplanned shots of scenes. (The bureau chief of Japan’s NHK echoes in an interview with us: “For such an important period, we say very little things. Saying too much will destroy the dignity of the ceremony. We will let people
decide.”) All these images project a dignified retreat. While official ceremonies
carry solemnity, personal moments are most touching. For Fiona Anderson, the
BBC bureau chief in Hong Kong, Patten’s departure from the Governor’s
House, showing the staff in tears, is very moving. The departure of Patten and
Prince Charles at the pier is equally “emotional and evocative” to AP’s Eliason.
The moment is so unceremonially “real”—just ordinary folks who come to hug
them and shake their hands—that Patten and Charles are suddenly reduced to
their human proportions.
No nostalgia could be complete without the reluctance of the colonized to
accept the colonizer’s departure. In a report entitled “Colony Bids a Reluctant
Adieu to His Excellency,” the Daily Telegraph portrays Patten as “smiling, affable and, at times, visibly moved” when he goes for “his final wander among the
people, to the sort of reception that is often reserved for royal walkabouts.” It
says: “For weeks, Government House has been receiving a flow of letters and
gifts from the public. These are complicated emotions, bound up in nostalgia for
the old and fears of the new, but many will indeed miss His Excellency.” The
handover ceremony is scripted to the second for the media to reflect smooth transition and retreat in honor. The Times’s editorial on July 1, 1997 says it well:
Emotion flowed freely in Hong Kong yesterday. . . . But for the departing
British it was also a moment of nostalgia and regret, sadness and a sense of
loss. Not only was the Union Flag lowered for the last time on a colony that
was the last substantial remnant of an Empire that once covered the globe; but
in their speeches, ceremonies and parting gestures, representatives of the
Crown, the Government and the Armed Services recalled an almost forgotten
sense of duty and responsibility, good government and dedication to the peoples over which Britain once held sway.
Hong Kong Media: In Search of Identity
The handover does not bode well for a land of refugees who have swarmed
into Hong Kong in several waves to escape from turmoil and oppression in
China. Even though they were denied a voice throughout and after the SinoBritish negotiations, Hong Kong people and their media clearly sided with the
British against the PRC in overwhelming majority (Chan and Lee, 1991; Lee,
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2000a). They have little illusion about the PRC-style nationalism or patriotism:
many elite members stock foreign passports in their back pockets, while more
than half a million professional people have emigrated overseas. During the
1989 democracy movement in China, more than one million Hong Kong residents took to the streets to support the students, only later to be denounced by
Beijing. National identity is fraught with contradiction and ambivalence, as the
South China Morning Post (June 21) quotes someone as saying:
I feel like I am torn between a foster mother, Britain, and my natural mother,
which is China. I feel like a child who has grown up under the care of a foster
mother, but now it is time to reunite with my natural mother. I treasure the
warmth I feel in the arms of my foster mother and worry my natural mother is
a fierce woman. I feel anxious.
Similarly, the Post columnist Fanny Wong writes on the second day after the
handover:
Embracing the future, many of us share that rationally, rejoining our compatriots in the mainland and to be part of the family again is joyous. But psychologically, we also feel apprehensive . . . Will the “one country, two
systems” concept work? Will Beijing really honor its promise of “Hong Kong
people running Hong Kong”? Will the central government genuinely commit
to granting Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy?
Quoting a University of Hong Kong poll, the Apple Daily indicates that 47 percent respondents said they felt proud to be a Chinese national, and 46 percent
said they did not. Forty percent said if Hong Kong continued to be ruled by the
British, Hong Kong’s future would be better; only 15 percent said it would be
worse. In tracing the longitudinal polling data on public confidence (July 1),
Ming Pao Daily News singles out the Tiananmen crackdown as the worst nightmare for Hong Kong people.
Most mainstream papers laud British contributions to Hong Kong’s success and bid farewell to the departing sovereign with sadness. Despite the
shameful colonial beginnings, the Apple Daily editorially praises (June 30) that
the British have “integrated Hong Kong people’s strength to create a world
wonder” and that their retreat would be “in glory.” Patten is a hero of democracy, not a “sinner of the millenium.” TVB’s coverage of the dignified ceremonies, tearful eyes, sentimental tunes, and enthusiastic crowds could not help
being nostalgic. A South China Morning Post report (July 1) shows a group
waving a sign, “We will never forget you, Mr. Patten.” A freelance columnist,
To Kit, goes further to quote two major satirists in Taiwan who thank British
imperialism and the Opium War for making Hong Kong what it is today (Ming
Pao, June 30). The Ming Pao Daily News (June 30), afraid of being seen as
Essentializing Colonialism
125
unpatriotic or as journalistically timid, editorially gives all parties involved—
Britain, China, and the toiling and sweating local people—equal share of the
credit for Hong Kong’s success.
Conclusion
Hong Kong is the place where the histories of China and Britain have intertwined to create a culture that is supposed to be “hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated, and unmonolithic” (Said, 1993: xxv). As these
histories are full of contradictions, ambiguities, and struggles subject to ideological construction, each side strives for historical clarity by smoothing out
rough edges to provide a mythical narrative to suit one’s advantages. In its long
colonial history of 150 years in Hong Kong, Britain was at best a very late convert to the cause of democracy. Patten’s democratic reform was taken up with
commitment and political expediency under rancorous circumstances. But the
British media behave as if Britain had always been a guardian of freedom and
democracy, only to sidestep pages of inglorious record. They also accentuate
the positive legacies of British colonial history while downplaying its negative
origin. On the other hand, the Chinese media elevate nationalism to the status
of inherent and sacred virtue against colonial evil, to the neglect of Mao’s opportunistic moments to prolong that evil, and of Hong Kong people’s embrace
of colonial rule vis-à-vis Beijing’s imposed hegemonic nationalism.
The significance of nationalism and colonialism, instead of being reduced
to a “pure and simple” characteristic, should be open to interpretation in a multiplicity of social and historical frameworks. The ambivalent Hong Kong media
find it difficult to take one side exclusively from this intertwined history. They
praise the British while feeling uncertain about the prospect of being reunited
with the motherland. Inasmuch as British colonists receive credit for providing
the “scaffolding” that enables Hong Kong to succeed, the media place the spotlight on how to maintain that colonial “scaffolding” to ensure continued postcolonial prosperity. The implications of colonialism are thus interpreted anew.
Further, the media from the U.S., Canada, and Australia all recognize the
British legacy in Hong Kong as the endorsement of generalized western values
rather than sentimentality for British hegemony.
There are different discursive constructions of colonialism by the British,
PRC, and Hong Kong media. No one was in a position to offer an explicit defense
of the Opium War—the British prefer to call it the “Trade War”—that led to the
British acquisition of Hong Kong. But the significance of historical events varies.
The idea of British legacy is the strongest in the British media, often echoing the
perspectives of British officials by way of personifying Chris Patten. Imperial
nostalgia—about the empire, the British legacy, and Patten’s withdrawal—
becomes all the more heightened in the face of the PRC’s nationalistic
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challenges. Chris Patten is portrayed as the freedom and democracy fighter who
persists in the face of immense pressure from China.
Who are the heroes or villains? To the British media, the heroes are the
British, Patten, and local democrats (his allies). It is sentimental for the British
to finally give up such a successful crown jewel to China, which may not know
what keeps the jewel shining. The villains are the Communist leaders and the
PLA who killed prodemocracy students. On the opposite side, the Chinese
Communist Party, Deng, and the PLA become heroes who reclaim the lost
land. British imperialists, the villain, ushered in more than a century of national
humiliation. Patten is a “sinner of the millennium,” harboring ulterior motives
against China. They simply ignore the voice of local democrats.
As mentioned, the British media narratives fail to acknowledge the dark
side of history: the colonial beginning, bad administration, and corruption prior
to the mid-1970s, antidemocratic record, suppression of social activists, British
privileges in Hong Kong, and the Nationality Bill, which disenfranchised the
Hong Kong people. As an exception, William McGurn writes in the Daily Telegraph (June 29), accusing the former Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe and his
colleagues of submitting to pressures from China and colluding in restricting
the growth of democracy in the mid-1980s. Besides, Patten (1998) condemns
these conservative British officials for compromising on democratic ideals, but
reserves the greatest scorn for the Hong Kong business elite, the Tory politicians and Whitehall mandarins who argued in favor of a softly-softly approach
towards Beijing.
Akin to the pattern of imperial construction of Orientalism (Said, 1978,
1993), the PRC media have tried to “occidentalize” the West as “imperialistic,
capitalistic, exploitative, decadent, materialistic.” The official Chinese discourse
is noted for its stress on the difference between “us” and “them” (including
British colonists and western imperialists) to support nationalism that helps to
integrate the Chinese nation-state and overseas Chinese. The western “other,” as
construed, is not meant for the purpose of domination, but for disciplining and
ultimately dominating the Chinese Self at home. In the more open mid-1980s, a
group of Chinese dissident intellectuals produced a TV documentary series, He
Shang (River Elegy), to essentialize the West as culturally more open, risk-taking, and thus superior to the closed and oppressive culture of the imperial Communist China (Chen, 1993). The exaltation of the West, in this context, is an
indirect but powerful way to render “alternative” or “oppositional” readings to
official truths. Philosophically, we should adopt an antiessentialistic and antiotherizing approach to discourses, but in certain contexts articulating an essentialized discourse may have a politically liberating role to play. While the PRC
discourses on the handover cast western colonialism in bad light, the “other” can
be painted in beautiful colors in order to promote it as an ideal for transforming
the existing authoritarian system.
Major Chinese and British representatives attend the Hong Kong handover ceremony on the night of June 30, 1997.
Outgoing Governor Chris Patten receives the folded British flag from an officer at the Government House, symbolizing the
retreat of the British from Hong Kong.
An armored carrier of the People’s Liberation Army arrives in Hong Kong in the early morning of July 1, as onlookers witness
the historic moment.
Protesters stage a sit-in with a self-made Chinese flag in black color, with the Queen’s statue in
the background.
The handover story fills the front pages of major newspapers in Hong Kong on July 1, 1997.
Legislators from the democratic camp protest on the balcony of the Legislative Council building right after the handover ceremony.
Workers lower the British insignia in front of the Hong Kong government headquarters.
The handover site at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, with hundreds of selected media representatives to witness the moment.
Hong Kong citizens learn about the handover details from the newspapers in a surreal atmosphere.
Nostalgic British citizens wave the British flag and say goodbye to the Royal yacht, Britannia.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright comes to Hong Kong handover as a guardian of democracy.
Inside the Press and Broadcast Center thousands of reporters from around the world make use of the communication facilities.
Hong Kong citizens watch live broadcasts of the handover events on June 30, 1997.
Chris Patten leaves the Government House as hundreds of Hong Kong citizens bid farewell along the street.
Visitors take the opportunity to have a shot of things British.
Protesters take to the street and show their defiance against the Chinese leaders.
Things British are on the way out of Hong Kong and quickly become hot collectors’ items.
CNN’s Asian anchor reports live in Hong Kong during the handover.
The wife of late patriarch leader Deng Xiaoping attends the handover in Hong Kong.
Chapter 7
Defining the Nation-State: One Event, Three Stories
Bonding the Chinese blood eternally is a historical destiny.
—The People’s Daily, June 16, 1997
If Hong Kong is good, the country is good; if the country is good, Hong
Kong will be better.
—Tung Chee-hwa, Chief Executive, 1997
Say No to China.
—The Liberty Times, Taiwan, June 29, 1997
Nationalism is the fruit of idle pens and gullible readers.
—Ernest Gellner (1997: 10–11)
The handover of Hong Kong strikes different chords in the conscience of
the three Chinese societies: the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan, and Hong Kong itself. It raises core issues about
the meanings of China and Chinese as well as the relationships between a nation and a state. These issues are particularly sensitive in the post-Cold War era,
as national and ethnic identities have stepped forward to become a prime locus
of struggle. As a nation struggles for its discursive representation in the globalized mediated culture, the state is its chief authoritative voice, and the media
play a central role in constructing political and historical narratives of what Anderson (1983) calls the “imagined communities.” Against this backdrop, the
handover of Hong Kong becomes a site and moment for the media in these
three societies of the “Cultural China” (Tu, 1991) to discursively contest their
visions of China and Chinese.
China has been called variably a “nationless state” (Fitzgerald, 1995) or an
“empire-state” (Bockman, 1998). It is a civilization defined by a set of cultural
practices and shared symbolic resources, often in service of state unity. The
definitions of China and Chinese have never been unproblematic. Historically,
successive dynasties sustained the unity of the Chinese Empire State, but the
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criteria for inclusion in it were fluid, ambiguous, and changing constantly. Each
dynasty chose its favored attribute—ethnic, geographic, social, or cultural—to attain the goal of state unity. Neither ethnicity nor residency within certain territorial boundaries is sufficient to define what Chinese people are. Today’s PRC
continues this historical trajectory by staking its political media discourse on
claims of state unity and national sovereignty in the context of rising nationalism.
At the historical moment of Hong Kong’s handover, the three Chinese societies in the Cultural China, situated in different systems, ideologies, and historical sentiments in the international political economy, clash in their
articulation of the Chinese nation and state as three different, discursive communities. How to define the Chinese state has important bearings on the political legitimacy of the PRC and its claim of sovereignty over Hong Kong and
Taiwan. The tension between nation and state is a source of anxiety in Hong
Kong and has flared up internal politics in Taiwan. The discursive clash is most
likely to occur at what Levi-Strauss (1966: 259) calls “hot moments” that may
draw out different symbolic resources to interpret historical events in such a
way as to exert critical influences on the dynamics of struggle over political and
cultural identities. Therefore, we have to analyze this discursive clash within
“the communities of competing producers, of interpreters and critics, of audiences and consumers, and of patrons and other significant actors who become
subjects of discourse itself” (Wuthnow, 1989: 16).
This discursive struggle has to be placed against another backdrop: the rising nationalism in the PRC, partly bolstered by economic achievements and
partly prompted by the perceived need to dispel domestic challenges and to fortify national boundaries against the globalizing forces of free markets and
democracy (Snyder and Ballentine, 1997). Nationalism fills the gap left by
widespread public disillusionment with Communist ideology in China. Official
discourses often pit the national strength of China against the dismemberment
of the Soviet Union to prove the “correct” policy of harnessing economic reform as an engine to realize China’s “dream of prosperity and strength.” The
“receiving end” of PRC nationalism has very different reactions. As we shall
show in this chapter, while the PRC media celebrate the integration of China as
a nation-state, Taiwan’s media seek to delink nation from state, and Hong
Kong’s media are ambivalent about being incorporated as part of the Beijingdefined Chinese family-nation. In this process, they have all tried to selectively
“domesticate” aspects of the handover of Hong Kong to renew their own ideological boundaries.
The PRC: Celebration of the Family-Nation
The PRC’s media coverage is organized temporally and spatially by a
“master frame” (Snow and Benford, 1992) that conceives of the Chinese nation
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as an extension of the family. Temporally, the handover of Hong Kong is placed
in a much larger historical framework of the Chinese nation redeeming itself
from past humiliation. This historical “script” enables the PRC media to collate
various seemingly isolated episodes, the historical nuggets and present celebrations at home and abroad into coherent stories, and impute a distinct causal sequence to these stories. In doing so, the media link two different “modes of
interpretation” (Zelizer, 1993), placing the “local” (or micro) reports of the handover in the “durational” (or macro) context of Chinese history. Spatially speaking, the family-nation narrative is organized by congealing different events and
different people and the interrelationships between them into a coherent whole.
Through such structuring, the master theme of family-nation runs through four
discursive packages (Table 7.1): national achievement, national festival, nation
family, and brighter prospect for the future. These four discursive packages are
woven into media narratives in special time-space configurations.
National achievement: This package glorifies the “homecoming” of Hong
Kong as a national achievement, ending 156 years of colonialism and humiliation at the hands of western powers, and as protecting territorial integrity of the
Table 7.1
Discursive Packages of the PRC Media
Frame
Position
Signification Devices
National
achievement
National
strength of
China washing
away past
humiliation.
National
strength under
the Communist
Party brings
international
respect.
National flag, the Great Wall,
President Jiang, Deng, Hong
Kong coming home.
National festival
A long awaited
moment for
celebration by
all Chinese.
All Chinese
share the same
pride.
Sea of joys, fireworks, the
countdown clock, songs,
drums, flowers, and lights
Nation family
Chinese are
members of the
same family.
Family members
share the same
blood and
attachments.
As affectionate as bones and
flesh, blood is thicker than
water, children of the Yellow
Emperor, the Yellow Emperor
tomb, common language and
ancestry, “four waters converge
to one”
Brighter
prospect for the
future
Hong Kong’s
return opens up
opportunities.
Hong Kong as
bridge between
China and the
world.
Hong Kong skyline, “tomorrow
will be even better.”
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nation. Such catchy phrases as “national strength,” “international respect,” and
“washing away of the national humiliation” abound, together with canonization
of the supreme leader (Deng Xiaoping’s pictures and recorded voice), geographical/historical icons (the Great Wall, the Yellow River), and the political
authority.
National festival: The handover marks a historical moment of celebration
among all Chinese who are said to feel “happier than on the New Year’s Day”
(as quoted on TV). Our informants in the People’s Daily and CCTV confirmed
that they had been told to use the theme “happy festivities”(xiqing) to organize
their coverage.
Nation as a family: All ethnicities at home and all Chinese abroad are depicted as members of the same “family-nation” linked by blood and culture, all
happily rooting for national grandeur. “Family” is, again, a master metaphor:
“children of the Yellow Emperor” are as “affectionate as bones and flesh” in the
“big family of the motherland.”
Brighter prospect for the future: CCTV shows President Jiang Zemin presenting his calligraphy, “Hong Kong’s tomorrow will still be better,” to the
newly formed Hong Kong Special Administration Region government at its inauguration ceremony. The media depict Hong Kong as a bridge between China
and the world, providing capital investment and know-how for modern management. Visually showing a cargo train carrying food supplies from the mainland, CCTV attributes Hong Kong’s economic prosperity to the unselfish
support of the motherland. Now that Hong Kong and China will live under the
same family-nation roof, they will be ever more prosperous together.
Historical Script
The following historical script threads these discursive packages with a
clear designation of heroes and villains:
•
Western powers inflicted national humiliation on China, and
China was too weak to fight back foreign aggression.
•
British imperialists stole Hong Kong away from China by force, and
Chinese people had always wanted to dispel national humiliation.
•
Only the Chinese Communist Party can bring independence and
strength to China, thus saving the state from demise and the nation
from extinction.
•
National strength, bolstered by economic reform, enables China to
reclaim Hong Kong according to Deng Xiaoping’s “ingenuous”
“one country and two systems” device.
Defining the Nation-State
•
131
Under President Jiang’s leadership, China will score greater
achievements, and Hong Kong will have a brighter prospect.
This historical narrative entitles the Chinese Communist Party to its
claims as a savior and the solely legitimate political representative of the Chinese nation as well as the heir to Chinese civilization. A People’s Daily editorial on the eve of the handover (June 30) is illustrative:
Ever since its founding, the Chinese Communist Party has regarded independence, unity, democracy, and strength of the motherland as its goals. . . . History has unequivocally shown that if there had not been the Chinese
Communist Party, there would not have been socialist New China, and there
would not have been a smooth return of Hong Kong (to China).
All other papers are required by the Party to carry this editorial in full on
their front page. This official rendition of history permeates all news reports,
commentaries, and even the celebration performances. It serves to connect the
nation’s past and present, ensures a “hegemonic reading” (Hall, 1980) of the
handover coverage, and guides media selection of events, symbols, and icons.
Among the most prominent images are the invading western troops who set the
old Summer Palace in Beijing on fire; the “Eternal Warning Bell” ( jingshi
zhong) in Jinghai Temple in Nanjing1; and Commissioner Lin Zexu who
burned British opium in Humen in 1840. Besides, a group of senior citizens, all
more than 100 years old, were called upon to condemn the dark past and praise
the bright present.
All official media outlets go out of their way to reinforce this official narrative. The Guangming Daily (June 27), a paper devoted to intellectuals, artists,
and professionals, prints the National Anthem on its front page, with a commentary entitled “Singing the National Anthem and Marching to the Future.” It
starts with a quote from Deng, “Chinese people have stood up thanks only to
the Chinese Communist Party and socialism.” The People’s Liberation Army
Daily stresses that it is the “strong backing” from the “powerful people’s army”
that enables the Party-led struggle to regain territorial integrity (July 1, editorial). From June 16 to 23, in a series of six long articles analyzing the significance of Hong Kong’s return, the paper repeatedly drums up the message of
“strong national defense.” On June 27 the paper argues in a full-page article
urging “patriotic education.”
Using family celebration to personalize the political event, the media
strive to enhance the “empirical fidelity” of this official history. Official interpretation of this historical narrative is thus resonant with the existing “meaning systems” in the Chinese culture (Fisher, 1984; Snow and Benford, 1992).
On the night of June 30, CCTV shows stroller-pushing parents watching the
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fireworks and celebratory performances in various major cities who exclaim to
be “happier (today) than on Chinese New Year!” The Guangming Daily publishes a special column recounting personal experiences of Chinese celebrities
who had once lived in Hong Kong. The Guangzhou Daily publishes a series of
long feature articles to highlight that many people in Guangzhou have relatives in Hong Kong, and both places speak the same dialect.
CCTV also airs a special report of a family memorial, attended by more
than 300 descendents, in honor of Commissioner Lin Zexu, the Qing official
who ordered the burning of British opium, an incident that triggered a war leading to the loss of Hong Kong. His descendants hang a huge banner on the
memorial site, “A Family Tribute to Welcoming (Hong Kong’s) Return and to
Condoling the Ancestor’s Spirit (ying huigui wei yingling jiaji dianli).” The
most “senior” member of the family—not the oldest, but the most prestigious,
or China’s former representative to the United Nations—first reads a eulogy.
Then, someone from the youngest generation recites what the CCTV reporter
calls a “patriotic pledge” (aiguo juexinshu). In another televised family event,
Commissioner Lin’s descendents display his letter instructing them to devote
themselves to the goal of reclaiming Hong Kong. Now their distinguished ancestor, they proclaim, can rest in peace. The PLA Daily (June 27) features an
offspring of Xu in military uniform making patriotic remarks. National affairs
are interspersed with family activities because blood unites the family and the
nation. Traditional family ancestral worship extends to a political ritual for the
nation, and family hierarchy corresponds to the party-state hierarchy.
Members of the family-nation, based on a common ancestry, are supposed
to share past humiliation and today’s redemption. The People’s Daily reports
on June 27 that a “Hong Kong Return Monument” has been erected near the
tomb of the Yellow Emperor (huangdiling), the alleged origin of the Chinese
nation and civilization. Even though ethnic minorities have never shared the
myth of the Yellow Emperor, the paper claims, “Erecting a monument to record
significant events at the ancestral burial site is part of Chinese tradition.”
CCTV’s special reports also prominently show footages of various activities
held at cultural icons of Chinese civilization: the Yellow Emperor’s tomb, the
Yellow River, and the Great Wall. This family-nation, built by descendants of
the Yellow Emperor, extends to global Chinese communities, all enthusiastically celebrating the big family reunion. On July 1 the anchors of CCTV’s
Evening News introduce the program by announcing that “Hong Kong has
come home” and “family members of the same blood are united!”
The idea of Hong Kong coming back to the family of the Yellow Emperor’s offsprings is a potent cultural symbol with which the political authority
essentializes the Chinese nation, revealing a key characteristic of the perennial
nationalist discourse. Invoking the image of global ethnic Chinese communities
bound by “flesh and bones” (gurouqing), President Jiang declares at an official
Defining the Nation-State
133
mass gathering in Beijing that “history has proven that a country’s strength requires the leadership of a progressive political party.” Then various speakers, all
officially picked, vow one after another that China will unite around the Communist Party with Jiang at its core.
Social Taxonomy and Geographical Configuration
If the historical script provides a temporal flow for causal attributions of
the historical event, the family-nation metaphor calls for a spatial configuration in the constitution of the Chinese nation. The time-honored practice of
the Party propaganda is to highlight that the Party wins the hearts and minds
of the broadest segments of the population. Therefore, the media arrange a
parade of nominal “representatives” from different social, ethnic, and occupational groups as a show of unanimous support for the Party. Whenever
there is a major political event (such as the first launch of a satellite in 1970
and the fall of the “Gang of Four” in 1976), there would be many “representatives” from different sectors taking turns to praise how farsighted the Party
is in the People’s Daily. These “representatives” bear group labels, never
identified as individuals. In line with this tradition, an associate editor of the
People’s Daily writes an article on July 3, 1997, which, after quoting the
chief executive, “empowers” many “ordinary people” to recite their feelings
of national pride. To be inclusive, these “ordinary” people are said to represent all walks of life; the report starts to note each of the sectors one by one:
the commerce sector, the science and technology sector, the agricultural sector, the education sector, the medical sector, the arts and entertainment sector,
etc. Even a Xinhua report about joyous celebration within the armed forces
(carried by the People’s Daily on the same day) gives a full list of all major
divisions and the military rank and file (students, teachers, and experts).
Again, no one is identified as an individual.
Similarly, the PLA Daily (June 27) devotes one page to celebratory activities of the military and another page to “patriotic passion” of various military
units from across the country. The Guangming Daily (June 28) takes the same
approach to show the jubilance of university students. The Economic Daily
(June 22) publishes a special page of seven articles to highlight nationalistic activities in various official “bases for patriotic education”: Tiananmen Square,
Humen Opium War Museum, the tomb of the Yellow Emperor in Shaanxi, and
the birthplace of Deng.
Media representations of ethnic minorities comprise an array of anonymous individuals, who represent “brother ethnic groups” (xiongdi minzu) to
welcome Hong Kong back to “the motherland’s big family” (zuguo da jiating). They praise the Communist Party in their own ethnic languages and perform their folk songs and dances in traditional costumes—as if they
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spontaneously shared the Han majority’s pains and joys. The ethnic “plurality” decorates the “whole” of the political community; the cultural and ethnic
differences are obfuscated.
In addition, the PRC media construe a particular political geography in
which the blood tie of ethnic Chinese transcends territorial boundaries. The
media repeatedly announce that “the whole country” and “the whole world” are
overjoyed in celebration. The spatial construction of the “global Chinese” creates the impression that the whole world supports and celebrates Hong Kong’s
return to Chinese sovereignty. In particular, it connotes the unity of Chinese people worldwide, steeping themselves in the crown achievement of the Chinese
state. This spatial construction also subtly suggests that as a member of the third
world, China shares the common fate of past and present oppression from the
West. On July 2 and July 5, the People’s Daily fills its international page with reports of celebration and excerpts of official congratulations from carefully selected cities and countries from all continents. By the same token, CCTV
dispatches 22 news crews to major cities, within and outside China, to “record”
the “global Chinese connection,” integrating national and international spaces.
The center of this geographic web is located, however, in the Tiananmen
Square at the heart of Beijing, where a countdown clock presumably synchronizes all the activities around the globe. In a two-part CCTV special program
called “When the Hundred-Year-Old Dream Comes True” (bainian mengyuan
shi), the anchor claims that the countdown clock has become an “eternal monument in people’s heart.” The camera shot starts with the countdown clock and
then pans over to show a sea of the masses gathered in front of it. Then comes
the voiceover exclaiming, “This is a huge festival for the Chinese nation, an important celebration in the hundred-year history.” After that, the camera moves
to live images of the June 30 midnight celebration in Tiananmen Square, and a
CCTV reporter shouts to a massive crowd around him, “Friends, let’s count
down, 10, 9, . . . 0! Hong Kong has come home!” The crowd chants, “Hong
Kong has come home!” The giant TV screen in the Square shows CCTV’s live
coverage of the national flag rising at the handover ceremony in Hong Kong;
the sound track plays the national anthem amidst sounds of fireworks. The
sound and images are mixed with the thunderous chant, “Hong Kong has come
home!” Ditto, from one city to another. A special page of the Economic Daily
on July 1 carries ten stories and two pictures showing the masses, who watch
televised ceremonies of the handover. The paper claims that Chinese people are
“connected by the millions of TV screens.”
Mobilization and Orchestration
This media celebration of national festivity is officially orchestrated
through mobilization. In early April the CCP’s Propaganda Department began
Defining the Nation-State
135
to organize a series of workshops, urging chief editors from Party newspapers
and directors of radio and TV stations in the country to create a “more hospitable opinion atmosphere” for Hong Kong’s return to the motherland. In its
wake, the Propaganda Department and the Office of Hong Kong and Macau
Affairs of the State Council issued a guideline stipulating the principles of
media coverage and the political terms of language to be used. The policy is to
be implemented down to the very basic unit of the propaganda system. Together, these offices mobilize the officially sanctioned resources to facilitate the
work of the Party organs, which prominently display interviews with pro-Beijing figures in Hong Kong.
Of the 16 media outlets chosen to cover the handover, the big three—
CCTV, the People’s Daily, and Xinhua News Agency—account for a lion’s
share of the 610-member entourage. The Big Three also establish command
centers at their Beijing headquarters; CCTV’s operation is particularly on a
grand scale. The director of CCTV heads a special team set up in 1996; in
March 1997, it opened a Hong Kong office. Altogether CCTV involves 1,600
people, including 289 people in Hong Kong and 100 people sent to cover 8 different cities in China and 15 foreign cities. Xinhua’s handover team consists
of 89 reporters in Beijing and 25 from the Hong Kong bureau. The five reporters in the Hong Kong bureau of the People’s Daily work with 27 others sent
from Beijing. Before departure, these skilled Beijing journalists were required
to go through lengthy training sessions, in which they reviewed Deng’s speech
on “one country and two systems,” the Basic Law, and the general conditions
of Hong Kong.
The official orchestration involves a careful division of media responsibilities. Xinhua is solely responsible for reporting official sovereignty transfer activities. All media but the People’s Daily and CCTV must carry Xinhua’s
reports. With Xinhua reports as the mainstay, other papers cover events within
their own special spheres: hence, the PLA Daily shows the celebration within the
military; the Guangming Daily, among intellectuals, artists, and professionals;
the Worker’s Daily, likewise, among industrial and manufacturing workers.
The CCP harnesses national ceremony for expressing patriotic emotions
but, mindful of historical precedents, is determined to contain mass euphoria
within limits. Its tightly controlled extravaganzas are visually appealing for live
television, covering events said to be taking place simultaneously in eight
cities, all strategically selected.2 Moreover, to create the semblance of unity, the
party-state mobilizes its enormous resources to facilitate the work of the Big
Three. The Office of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs in Beijing and the Hong
Kong Branch of the Xinhua News Agency organize “exclusive” media interviews with pro-Beijing figures.
Some wealthier media outlets in China have increasingly ventured to defy
state restrictions, forcing the authority to yield certain grounds. For example,
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both the Guangzhou Daily, the top newspaper advertising earner in the country,
and Guangdong TV are excluded from the official journalist entourage, but
both managed to send reporters and crews to Hong Kong on either business or
tourist (rather than official) visas. This is also true of their peers in Beijing and
Shanghai, those with strong connections to high-ranking officials. Instead of
covering formal ceremonies, they concentrate on what Guangdong TV journalists call “side shows” to enrich the official spectacular. They relish on doing
“enterprising reporting” (Sigal, 1973) by interviewing people in parks, street
corners, hospitals, and corporate headquarters; these items are largely missing
from the news map of the Big Three. Barred from sending a team to Hong
Kong, the Economic Daily publishes special pages with by-lined stories of celebratory mania, interviews with business people, and reports about the new
railway service connecting Beijing and Hong Kong. Through the combination
of political and market mobilization, the Chinese media blanket the country
with a nationalistic blast.
Taiwan: Say No to China
The lifting of martial law in 1987 has invigorated the media in Taiwan,
with the power of government censorship in retreat amidst a rearticulation of
the press-state-market relationships (Lee, 2000c). The handover of Hong Kong
puts Taiwan in an awkward position: it can only watch on the sideline because
the territory is returned to Beijing, not to Taipei, and yet Taiwan is also Beijing’s next target of national reunification efforts. It also brings to light Taiwan’s precarious international status and its fundamental conflict with the
PRC—a situation that is complicated by the search of identity as the island nation democratizes. The United Daily News (June 24) rightly characterizes this
state of mind as “identity ambivalence.” Reflecting this ambivalence, the mainstream China Times endorses the end of national shame but expresses concern
about the condition of democracy in Hong Kong. The anchor of the Taiwan
Television (TTV) narrates the live coverage on June 30 as “complete withdrawal of British colonial forces from the Chinese territory,” then adding his
democracy concerns. Says Liu Kunyuan of the Central News Agency: “A child
snatched away for 150 years should rejoice at returning to the family but he is
now afraid of facing an abusive father with a bad record. The father is behaving
better now, but when he gets drunk, he can strike again.”
The Central Daily News, the weakened organ of the Kuomintang (KMT),
sends in a small team of reporters, but the team leader heaves a sigh of relief
after discovering that the event is so flat as to do little damage to her understaffed paper. The United Daily News and the China Times, the Big Two that
control two-thirds of Taiwan’s newspaper circulation and advertising revenues,
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137
extended their news battleground to Hong Kong in full swing. Both papers editorially endorse “ending the national shame,” but focus their primary concern
on what will happen to Taiwan. The up-and-coming Liberty Times is the only
paper able to establish a market foothold strong enough to challenge the Big
Two in the postmartial law era. The paper owes its growing popularity largely
to staking a claim as “standing for the voice of the 21 million Taiwanese” visà-vis the “pan-Chinese sentiments” of the Big Two. The paper advocates Taiwan’s secession from China and firmly supports the first popularly elected
president, Lee Tenghui (Li Denghui), in pursuing Taiwan’s de facto independence. The paper, usually indifferent to the PRC, this time sends in a ten-person team and collaborates with foreign media to cover the news ground. The
financially difficult, proindependence Minzhong Daily decides against sending in reporters to reinforce its stringers in Hong Kong.
The wide ideological span and different levels of resource commitment
show up in the handover coverage. The media see the handover of Hong Kong
as a sign of the PRC further extricating Taiwan’s “international space.” They are
concerned about the erosion of Hong Kong’s traditional role as a mediator and
bridge between Taiwan and the PRC. All political parties reject China’s “one
country and two systems” scheme, but differ in their commitment to cultural,
historical, and ethical identification with the Chinese nation. This difference divides the discourse of the rejection into two separate discursive packages: the
mainstream media advocate “one country, one system—the better system,”
whereas the proindependence media emphasize “say ‘no’ to China.”
Historical Script
Official histories in Taiwan and the PRC overlap partially in laying the
blame of China’s century-old national humiliation on British imperialism, so
much so that the China Times (June 30) editorially hails the return of Hong
Kong to “the Chinese territory” as “a proudest moment of the Chinese nation.”
In a news analysis, the paper’s president writes that regardless of how one feels
about the future of Hong Kong, at the “blinking moment of history” when the
British royal yacht sails away, it marks “an unshakable historical fact: the borrowed land must be returned.” On the eve of the handover, the paper quotes Taiwan’s emissary as saying that he will attend the “historically watershed event
with a sense of relief and solemnity.” All the mainstream media outlets prominently report the celebratory extravaganzas from Beijing.
For Taiwan’s media, however, praising the PRC as a historical victor is
more difficult than cheering for the more abstract “Chinese nation,” thus differentiating “cultural China” or “historical China” from “political China.” Both
the China Times (June 19) and the United Daily News (June 16) point out that
Chiang Kai-shek tried to recover Hong Kong after the Second World War, in
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vain only because of Churchill’s objection and Communist insurgence. The
China Times reports (June 30) that the civil war between the Nationalist and
Communist parties deprived the Chinese nation of “the fruit of victory in the
war against Japanese invasion.” On the same day, the paper editorializes Hong
Kong as proof that a weak nation loses its sovereignty, and only a strong nation
can recover its lost land. The proindependence Minzhong Daily, however,
points out that the only way out for Taiwan is to abandon the “one China” policy and to build a Taiwan state. TTV (June 30) quotes a Taiwanese tourist in
Hong Kong as saying, “Now China gets Hong Kong back, and Taiwan establishes an independent country.”
To counter Beijing’s pressure, the government of Taiwan holds an exhibition of the original copy of the Nanjing Treaty that ceded Hong Kong to
Britain. The China Times (June 28) quotes Foreign Minister John Chang as
claiming that the Republic of China (ROC) government, not the PRC, holds the
“legitimacy and historical continuity” to represent the Chinese nation. If Britain
had negotiated with the democratic ROC, according to him, Hong Kong people
would have had no worries. Such remarks should be seen as a passive defense
against Beijing rather than an active claim over Hong Kong sovereignty. The
China Times reports (July 2) that as the world media zoom in on Hong Kong,
President Lee and Vice President Lian Zhan also appear on TV repeatedly to
balance “world opinions.”
Political Geography
The PRC developed the “one country, two systems” concept as a solution
for unifying mainland China and Taiwan, but it applies to Hong Kong at first
instance. Taiwan media generally see the handover of Hong Kong as another
significant event that muffles the island nation’s international breathing room.
Echoing the government position, they mount a strong rhetorical defense in pitting democratic Taiwan against the authoritarian PRC. The United Daily News
(June 26) argues editorially, “When Hong Kong’s freedom is in crisis, Taiwan
needs to develop its democracy more fully.” Media narratives exhibit a number
of key features of spatial structure in their attempt to define the island nation’s
new relationship with Hong Kong, with the PRC, and with the international
community:
DELINKING NATION FROM STATE. All media outlets anchor their coverage of
Hong Kong from the vantage point of Taiwan’s status, interests, and future. The
China Times runs a three-part interview its president conducts with Zhou Nan,
the PRC’s de facto representative, highlighting that it will be more convenient
for the Taiwanese to visit Hong Kong after July 1. The remainder of the interview is printed in two installments on the Hong Kong ’97 Special Report section. Overall, the media focus their attention on concerns over Taiwan’s status
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and the Taiwan-Hong Kong relationship. From June 30 to July 1, TTV’s live
coverage pays special attention to the future status of Taiwan’s de facto consulate in Hong Kong (euphemistically named “The China Travel Agency”),
travel arrangements to Hong Kong for Taiwan citizens, protests in Taiwan, and
the song-and-dance celebration in Beijing.
A consuming interest of Taiwan’s media is whether the talks with Beijing,
suspended after President Lee’s high-profile visit to the United States in 1995
and after the PRC’s ensuing missile intimidation off Taiwan waters, would be
resumed. As soon as the news is leaked out that Gu Zhenfu, Taiwan’s negotiator, is among the 60 Taiwanese invited to attend the handover ceremony, the
media begin to speculate on various scenarios. For days, both the China Times
and the United Daily News carry items on the latest progress concerning Mr.
Gu’s itinerary and his seating at the ceremony. The China Times asks on June
16: How will Taiwan respond now? It then reports official approval of the acceptance of invitation to “show our respect for the return of Hong Kong to the
Chinese nation,” adding that the ceremony must be attended “with dignity” and
with sensitivity to “any attempt to lower the status of Taiwan.” Finally, the
media report with relief that Mr. Gu is to be seated in the VIP section, together
with other foreign dignitaries.
Both the government and the media are quite unified in rejecting the PRC’s
attempt to apply the “one country, two systems” formula to force Taiwan into
Beijing’s fold. The media prominently report the interviews Vice President Lian
Zhan gives to CNN and NBC. On June 22 the China Times for example quotes
Lian as telling Tom Brokaw of NBC: “Taiwan is part of China, but not part of the
PRC.” On CNN Lian rejects the PRC’s “one country, two systems” and instead
proposes “one country, one system—the better system,” presumably Taiwan’s democratic system. The interview, conducted in English, is dubbed with Chinese
voiceover and aired in full on TTV. Moreover, all media report President Lee as
saying that Taiwan should complete its constitutional amendment before July
1997 to show that “Taiwan is Taiwan, Hong Kong is Hong Kong, the two are different.” This amendment was meant to establish the Republic of China as the political identity of Taiwan, renouncing Chiang Kai-shek’s old sovereignty claim
over the whole of China and the PRC’s current sovereignty claim over Taiwan.
The media also quote the head of the official Mainland Work Committee
approvingly as saying, “The Hong Kong model of the ‘one country, two systems’ is not acceptable for national unification because Taiwan is an independent sovereign state.” He adds, “We shall never accept any attempt to reduce
Taiwan to being a local government of China.” On June 30 TTV interrupts its
live coverage of the handover ceremony with President Lee’s article in the USA
Today, arguing that the handover gives “pride to all descendents of the Yellow
Emperor,” and Taiwan will be committed to “peaceful reunification of a democratic Chinese nation.” Locked in diplomatic isolation, Taiwan appeals to the
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international media, especially those from the United States and Japan, as key
venues for reaching out to the world community.
REORIENTING THE TRIANGULAR RELATIONSHIPS. Anchoring the news perspectives in Taiwan is a discursive strategy to reconstruct the triangular relationships involving the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. There is much concern
that Hong Kong may lose its “buffer” role between the PRC and Taiwan. The
Liberty Times (June 16) even speculates that Taiwan’s customs may not be
able to prevent the PRC from using Hong Kong to dump its cheap goods on
Taiwan. The paper (June 20) further hypothesizes that Taiwan may have to
trade with Hong Kong through indirect, rather than direct, routes, much like
the indirect flow of trade between Taiwan and the PRC now. (These scenarios
have not occurred.)
Politically, Taiwan’s government and media have long called for “two
states within one nation,” so both Beijing and Taipei would share national sovereignty on an equal basis. Failing to gain Beijing’s concession on that basis,
Taiwan opts to play the “democracy” card against the PRC’s “nationalism”
card. Interrupting its live coverage on June 30, the TTV anchor again reads an
official statement calling on Beijing to “give up its unrealistic intent over Taiwan.” The United Daily News (June 26) editorially cites the polls to surmise,
“Not only should the government (of Taiwan) renounce the ‘one country, two
systems’ model as unsuitable for Taiwan; we should recognize that Taiwan now
is the only democratic window for Chinese.”
DRAWING POLITICAL BORDERS. Taiwan’s media are fond of drawing contrasts between the oppressive PRC and the democratic Taiwan on the one hand,
and between the poor PRC and the rich Hong Kong on the other. The eagerness
to dissociate from China is strongly reflected in news analyses, editorials, official comments, and particularly in the revealing “mood” pieces. The United
Daily News (June 21) notes that the commander of the PLA in Hong Kong will
be making four times as much as President Jiang, but still at a meager
US$1,540 per month. The China Times (June 15) quotes an unnamed Hong
Kong psychiatrist to warn that the “handover hysteria” can cause psychological
disorder, but all public hospitals are prepared to deal with this potential. The
Liberty Times (June 21) interprets a “bad omen” in the Handover Giant Caldron
breaking a leg while in transport from the mainland. On June 30, the United
Daily News reports many signs of public apathy: people travel abroad en masse
and profess no interest in learning pro-Communist songs, leaving only mainland Chinese visitors to fill some of the empty hotel rooms.
The proindependence Liberty Times (June 24) publishes a column article:
“Chinese leaders, please listen to the voices of Taiwan people.” The author
claims that Taiwan was returned to China “against Taiwanese’s will” after the
Second World War, and Chiang Kai-shek ruled Taiwan as “one country, two
systems” more brutally than Japanese occupiers. This time, the article argues,
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141
if China imposes its brand of nationalism on Taiwan, there will be another
tragedy of historic proportion. On June 29 the paper reports a huge “Say No to
China” rally with a headline, “Opposing Chinese Annexation, The Whole Taiwan Expresses Its Wish.” Alongside is a large photo of protesters carrying
signs, “Say No to China, the Whole Taiwan in Unison.”
In sum, the reactive measures of the government and the oppositional
groups against Beijing’s nationalism shape media discourses. The democratic
ferment shows certain ideological pluralism in media discourses, in that the
mainstream media follow the government’s attempt to delink the Chinese nation from the PRC state, while the proindependence papers pursue the goal of
unifying the Taiwanese nation and state. The marginally important pro-unification group, which shares Beijing’s nationalism, is also admitted into media
representations.
Hong Kong: Ambivalence and Uncertainty
Unlike the foreign media, Hong Kong media have been wrestling with the
ups and downs of the sovereignty transfer for almost two decades (Chan and
Lee, 1991; Lee, 2000a); everything that needs to be told has been told. The
handover is, to them, both a climax and an anticlimax. Some journalists suggest
that the handover is a cause for Beijing, not for Hong Kong, to celebrate. “The
day of the handover is a big show,” as a reporter states, “but the day after will
be the real story.” Lurking behind this spectacle is deep-seated distrust of the
PRC’s ability to keep its promises. Despite the seeming boredom of the big
show, news competition drives all media outlets to put in massive resources to
capture it—sometimes in the name of “documenting the history.” An editor
from the populist Apple Daily puts it this way:
Our editorial staff accepts the premise that people are happy about getting rid
of colonial rule. Now we want to document whether the Joint Declaration and
the Basic Law will be observed after July 1 . . . We want to record everything—what Hong Kong is like now, what expectations people have, what
promises have been made to us—before July 1. We want to establish a baseline for future comparisons.
As if planning a “war mission,” the Apple Daily suspends holidays from
May onwards and deploys more than 100 people to cover the handover ceremony. The Oriental Press Group, its chief rival, has more than 170 reporters
and editors to cover the story, even declining to accept any advertisement offer
in the news section on July 1. The chief news editor of the Oriental Daily News
remarks: “Our big boss does not care about spending money; anything you ask
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will be granted.”3 To start its field operation early, the Apple Daily called the
GIS almost daily in the final three months before July 1 for information about
the details of the events, but Beijing did not finalize the arrangements until the
last minute. The local media could only publish the “countdown page” to
heighten a sense of urgency and immediacy. This historicist approach—commissioning polls to “monitor the trend of public opinion” and recording all
sorts of detailed schedules of official and nonofficial events with street maps—
empirically reifies both journalism and history.
For the most part, media planning is focused on logistics and allocation of
organizational resources; television’s primary concerns are signal transmission
and live coverage. To prevent jamming of telephone lines, a local newspaper even
rents an ISDN high-speed telephone line inside the PBC for transmitting photographs (Apple Daily, July 1). From June 28 to July 3, local television stations
rent three helicopters, at a cost of US$39 per minute, to provide aerial shots
(Ming Pao, July 7). From June 16 on, the dominant Television Broadcasts (TVB)
devotes 40 percent of its half-hour prime-time news to the handover-related stories, culminating in the 48 hours of nonstop live coverage of the formal ceremony
on June 30 and July 1. Mobilizing a staff of 400, TVB’s approach is to “let the audience witness everything” by providing a blanket coverage of events.4 The
resource-poor Asia Television (ATV) relies heavily on official “core feed.”
Of course, not all journalists approach the handover with a conscious intent to “document the history,” but most of them regard it as part of an ongoing
story about Hong Kong in transition. While most journalists claim to be “neutral and objective,” media narratives clearly display tremendous ambivalence
and uncertainty about the handover.
“ONE COUNTRY, TWO SYSTEMS.” The primary media concern is whether
local autonomy can be protected from Beijing’s interference. On July 1 the
South China Morning Post (SCMP) prints the full text, in both English and
Chinese, of President Jiang’s speech at the handover ceremony with a headline,
“Pledge on Rights and Non-interference.” The Ming Pao Daily News (June 26)
stresses that Hong Kong, as an international metropolis, must preserve its systems. The media spotlight Chief Executive Tung and his cabinet members, who
are holdovers from the colonial team, and other new pro-PRC luminaries. The
Hong Kong Economic Journal (July 5) notes editorially that former Chinese
Premier Zhao Ziyang, an architect of the handover who had assured that Hong
Kong people had nothing to “fear,” is absent from the handover ceremony. He
was purged for supporting the democracy movement in 1989. Given this, the
paper asks, “How can Hong Kong people not be afraid?” Radio Television
Hong Kong (RTHK), in providing the “core feed,” has to juggle between
British and Chinese perspectives.
QUEST FOR DEMOCRACY. The media credit Patten for installing limited
democracy in Hong Kong, which “must be quite attractive to mainland Chi-
Defining the Nation-State
143
nese” (according to the outspoken Hong Kong Economic Journal, July 5), but
they also criticize the British for not establishing democratic institutions earlier
(Ming Pao, editorial, June 30). All but the pro-China newspapers routinely give
prominent coverage to leading prodemocracy legislators, who became household names during Patten’s reign. The prominently covered protest staged by
the democrats is, as the Apple Daily quips, “an alternative way to celebrate the
reunification.” However, some people criticize TVB for not giving enough coverage to the Democratic Party’s protest.
BRITISH LEGACY. Media endorsements of—and pride in—what Patten
(1997) calls “a Chinese city with British characteristics” accompany their distrust of Beijing. The Apple Daily (June 30) editorially praises the British for
creating a “world wonder.” It publishes a poll conducted by the University of
Hong Kong, in which 40 percent of the respondents believe that Hong Kong
would be better off under British rule, versus 15 percent who say that it would
be worse off. The Ming Pao Daily News (June 30) publishes another poll showing that if time could be reversed to 156 years ago, more than 65 percent of the
people would prefer British rule. The media, especially television, sentimentally remind people of the glory of the British Empire with all kinds of icons,
while showing Patten in “hugs, kisses and tears all around” (for example,
SCMP, July 1). The Apple Daily (June 30) captions one of its huge photos,
“Long Live Chris Patten!”
MIXED FEELINGS. Ambivalence is expressed by a typical editorial in the
Apple Daily (July 1) that claims that Hong Kong people are “emotionally identified with Chinese culture” but “rationally critical of China’s authoritarian system,” and thus “psychologically unsettled about the handover.” A columnist
(June 24) asks, “In saying goodbye to colonial rule and returning to the motherland, why do so many people feel unsettled and even alienated?” The media
question the celebration hoopla as based on “fake sentiments.” Reporting a poll
conducted on the eve of the handover, the Apple Daily (June 30) indicates that
only 24 percent of the respondents feel excited about it. A Buddhist monk
writes in the Ming Pao Daily News (June 30), using a string of adjectives to describe Hong Kong people’s feelings toward the handover: complicated, excited,
eager, fearful, anxious, pessimistic, passive, abandoned. Days later, on July 5,
the Ming Pao Daily News uses “anxiety, pray, and hope” in its headline to sum
up a full-page review of the handover.
SMOOTH TRANSITION. The most important sources of the smooth transition package are quoted pledges from Chinese leaders, including President
Jiang and Chief Executive Tung, and the officially organized festive celebrations with all the parties and fireworks. Despite the heavy rain, the SCMP (July
1) reports that more than half a million people saw the two firework displays,
which combined are “enough to bring 40 of Hong Kong’s greatest buildings to
the ground.” In addition, the laser guns for the spectacular are “powerful
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enough to shoot beyond the moon and light up a 20-storey office block.” However, a hidden subtext emerges in the celebratory coverage of the festivities and
fireworks as the Apple Daily (July1) claims in its editorial, “The real test and
challenges begin today.”
Historical Script
Hong Kong media, serving a land of refugees, focus their attention on the
present and future rather than the colonial beginning of Hong Kong. Only the
China-controlled papers in Hong Kong keep condemning the evilness of the
Opium War that caused national humiliation. This does not mean that history is
completely lost (Ming Pao Daily News, for example, prints a full-page feature
on June 23, showing a map and photos of the British takeover), but the local
media lose little time in saying that the colony has grown into a modern international metropolis. This is a story of a city cut off historically from China. Most
media outlets echo Patten’s eloquent defense of the British record (chapter 6).
What is important to Hong Kong media? Their prosperous “Chinese city
with British characteristics” has been developed from a barren fishing village,
in the background of decades of turmoil, starvation, and persecution in
China—most recently, the horrendous Tiananmen massacre in 1989. The
Apple Daily (June 28) suggests editorially that Beijing should “import” the
good tradition and the “rational and modern system” that the British have established in Hong Kong. The paper takes Beijing to task for treating Patten
with incivility and ingratitude. “After a century-long race,” a columnist concludes in the Ming Pao Daily News (June 30), “it proves that being colonial
subjects is better off than being slaves of a domestic regime.” As if eager but
unable to blot out the checkered past of the PRC, a columnist (June 25) writes
tentatively in the Ming Pao Daily News that even though the televised images
of horror remain vivid, “the most shocking and stormy days might have been
over.” The Apple Daily (July 3) says that unification marks a major event for
Beijing, but for Hong Kong people, the handover ceremony is only “firing the
first gunshot to open a new battlefield.”
The media probe many new luminaries in government and legislature on
their association with the Communist Party; a member of the Executive Council refuses the question on grounds that it implies a party member as “a bad person.” There is much concern about continued political roles of the Communist
Party and the Xinhua News Agency (the PRC’s de facto representative that the
Apple Daily characterizes as the “patriarch emperor”)5 and their implications
for Hong Kong’s autonomy. An article in the Ming Pao Daily News (June 23)
states, “Hong Kong is going back to China, but not going back to socialism.”
The media express the fear that the “arrogant” and low-paid PLA may “abuse
power” in Hong Kong under “material seduction.” It is suggested that China
Defining the Nation-State
145
may even send in the Tiananmen “butcher,” former Premier Li Peng, if Hong
Kong people step out of bounds.
Using polls is an effective “strategic ritual” (Tuchman, 1978) for the
media to express their implicit ideological frameworks. Contrary to Tuchman’s
(1978) use of “strategic ritual” as a device of legitimizing the power structure,
however, Lee (2000a) argues that polls and diversity of opinions hold populist
appeals and are conducive to defending professional norms against political interference. The topics polled range from public evaluation of the outgoing and
incoming regimes, political and cultural identities, to the prevailing mood. The
SCMP and the Ming Pao Daily News, both owned by Malaysian-Chinese tycoons with considerable investments in China, have been accused of self-censorship. To cope with the cross-pressure between political concern and business
interests, the Ming Pao Daily News has externalized its news treatment by creating several “public forum” columns to apportion a balance of opposing
views. Disclaiming to represent the paper’s position, these columns would express more unrestrained and more diverse views than its wishy-washy editorials, thus shifting editorial responsibility of the paper to the mystified
“marketplace of ideas” (Lee, 2000a). One of the columns reprints the texts of
popular radio talk shows, many of which are critical of Beijing. The paper
(June 26) also carries another poll showing that most schoolteachers object to
adding loving the Party and socialism to the proposed new curriculum.
Geographical Configurations
Hong Kong media view the handover as a local event in the global geopolitical context. The primary concern is protection of local autonomy under global
watch from Beijing’s interference. The media proudly depict Hong Kong as a
meeting point between East and West, a window to the world for the PRC, and a
bridge between the PRC and Taiwan—an international metropolis role that
should be allowed to continue without damage. Beijing is thus an unwelcome
central authority, to be checked by the western world.
With the British withdrawal, the United States is recognized as the superpower that could shoulder more responsibility toward Hong Kong (chapter 5).
The South China Morning Post (June 30) reports that the United States and Japan
have vowed that they will “protect Hong Kong’s freedoms when the party’s
over.” The paper quotes U.S. Secretary of State Albright as saying, “The United
States is, and will remain, a friend to democracy in Hong Kong and elsewhere.”
The geographical construction of the media has put Hong Kong squarely within
the world capitalist system, suggesting that, short of international support, it will
be an orphan under an uncaring Communist mother. TVB focuses its coverage on
Hong Kong, but it also spreads its resources to cover Chinese reactions in major
cities like London, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and New York.
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Defining the Chinese Nation-State
Therefore, one event is being told by three different stories with contrasting—and contesting—historical interpretations, collective memories, and ideological visions. Let us compare the historical scripts and discursive structures
of these three media narratives.
Historical Scripts
History is an epistemology for a group of people to imagine themselves as
a community; it is also constructed to serve the present context (Duara, 1995).
As is clear from Table 7.2, the Opium War as the colonial beginning is not contestable, but its significance is. While both the PRC and Taiwan media hold
British imperialists accountable for causing national humiliation, Hong Kong
media tend to discount the relevance of the “historical accidents” and emphasize today’s prosperity and freedom. The culturally and ethnically Hong Kong
Chinese are said to have developed a “way of life” based on transcendental values, very different from the “motherland.”
The PRC media achieve their interpretative coherence by adopting familynation as the master frame. But such a narrative is shy from people’s everyday
life and is officially controlled to present a distorted image of “national
achievement” (chapter 6). Taiwan’s media pay lip service to an abstract “Chinese nation,” while rejecting the Beijing-imposed definition of nation-state.
Defending discursively against Beijing’s hegemony, they even suggest Taiwan’s fledging democracy as a model of emulation for Beijing and Hong Kong.
Settling different starting points of the historical scripts enables the
media to assign heroes and villains. Presenting a linear and continuous view
of history, the PRC blames western imperialists for starting the trouble and
praises the Communist Party for ending it. Taiwan’s media both vilify British
imperialists for the inglorious colonial beginning but blame Communist insurgence for hindering the early recovery of Hong Kong and for threatening
Taiwan’s democratic existence. The mainstream media in Taiwan seek to
delink nation from state, whereas the proindependence media advocate severance of Taiwan from China as both a state and a nation. To Hong Kong
media the heroes are the hard-working people who prosper under the British
as personified by Patten and local democrats, who have the courage to stand
up to Beijing’s harassment.
Interpretations of the past are then linked to those of the present and future. The PRC sees the handover as a cause for national celebration and a further impetus to the prosperity of Hong Kong under “one country, two systems,”
totally oblivious to the feeling of local people. Both Taiwan and Hong Kong
media are skeptical about the future of Hong Kong.
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Table 7.2
Features of the Historical Scripts of the Three Media Narratives
The PRC
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Starting point
The Opium War in
1840
Historical accidents that
occurred 150 years ago
The Opium War in
1840
Hero
The CCP, Mao, and
Deng Xiaoping
British legacy, Patten,
Hong Kong people, and
the democrats
Chiang Kai-shek,
Taiwan people
Villain
Western imperialists,
typified by Patten
Chinese Communists,
the PLA
Western imperialists,
Chinese Communists
Historical
flow
Linear and
continuous
Linear and punctuated
Linear, interrupted
and restarted on a
separate cause
Historical
present
National pride and
celebration; “One
country, two
systems” works
Hong Kong’s future
uncertain; Chinese
identity in flux
Hong Kong’s future
uncertain; Taiwan’s
status unclear
Historical
future
Greater national
achievement,
brighter future
Uncertain
Uncertain
The handover brings the meanings of Chinese and the tensions between
China as a nation and China as a state to the forefront. The PRC media politically fold the nation into the state, which subsumes cultural and ethnic identities. Taiwan media stress the continuities of cultural and ethnic identities but
dispel the politically mythologized nation-state. Hong Kong media are highly
ambivalent toward the disjuncture between cultural nation and political state;
they emphasize mixed ethnic and cultural ingredients of Chinese and the
“unique” identity of Hong Kong.
The Discursive Structures
Any historical narrative pursues its inner logic of coherence, with chosen
elements, specially accorded significance, and causal connections to form an
overall theme. It is structured into a discourse of a given community by manipulating cultural symbols according to certain conventions and rules of textual
composition, usually biased in favor of the power that be (Foucault, 1972;
Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984; Tolson, 1996; van Dijk, 1988). Table 7.3 summarizes such structural features of the three media narratives.
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Table 7.3
Features of Discourse Structures of the Media Narratives
The PRC
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Vantage point
The PRC/Beijing
Hong Kong
Taiwan/Taipei
Ideological
anchorage
Essentialized
nationalism
Capitalism and
freedom
Ethnic and cultural
Chinese identity;
democracy
Nexus of the
news net
Beijing
Patten, Beijing/SAR
Taipei
Contending groups
Chinese vs. all others
Hong Kong Chinese
vs. Mainland
Chinese
Taiwanese vs.
Chinese
Master frame
Family-nation
Hong Kong
distinction
Democratization
Central issues
National unification
and territorial
integrity
Will the promises
be kept?
Taiwan’s legitimacy
and identity
Appeal
Emotions and the
essential features of
Chinese
Exemplars
Emotions and
principles
Mode of address
Interpellation
Experience sharing
Interpellation
The first four rows of Table 7.3 follow the theoretical proposition that
news is constructed based on the “enduring values” and issue priorities of a society and that these shape the “news net” of a media organization (Gans, 1979;
Tuchman, 1978). Guided by the essentialized nationalism, the PRC media depict an all-inclusive image of “Chinese” based on fixated ethnicity and a
mythological historical origin. The news net is centered in Beijing, which organizes media discourses. In contrast, Hong Kong media emphasize the distinction of Hong Kong society, based not on ethnicity and cultural heritage but
on the capitalist, free “way of life.” The ambivalent identity of Hong Kong
seems to be reflected in the two ideological centers of the news net: one in Beijing, the other in the western capitals. Nationalistic feelings and more transcendent values of democracy comprise Taiwan’s handover discourse; the
mainstream media differentiate Chinese from people of other nationalities,
while the proindependence media separate Taiwanese from Chinese.
The other four rows of Table 7.3 show the methodological approach to the
handover coverage. These features are based on both the “framing analysis” of
themes and key issues (Gamson et al., 1992; Pan and Kosicki, 1993; Snow and
Defining the Nation-State
149
Benford, 1992) as well as the structuralist analysis of the appeal and “mode of
address” (Althusser, 1971). The “mode of address” refers to the way in which
speakers attempt to relate with their audiences through specific ways of talking
to them. It is based upon and performs a power relationship between a speaker
and his or her audience. Althusser (1971) observes that political authorities address their subjects as “interpellation.” In this mode of address, audiences are
spoken to, hailed, commanded, and demanded rather than being involved as
partners of sharing and exchange, as may be the case in a ritual mode of communication (Carey, 1989). Interpellation places the media in a command position that coincides with and is built upon the high political authority. The
“sharing” mode of address places the media as a community conduit to rejuvenate a bond and as a stage for performing cultural rituals.
The constraint of logical consistency (van Dijk, 1984) pulls these features
in line with those more general structural features shown in the first four rows.
The PRC media resort to heightened emotions in narrating a story of festivity
of a family-nation. Its mode of address is “interpellation.” In contrast, Hong
Kong media single out their society and way of life as rooted in capitalism and
international cosmopolitanism, distinct from the new sovereign. Using examples of individuals or groups and specific incidences, the media present the
handover as a society in doubt about whether Beijing will keep its promises.
Relative autonomy enables Hong Kong media to adopt “experience sharing” as
the mode of address. The media converse with the audience and enact public
anxieties. The Taiwan media use family separation to defuse the PRC’s mythical family-nation; in more radical forms, they insist that Taiwan and the PRC
are two “distant cousins” and “close neighbors” but “different countries,” and
that the PRC expansionism must be repulsed. Both the “family separation” and
“anti-China’s expansion” stories resort to emotions and principles, with the former to Chinese sentiment over national unification, while the latter to Taiwanese nationalism. The mode of address is also to hail and command the
audience as the subjects, except now the subjects are both the domestic audience and the international community.
In sum, these comparisons on historical scripts and discursive structures
show the clashing of media narratives by the three Chinese societies at a defining moment. The meanings of China and Chinese have been contested. In this
contestation, the PRC initiates the theses and issues for Taiwan and Hong Kong
to react. This discursive power imbalance is rooted in the political power imbalance in the broader international political economy. Will increasing participation of the PRC in the globalized economy lead to the infusion of more
generalized values of freedom and democracy to pluralize China’s identity discourse? It is too early to tell.
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Chapter 8
Human Rights and National Interest: From the Middle Powers
Hong Kong is a domestic story for us. I sometimes feel like I could do
the daily traffic reports in Hong Kong and it would get printed in my
newspapers.
—Jonathan Manthorpe, the Hong Kong-based
Asian correspondent for Canada’s Southam News
Why can’t our Communists be like that?
—An Australian newspaper commenting on China in the
aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre, with reference
to the events in Eastern and Central Europe
Gone are the days when Australia does just what Washington and London want us to do.
—Alexander Downer, Foreign Minister of Australia
We come to Hong Kong to make a profit.
—Sankei Shimbun, quoting a Japanese businessman, June 24, 1997
For almost 50 years the Cold War framework has provided an easy and
simplified formula to look at the world. With the end of the Cold War, a veteran
journalist contends that we have lost “the clarity of our coverage” and “the
strategic imperative” (quoted in Freedom Forum, 1993: 47). According to
Wallerstein (1993), the primary objective of the Cold War for the western alliance was to contain the Soviet Union, to maintain the unity of the free world
and a united home front led by the United States, and to induct a steady, nonradical political and economic revolution of the Third World. Policy differences
between western allies were downplayed for the sake of a larger common
enemy. After the collapse of the Soviet camp, however, centralized dualism becomes decentralized pluralism. The junior partners in the western alliance may
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find it easier to air their differences with the United States and see a different
playing field without the staged East-West struggle. It is also getting more difficult for the United States to use the United Nations to cloak its own foreign
policy and dress up the American initiative as multinational mandates. Can the
western ideological united front survive? The rise of China, along with the
handover of Hong Kong, would be an important test case.
The Cold War is over, and it has been argued that the foreign policy of the
United States is one of trade diplomacy. National interest consists of vital existence, special interests of friends and allies, and general interests of international order (Von Vorys, 1990). If national interest is defined in terms of
ideological, territorial, and economic dimensions, then it seems clear that economic interests have risen to challenge the supremacy of ideological interests.
In fact, economic interests of securing the best possible terms of exchange
within the world economy may become a preeminent ideology. The nationstate is the most important instrument and agent of pursuing national interest.
Touraine (1997) argues that if democracy is to survive in the post-Communist
world, it must somehow protect the power of the nation-state at the same time
as it limits that power, for only the state has sufficient means to counterbalance
the global corporate wielders of money and information. When western ideology and national interest (principally but not limited to economic interest)
clash, what would the media discourses be?
Cohen (1963) paints the press as a watchdog, an independent observer, an
active participant, and a catalyst of the U.S. foreign policy. Opposite to that is
the view that the media are “no more than a pawn in the political game played
by the powerful political authority and establishment in Washington” (Chang,
1993: 7). The media and policy makers sometimes form coalitions, and national news may very well reflect national policies, cultures, and institutional
interests. For Ramaprasad (1983: 70), media diplomacy is “the role the press
plays in the diplomatic practice between nations.” There is a strong incentive
for the state to use the media to articulate and promote foreign policy, to promote national image, to “trial balloon,” to confer recognition, and to generate
pressure on the opponent (Frederick, 1993). Herman and Chomsky (1988) even
consider the media as a propaganda arm of the state.
The handover of Hong Kong takes place in the post-Cold War context.
Will the chill of the Cold War remain? Will the traditional Cold-War bipolar
mode of thought and language—us versus them, good versus evil, winners
versus losers—still dominate media narratives? To what extent will the three
junior partners of the western camp––Canada, Australia, and Japan—cast
China’s reclamation of Hong Kong in terms of the U.S.-style ideological tugof-war? To what extent will the redefined spheres of their national economic
and strategic interests temper such ideological discourses? This chapter will
address these questions.
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Canada: Special Ties
Canada and the United States, as neighbors and political allies, do have a
lot in common, but Canada has always been trying to get out of the U.S.’s
shadow and establish its own identity. Canadian cultural nationalism has seen
its rises and ebbs for decades. After all, Canada is not a major power in global
politics, and Canadian culture is a “marginal culture” vis-à-vis U.S. culture
(Robinson and Theall, 1975). While successive government efforts have been
made to protect Canadian identity from relentless U.S. assaults, the problem is
that Canadian identity tends to be defined defensively not in terms of what
Canadian culture is, but more in terms of what U.S. culture is not (A. Lee,
1997; Smythe, 1994). The identity of Canadian broadcasting (especially the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) has been particularly central to this
unhappy cultural struggle (Hallman, 1977).
Attallah (2000) argues that the notion of “American culture” is increasingly being displaced by the recognition of a “highly permeable, frequently
diasporic, fundamentally democratic North American culture.” Even so, Canadian journalists believe that their journalism is a bit less ideologically driven
than American journalism. They share the westernized-cum-universal values of
democracy and human rights, but seek perhaps not very successfully to assert a
“Canadian perspective.” Jonathan Manthorpe of Southam News is critical of
Americans for carrying “the Holy Grail of human rights and democracy” as the
only interpreters of how these values should be applied. CBC’s Eric Rankin
echoes: “Canadians don’t think of themselves as being at the top,” with more
“realistic” and less judgmental views rather than American egoistic and patriotic fervor. He accuses the Americans of being only interested in Hong Kong in
terms of how it would affect the United States, not how it could affect Hong
Kong or China. How this philosophical difference is translated into media discourses is, however, much less obvious. By and large, the Canadian media
seem to portray, as do American media, that Hong Kong will see the end of
democracy and loss of press freedom under Communist threat, although its
economy may continue to prosper. The major difference is that Canada does
not claim to have a “guardian” role toward Hong Kong, but instead stresses its
special linkage to Hong Kong.
The End of Democracy
Concern for Hong Kong’s democracy is prominent, roughly in the same
order of other western media. Our content analysis (Table 3.1) shows that 28.6
percent of Canadian stories predict democracy likely to change in Hong Kong;
of which, 58.3 percent believe that it will change for worse. The other concern
is about the possible deterioration of daily life in Hong Kong. This should be
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seen in the context that Canada played a special role in helping the colonial
regime to strengthen democratic institutions in Hong Kong. It offered advice on
electoral practice, the drafting of the Bill of Rights, the protection of privacy
and freedom of information, and also by maintaining parliamentary links with
the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. The PRC dismantled or threatened to
dismantle many of these institutions.
The Tiananmen Square massacre is the dominant media reference. In reporting the three-day holiday in Beijing to celebrate the handover, the CBC
(June 28) describes it as “the biggest gathering in Tiananmen Square since the
massacre in 1989.” Another CBC story mentions that western nations could not
forget the Tiananmen Square massacre. The deployment of the PLA in Hong
Kong is constantly linked to the Tiananmen massacre. In reporting a march of
2,000 people in Hong Kong, the Globe and Mail (July 3) describes it in a frontpage lead story as “possibly the largest antigovernment protest on Chinese soil
since the doomed student democracy campaign in Tiananmen Square eight
years ago.” Jan Wong, the paper’s Beijing correspondent in 1989, admits to
having a very dark view of China: “I can’t see China tolerating freedom of expression here (in Hong Kong). Beijing’s priority is control and stability, and
even though in terms of business it is a thriving place, they don’t care, that’s not
the main priority.” Among many of the pieces she writes is a story (July 1)
about the gay bars in Hong Kong, which have “most to fear” because China regards homosexuality as “a crime of perversion.” The story found its way
through syndication into the pages of the San Jose Mercury News.
The media favor Chris Patten and leaders of the Democratic Party vis-àvis the Chief Executive Tung and his endorsers in Beijing. CBC (June 19) reports that Chris Patten, in reply to Martin Lee in the last Legislative Council
session he attended, claims that “the single most important thing Patten would
do for Hong Kong but could not do” would be to convince the Chinese leaders
in Beijing to trust Hong Kong. CBC repeatedly interviews Martin Lee and
Emily Lau. Lee’s popularity, according to the Globe and Mail (July 1), is
“rooted in defense of freedom and personal integrity.”
Like their western counterparts, the Canadian media are positive about
Hong Kong’s economic vibrancy but negative about its political future. They
are suspicious of China’s promises to maintain a high degree of autonomy for
Hong Kong. The Globe and Mail (June 25) and CBC (June 27), quoting a local
woman, a teacher, a local press editor, and the Canadian Commissioner in
Hong Kong, all express worry about the loss of democracy and press freedom
under Chinese rule. The paper (June 18) quotes polls to say that people feel
they have to accept the handover against their wishes and worry about corruption and lack of democracy. In a CBS piece aired on CBC, the American TV
correspondent Bob Simon remarks: “Control, that’s what it’s all about. That’s
what people here have never had. Like the countless millions who would be
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155
tuning in to the festivities, Hong Kong people will be spectators too. Once
again, watching their own history march right by.”
In a different twist, the Globe and Mail (June 26) quotes Tim Reid, the
president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, who praises the economic
liberalization in China and economic integration between Hong Kong and
China. A helicopter ride to the booming South China, he adds, “couldn’t tell
where Hong Kong ended and China began.” He quips, “Politics is playing catchup.” CBC describes Hong Kong’s economy as “euphoric,” as reflected by the
Hang Seng Index, and continuing to perform well. In its Pacific Rim Report,
after China’s minister for Hong Kong and Macau affairs Lu Ping gives a speech,
a local businessman rebuts, and the host remarks wryly that “the rights to make
money will be protected, but not sure about human rights.” Finally, the economy
is also seen as the best political solution as the Globe and Mail (July 1) states:
“The Trojan horse of freedom is inside the gates . . . The hope is that Hong Kong
can teach (market economy, pluralism, rule of law) to the motherland. Instead of
China changing Hong Kong, Hong Kong would change China.”
“Special Ties”
Even if many Canadians still hold a Eurocentric vision of the world, more
trade now goes across the Pacific between Canada and Asia than across the Atlantic between Canada and Europe. Six of Canada’s top ten trading partners are
in Asia. For Canada, in 1997 China and Hong Kong respectively ranked fifth
and sixteenth in terms of its imports, and sixth and eighth in terms of its exports. This does not begin to take into account the tremendous traffic of people
and capital between Hong Kong and Canada. When things are good in Hong
Kong, there would be an outflow of money and “returnees” from Canada back
to Hong Kong. If the reverse happens, we shall see a new flow of money and
immigrants to Canada.
Chinese have a long history of settlement in Canada; early settlers helped
build the cross-Canada railroad. Canada and Hong Kong share the same
British colonial heritage; some 40 years ago the Canadian flag was very much
like a Hong Kong flag. Because of a vague Commonwealth linkage, Prince
Charles and Queen Elizabeth II are familiar to Canadians and Hong Kong people in ways that they are alien to Americans. Since the early 1980s Canada has
been the most favored country for Hong Kong immigrants, most of them
wealthy and well-educated members of the professional and managerial
classes who have uprooted themselves to escape the prospect of Communist
control. Some estimated 200,000 Canadian citizens live in Hong Kong, one
million people from Hong Kong now live in Canada, and another half a million have the right to live in Canada because of citizenship or family reunion.
Even if many of them return to Hong Kong afterwards, these migrants become
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“a permanent human bridge” consisting of “sentiment, investments, and a
shared pool of talent” (Luk, 1994: 22).
Cantonese is now the third language of Canada after English and French,
and it is hard to miss the Chinese flavor in Vancouver and Toronto. The Hong
Kong press covers daily events in Canada. Both the Ming Pao Daily News and
the Sing Tao Daily News publish local editions in Canada, in addition to the
Canadian Chinese Broadcasting Corporation, which runs radio and television
networks across Canada offering both Cantonese and Mandarin programs.1
Canada is strongly represented in Hong Kong.2 Maclean’s, the national magazine, publishes a Chinese edition. Canada is arguably Hong Kong’s most important link, and what happens in Hong Kong has a very direct bearing on what
happens in Canada.3 It is easy to get the impression in Hong Kong that there is
“no one who does not have a relative in Canada” (Lary, 1992: 109). Hong Kong
has become something of “a mid-sized Canadian metropolis in its own right”
(GIS, 1992: 30).
Chris Wood of Maclean’s claims: “This (the handover) is not just Hong
Kong people’s story, this is in some respect our story.” Jonathan Manthorpe describes that he sometimes feels that he is “in the Richmond West bureau of the
Vancouver Sun.” Jan Wong of the Globe and Mail says that she does not look
for Canadians to interview, but “it’s impossible to avoid Canadians” because
“so many Hong Kong people are now Canadians.” CBC interviews famed local
personalities with Canadian passports. Fairchild Television plays up the sentimental linkages between Canada and Hong Kong in many of its programs,
showing how much Canadian stuff there is in Hong Kong. Many media outlets,
like Maclean’s, are keen on recounting the history of Canadians who fought for
and died in Hong Kong during the Second World War.
The Exotic Orient
On the other hand, to most Canadians, Hong Kong remains an “Exotic
Orient.” To make something unfamiliar more interesting, the Globe and Mail
uses traditional icons—the fishing junk, rickshaw, sampan, fortune-telling, and
Chinese temple—to give the city an imagined taste of the “Exotic Orient” despite Hong Kong’s modern international character. Several articles guide the
readers through the old and new Hong Kong, the rural and urban areas, the familiar and the exotic scenes. The Star Ferry across the Victoria Harbor is “the
40-cent ride of a lifetime” (Globe and Mail, July 1). Quoting travel managers,
the paper (June 28) notes that neither the flights nor the hotel rooms (with both
prices given) are full; most events are held behind closed doors—“It is not a
royal wedding.” Other stories predict a slump in tourism after the “handover
fuss dies down.” Also on June 28, the Globe and Mail has a full two-page story
in the Travel section entitled “A Survival Guide: Hong Kong Now” (subtitle:
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“How to Eat, Sleep, and Spend in Hong Kong”). Even its international affairs
journalist, Marcus Gee, writes a piece (June 25) advising travelers to first go up
to the Peak and enjoy the great sight of skyscrapers, the hill-hugging apartment
towers, and the ferment of the harbor.4
Another favorite topic of media portrayals is various kinds of fortunetellers (palm-reader, or a bird picking out cards). CBC (July 1) shows Tung
Chee-hwa praying for good luck with Buddhist monks in a soccer field. It (June
30) airs a CBS piece contrasting worshippers burning incense sticks with those
on mobile phones. Jan Wong (June 30) writes in the Globe and Mail about the
traditional Chinese “cheongsam” as the gown of choice for the handover in the
grand Hong Kong tradition of excess. Wong notes that the wife of a local
celebrity will attend seven functions, and she has to change a cheongsam (with
a price tag from US$700 to $5,000 or more) every single time. Another story
(June 24) is on “Shanghai Tang,” which sells Chinese chic to people with identity crises. Owned and operated by westernized local Chinese, this shop blends
the traditional Chinese pop art with modern people’s desire of old Chinese
goods. Another story in the Globe and Mail (June 28) says that condom manufacturers believe the handover feel-good factor and a five-day holiday could
boost sales by up to 20 percent.
Australia: Independent Policy?
The Australian media appear to share the generalized western-cumuniversal values of democracy and human rights, painting as dark as the U.S.
media (Table 3.1) a picture of Hong Kong under Chinese rule. However, they
also strive, perhaps not always very successfully, to pursue a foreign policy
more independent of Washington and London. They seem eager to reassert
their Asian identity and adopt certain Asian values, hence enabling them to sing
variations on the chorus of the western tune. Australia’s interest in China as the
ultimate concern in the Hong Kong handover is similar to Japan’s: economic
benefit and regional security. Both countries have their eyes on China and view
Hong Kong as a test case for China to show the world that it can behave. To
Australians, the handover, notwithstanding its problems, marks an opportunity
to adjust its economic relationship with China via Hong Kong.
As a middle power with no significant part to play in the strategic balance
in the Pacific, Australia is in an ambivalent position of being part of the British
ties and U.S. defense system while wishing to be an Asian country. Once stridently Eurocentric, Australia was said to inherit “an image of the world held by
the British foreign service,” or a footnote assumed to “replicate American or
British patterns” (Strahan, 1994: 11–12). Australia, along with New Zealand,
was “the most isolated fragment of western civilization in the world” (p. 317).
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Australia sided with the western camp during the Cold War. Not until the 1980s
did it begin to shift its foreign policy paradigm from the Cold War to the East
Asian economic miracle, pulling away from its Eurocentric orientation.5 China
was no longer to be perceived from the old view of oriental despotism as an inherently autocratic and expansionist threat and a source of chaos. Instead,
China was to be recognized as a potential great power, with economic opportunities for Australia, to be brought into the world on an equitable basis. The
Tiananmen crackdown brought backlashes, but economic links soon recovered
(Mackerras, 1996). (But it should be noted that the imprint of the Tiananmen
massacre is hardly erased from Australian journalistic mindset, as we shall
show.) The 1991–92 Defense Report states that Australia had adopted a security policy of “forward defense,” which is for “defending Australia with and in
Asia rather than against Asia” (O’Connor, 1995: 87).
Australia continues to value human rights but tends to separate it from
trade and economic relations. The Australian government has promised that it
would engage in “constructive dialogue” with both China and Britain in order to
help maintain Hong Kong’s stability, prosperity, and human rights after 1997.
Despite its nostalgia toward Britain, Australia has bluntly criticized “Britain’s
failure to create representative and responsible government in Hong Kong and
to create a democratic ethos” (Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade, 1997: xxi). The Parliamentary report urged the government to
give human rights “equal weight with trade issues and strategic issues in any
ministerial or official contacts with China.” But it does not advocate a conditional or punitive linkage between trade and human right matters (p. 119). There
is a view that Australia should continue to adopt a “cautious but friendly approach rather than an ideologically based approach to China” (Harris, 1996:
18–19); it is better to influence Beijing’s political reform than undermine it.
Australia has considerable interest in Hong Kong.6 More importantly,
some people would argue that Australia should use Hong Kong as a base to target the China market. Dunn (1985: 20) advocates that: “We would be best advantaged by a China whose major deterrent was a strong and self-sustaining
economy coupled with a stable and confident political environment.” The Parliamentary report cited above clearly states that Australia has at stake business
in Hong Kong and the access to the markets of the Southern China crescent
(p. 103). Australian business people and the Australian government are generally optimistic about Hong Kong’s future economic prosperity.7
Australia has absorbed an influx of 88,000 immigrants from Hong Kong,
but the bonding between Australians and Hong Kong people has never been as
strong as that between Canadians and Hong Kong people.8 While the Canadian
media regard a Hong Kong story as part of a “domestic” story (which is part of
the dominant values), it is for Australians a “domesticated” story (which is interpreted according to internal dominant values) at best. Besides, the Australian
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159
portrait of the “Exotic Orient” is based more on various fascinating achievements of Hong Kong, unlike Canada’s treatment of it as a sample of traditional
and exotic Chinese culture.
Demonic China
Our content analysis (Table 3.1) shows that the Australia media are almost
as pessimistic as the U.S. media about Hong Kong’s democracy and civil liberties, and also tend to portray Beijing negatively. On June 30, the Australian
printed on page one the headline, “Back off, Beijing Warns Canberra.” Federal
Parliament issues a 120-page report on Hong Kong’s human rights, denouncing
China’s abolition of the elected Legislative Council and the installment of the
Provisional Legislature. It calls for continued monitoring of Hong Kong’s situation and publishing an annual report in Parliament. The media make ample
references to the “Tiananmen massacre” and “brutal crackdown” to “prove” the
evil nature of Communist China and to back up their own pessimism about
Hong Kong’s future. The Australian (June 21–22) quotes an author to characterize Beijing’s plan as calling not for decolonisation, but recolonialisation. In
response to our interview, Richard McGregor of the Australian rejects the accusation of the foreign press “demonizing China” as a propaganda system on
the part of China to put journalists on the defensive. ABC reporter Jane
Hutcheon observes, “The (Chinese) leaders do not want to accept responsibility or apologize for things that go wrong. If something goes wrong, it is covered up.” She adds, “If foreign media demonize China, it is because China
hasn’t come clean yet.” With the memories of the Tiananmen massacre still
vivid, she observes that for China to talk about the handover “as the end of the
national humiliation saga” reflects a “strong inferiority complex.”
In a feature story, the ABC reporter (June 17) mocks some members of
Hong Kong’s business elite who stay put and “work with their new Communist
bosses rather than run for cover with their second passports.” The reporter raises
doubts about whether Hong Kong’s economic dynamism can “survive the first
of July.” Speaking of “China’s ‘one country, two economic systems’,” the reporter comments, “Logically no one can see why the new rulers should want to
wreck so valuable a property. Emotionally no one wants even to think about
China’s long history of self-inflicted and logic-free economic catastrophies.” In
the second special feature, ABC (June 30) shows Tiananmen footage of armored
tanks. The reporter asks whether it “bothers” businessmen that “Hong Kong is
going to be ruled by a brutal Communist dictatorship.” The reporter also comments: “CH Tung’s administration will hold its first meeting at 2:45 am, the very
first act of the new Beijing-appointed legislature will be to restrict demonstrations, ban overseas funding for political parties, and outlaw subversion.” In the
third special feature show (July 1), the introduction declares: “Tonight, China’s
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prize—Hong Kong—returns after a century and a half of British rule. But does
the red flag signal a new game plan for organized crime and its export to Australia?” Exporting organized crime to Australia as China’s new game plan seems
rather far-fetched.
Economic Trojan Horse
China, the Australian (July 1) says, gets the “greatest prize of the century.”
“China will resume control of Hong Kong,” The Weekend Australian (June
28–29) argues in an editorial, “but Hong Kong will have a big and positive impact on China’s future.” Hong Kong is but a lightning rod, and the real significance of its future is really about China. The best-case scenario is that China
would become more like Hong Kong. Jonathan Fenby (the Australian, July 1)
writes that Hong Kong can even play a key role in defining the relationship between China and the world in the next century. A Financial Times article
(Weekend Australian, June 28–29) states that Hong Kong may serve as a catalyst for change on the mainland—relative press freedom and relative freedom
of speech and association, if not the emergence of opposition parties—and as
an increasing hub for China’s relations with the outside world.
The worst-case scenario is, however, that Hong Kong would sink into a
mainland mire of corruption, disrespect for the rule of law, and restraint on
press and other freedoms. As a journalist (Weekend Australian, June 21–22) remarks, “Deng’s edict [one country, two systems] is fine for business, but when
it comes to politics, ‘one country’ is the rule.” An ABC feature story says: “If
Benny still looks happy five days before the handover, it’s because like millions
of others he’s learned how to grin and bear the inevitable.” Hong Kong’s liberties will depend on “nothing more than a promise made by China.” A quarter of
ABC’s 48 news stories mention Taiwan because the handover of Hong Kong is
seen as a pretext to the negotiations and manipulations between China and Taiwan. Two Taiwan officials are even found among the top ten sources of the
Australian media (Table 3.5).
Independent Foreign Policy
Australia does not have an international role to play and thus does not have
the same superpower mania about China as there might be in the United States.
However, Australia is anxious to show its independence from the United States
and Britain in terms of foreign policy. Earlier in 1997 Australia refused to support the United States, Britain, and a number of European countries in condemning China’s human rights situation at a United Nations forum in Geneva.
Now it decides to attend the swearing-in ceremony in Hong Kong, breaking
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ranks with the boycotting United States and Britain. Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer (Weekend Australian, June 14–15) puts it bluntly: “Gone are the days
when Australia does just what Washington and London want us to do.”
A round of exchange on this issue in the Australian is revealing. It starts
off with former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser (June 16) accusing the United
States and Britain of “self-interest and hypocrisy” in Hong Kong. He criticizes
Americans for believing that “the U.S. is right and knows best.” The British
promote local democracy in Hong Kong in the name of advancing human
rights, but Fraser thinks what Britain has done “has the potential to do much to
damage human rights in Hong Kong.” He argues, “British and U.S. attempts to
establish a western-style enclave in Hong Kong and to impose western conditions on China will contribute nothing to stability in East Asia and the western
Pacific.” He calls for an urgent and open appraisal of western policy in this region. Fraser appears to put Australia as a member of the East. A historian argues (June 20) that Australia’s position on attending the swearing-in of the new
Hong Kong Provisional Legislature does not “place it on a higher moral ground
than the United States and Britain; merely that it has a different set of national
interests to pursue in the international arena.” Another scholar (July 2) writes,
“The western assertion that individual human rights are universal has been
challenged in East Asia by states emphasizing their rights to conduct their domestic politics free from external criticism.”
Paul Kelly, the Australian’s international editor, observes (June 25) that
the Hong Kong handover signifies something important in the future path of
Australia-U.S. relations. In spite of similar basic values shared by the traditional allies, Kelly argues that Australia’s interests do not necessarily coincide
with the United States or the United Kingdom. “Hong Kong betrays the deepening tensions for Australian foreign policy between values and national interest and they will only intensify.” In another article, he (July 2) asserts that
“Hong Kong is a city in Asia; Australia wants ‘one country, two systems’ to
work, but it doesn’t expect Hong Kong to become a model democracy.” The
Australian (June 28–29) points editorially to Australia’s interests at stake in
Hong Kong. About 350 Australian companies are based in Hong Kong with investments of AUS$3.2 billion (US$1.9 billion) as of 1995; more than 30,000
Australians live and work in Hong Kong, and the combined Hong Kong and
China will be Australia’s third most important export market. In 1997, of the
top ten export destinations, the United States ranks the third and the United
Kingdom ranks the tenth; the rest are in Asia (Japan ranks first, South Korea
second, New Zealand fourth, Taiwan fifth, China sixth, Singapore seventh,
Hong Kong eighth, Indonesia ninth). ABC (June 30) comments that history will
judge both China and Britain harshly against “the deception, secrecy and hostility that characterize their dealings over Hong Kong.”
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Amazing Hong Kong
Although Hong Kong is the first take of Asia for many Australians, their
general knowledge of Hong Kong is low. To render the place more intelligible
to the audience, the media have characterized Hong Kong as a “helluva Chinatown” and “the Manhattan of the East.” It is a place “where East meets West,
East meets East, North meets South, developing nations meet industrialized nations and mainland China meets everyone else,” a place crowded with tycoons
and gangsters (Weekend Australian, June 21–22), and a city of dreams, dragons, fortunes, and romance. The editor of the South China Morning Post,
Jonathan Fenby, describes it as a “world-view colony” (The Australian, July 1).
Hong Kong people are Chinese by blood, according to ABC News (June
24), but citizens of the world by training and by inclination. Journalists (Weekend Australian, July 5–6) even note that Tung uses Mandarin, Cantonese, and
English to give speeches to an international business audience. Hong Kong is a
town of economics, not politics, so Tung is a businessman true to Hong Kong’s
deepest instincts, unlike Patten who is a born politician (The Australian, June
30). Greed is the secular religion in Hong Kong, where people are money crazy
and superstitious (The Australian, June 27). Countering misconceptions, Greg
Sheridan (The Australian, July 1), however, observes that Hong Kong people are
not, as alleged, only interested in money instead of politics or arts; that Britain
and Patten, contrary to claims, have no interest to give democracy to Hong Kong
people; that Martin Lee is still a force to reckon with after the handover.
Japan: Money, Security, Not Democracy
Ezra Vogel (1979), worrying about the United States losing its competitive advantage, once pointed out that Japan is arguably the most informationconscious country in the world, having built elaborate and thorough business
intelligence apparatuses and networks. According to his account, journalists
play an important role in providing business intelligence for the Japan, Inc. As
befits their international image, the Japanese media are intent on preserving
much of Japan’s economic benefits in the region without showing much concern for local democratic yearnings. It has been observed that elite integration
between the Japanese government, commercial-industrial conglomerates, and
the media is so powerful—much tighter than in the United States—that the
media tend to echo the government-corporate views (Pharr and Krauss, 1996).
Japan’s “pack journalism” is notoriously characterized as being one of political elites speaking mostly with one voice.
As the only Asian member of the exclusive G-8 club, Japan has an identity
problem: according to a survey (Fukuda, 1998: 105), only 38 percent of the
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Japanese acknowledged that Japan belongs to Asia, and 39 percent thought of
Japan more as a member of the industrialized West. The trilateral relationship
between China, Japan, and the United States is a key to regional comprehensive
security. After the Second World War, constitutional constraints and international opposition have kept Japan from assuming any major security responsibilities commensurate with its economic status, even within the Asian-Pacific
region. Under the protective umbrella of the United States, Japan has developed
its relations with foreign states through economic means of trade, aid, and
loans (Wong, 1991). Japan’s “least offensive” policy has placed economic benefits above ideological interests in foreign diplomacy (Ozaki and Arnold,
1985). Based on hard-headed calculations, Japan takes a long-term approach
towards investing in China and knows how to make use of loans and credit and
to deal with China as a market and as a security concern. Japan and China are
both friendly trade partners and potential rivals for regional leadership. Mutual
ambivalence notwithstanding, both powers expect to profit from a closer relationship, especially in stemming western protectionism (Fukuda, 1998: 109).
For the sake of economic and security interests, Japan also knows the importance of integrating China into the regional and world economic systems.
Inasmuch as human rights are not a guiding spirit of Japan’s foreign policy, its leaders have questioned the idea of applying western standards of
democracy to countries like China (Kesavan, 1990). During the Tiananmen
crackdown, the U.S. media zealously sided with the protesters as if to score
ideological victories, but the Japanese media were reluctant to challenge the
Chinese authorities in order to protect Japan’s economic gains (Lee and Yang,
1995). Deeply involved in China’s government-initiated development plans,
Japan had little desire to enrage the Chinese rulers. Japan’s role as an aggressor nation in China in the Second World War also prevents Japanese from
being morally righteous about China’s human rights problem or too censorious of Chinese leaders. Japan was the last among industrial democracies to
impose economic sanctions against China after the Tiananmen crackdown
and was the first to lift them. In fact, the Tiananmen incident did not lead to
major fluctuations in Sino-Japanese trade but led to a remarkable increase
(Yokoi, 1996).
Most western media that had been based in Hong Kong to report about
China moved up their offices to Beijing after the PRC normalized its relations
with the United States in 1979. But the Japanese have continued to maintain a
large contingent of reporters in Hong Kong quietly, if also efficiently, gathering
economic intelligence about South China. They do not get excited about China’s
democracy or human rights unless politics means money and trade. Since 1988
Japan has overtaken the United States as the second largest foreign investor in
Hong Kong, the first being China (Taneja, 1994).9 To cover the handover of
Hong Kong, Japan sends in the largest international media contingency, with
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1,300 journalists from more than 40 media outlets, who register with the Government Information Services for press accreditation. There are twice as many
Japanese journalists as either British (688) or PRC (611) journalists. We know
that NHK alone has a news and technical staff of 80 and five anchors; TV Asahi
also has a significant presence, and the major newspapers (the Asahi Shimbun,
the Yomiuri Shimbun, the Sankei Shimbun, and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun) each
have 15 to 20 journalists, adding to those of the Kyodo News Agency. Japanese
television stations prefer to work with their own huge staff rather than with local
stations. Their generally low profile prevents any published sources or our informants from providing the exact distribution of this news army.
Japanese media coverage of the handover appears to be thorough and comprehensive. Their reportorial style tends to stay close with detailed facts; most
stories are short, straightforward, and uncolorful accounts of activities without
much interpretative depth or contextualization (Lee and Yang, 1995). Comparatively speaking, Japanese journalists seem to act more as noncommitted “observers” rather than British participants or American protagonists. This factual or
event orientation does not, however, imply an absence of values. The Japanese
media seem to share—with seeming timidity and reservation—the generalized
western values of democracy and human rights, and cast their share of negative
light on the political life of Hong Kong. Almost all the topics on the handover
found in other countries, including many trivial “mood” pieces, also appear on
the Japanese media agendas in a truncated form. They are authority-oriented, following Patten’s official line to castigate the installation of the Provisional Legislature by China. They ridicule the influence of the “hand-clapping culture from
the mainland” on Hong Kong and caricature the strong “Chinese Hong Kong appeal” with “the Beijing way” in Tung’s mandarin speech (Yomiuri Shimbun, July
1). But as a matter of editorial policy, Japanese media put economic issues above
political issues and try to avoid human rights concerns to the extent possible.
NHK has a considerably briefer coverage of the protest staged by the Democratic Party than do western media. In many cases the democracy concerns are depicted as a conflict between China and the United States, rather than a conflict
between China and Japan. In this equation, the United States also figures more
significantly than Britain, the old sovereign of Hong Kong. Japanese media seem
noncommittal on the issue of democracy, and (despite individual journalists’
sympathies) definitely not committed to supporting local democratic yearnings.
No coherent master frame of East-West ideological conflict stands out in
Japanese media discourses. The democracy and human rights concerns are outshone and subsumed by a more pragmatic metanarrative that highlights Japan’s
economic and security interests. The Sankei Shimbun (June 25) reports that that
the Japanese government’s approach to Hong Kong is economically active but
politically passive. Many Japanese reporters we interviewed seem to be more
concerned about the future of democracy and press freedom in Hong Kong than
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165
their editors care to accommodate. A Yomiuri Shimbun reporter confides that his
editor would have scolded him for wasting the space if he dwelled on the themes
of democracy. For this reason, when he requests an interview with Democracy
Party leaders he is given a cold shoulder. Several of his Japanese colleagues have
provided corroborated accounts. A Kyodo News reporter takes western journalists to task for playing up the human rights issues at the expense of economic issues; he contends that the human rights issue is important but does not symbolize
the handover of Hong Kong. Every Japanese news team includes business reporters; one of the three business reporters on the Asahi Shimbun team points out,
“After the Cold War is over, politics and economics are inseparable.”
The Japanese media see the handover of Hong Kong from the perspective
of its economic relationship with China. In 1997 China is Japan’s second
largest importer (next to the United States, with 12.4% of Japan’s total imports)
and fifth largest exporter (with 5.2% of Japan’s total exports.) Japan does not
import much from Hong Kong, but Hong Kong is Japan’s third largest exporter
(next to the United States and Taiwan, accounting for 6.5% of Japan’s total exports). Moreover, Japan has U.S.$48 billion of assets in Hong Kong. In 1996 a
record 2.4 million Japanese visited Hong Kong, putting Japan as the most important foreign country on the tourist list. In 1997 the figure decreased to 1.4
million, still ranking third. A Japanese magazine specializing in Hong Kong
matters is published in Hong Kong and sold in both Hong Kong and Japan.
This does not begin to take account of the potential influences China may have
on Japan’s future. Therefore a Kyodo News Agency reporter concludes, “Hong
Kong economy has intensified its relationship with China’s economy so much
that every time Japanese reporters write about Hong Kong economy they must
refer to China’s economy.”
For that matter, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (June 28) notes that Japan is very
cautiously maintaining a political balance between the United States and China.
Like Australia, Japan refuses to join the United States and Britain in their boycott
of the inauguration of the Beijing-installed Provisional Legislature. An Asahi
Shimbun reporter finds U.S. and British views on this issue rather strange and
“too theoretical,” saying that as an Asian he understands Beijing’s attitudes.
As a whole, the Japanese media are ebullient about China’s economic reform and express hopes for the future of Hong Kong economy and closer cooperation with China. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun (June 27) states that closer
ties with the mainland will stimulate business expansion in Hong Kong, and
that Japanese financial interests are taking advantage of the new opportunities.
NHK airs two special programs, highly positive on the economic prospect. Its
crew travels more than 18,000 kilometers visiting eight different Chinese cities.
The programs mention the entrance of more than 2,000 Chinese companies
into Hong Kong, quoting the CEO of the Hong Kong-based Bank of China to
offer a view of prosperous economy in 1998 and beyond. They report Chinese
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Vice-Premier Chen Qichen’s assurance that Hong Kong will continue to be an
international economic center with the support of the motherland, while
dwelling on China’s state enterprises getting listed in Hong Kong’s stock market. On June 30 TV Asahi also airs a special program, light on politics and
heavy on economy. It shows its reporter traveling to inner provinces of China
to survey various aspects of economic development. He interviews local people, Japanese entrepreneurs in China, as well as a manager from Singapore,
who predict that the next century will be a century for the global Chinese.
Media exuberance about Hong Kong’s economic future does not, however, betray a tinge of uncertainty. The media are concerned about Hong
Kong’s political culture to the extent that it may affect business climate and operation. The Sankei Shimbun (June 26) quotes Japanese business people’s
worry over Hong Kong’s political future, which may create economic turmoil.
“We come to Hong Kong to make a profit,” a businessman is quoted as saying,
“If we can’t make a profit, we’ll leave.” In view of the risks associated with the
change, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (June 28) argues for diversifying Japanese
investment in Hong Kong (from which to expand into China) and Singapore
(from which to expand into Southeast Asia.)
Another related concern for the Japanese media is regional security. China
as a rising regional, if not world, power is a source of security concern for the
international community. As a demilitarized nation Japan needs the protective
umbrella of the United States, but as an Asian neighbor it cannot afford to agitate China. The Tokyo headquarters of Kyodo News Agency prepared some
stories long before the handover about how the return of Hong Kong to China
would affect the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and the security of Northeast Asia.
The Yomiuri Shimbun (June 25) notes the U.S. concern regarding the ability of
its battleships to call port in Hong Kong under Chinese rule; the next day it
writes about the potential that China may use Hong Kong as a card to pressure
countries into severing ties with Taiwan. The Sankei Shimbun (July 1) reports
that Japan’s Defense Ministry emphasizes the importance of preventing China
from pushing its sea rights southward, also noting that the entry of the PLA into
Hong Kong to show China’s rising military status “causes unhappiness of the
United States.” Another story on the same day says that Taiwan is concerned
with China’s possible use of Hong Kong to do espionage operations and launch
a military threat against Taiwan. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun (July 1) reports
that Hong Kong will add 30 percent to China’s GDP, which may renew the talk
of “China threat” in Southeast Asia.
One Theme, Several Tunes
Overall, Canada, Australia, and Japan can be classified as singing the
theme song with different tunes. They have little confidence about the “one
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country, two systems” under an authoritarian regime. Unlike the Americans,
however, none of them fancies itself to be the new savior or guardian of Hong
Kong. In one way or another, they have all criticized the U.S. media for being
egotistic, self-righteous, rude, and imperialistic. Despite such criticisms, on the
issue of democracy and human rights the vaunted “national perspective”—be it
Canadian, Australian, or Japanese—does not seem to stand out differently from
the United States.
At the periphery of the western alliance, human rights concern is the
master script of the camp; national interest is the cause for the variations. The
end of the Cold War lessens the ideological and political bonds for these second-tier countries, and they are more willing to show their differences with the
United States when their own national interests are at stake. The traditional bifurcated view toward international relations has given way to a multilateral approach. The United States is still the leader of the western world, but China
(and Hong Kong) is a closer-to-home neighbor with high potential in business
opportunities and benefits. Universal ideals are desirable, but economic interests are irresistible. The media performance in the Hong Kong handover is but
another illustration.
The cases of Canada, Australia, and Japan illustrate ideological contestation
at two different levels. At the external and global level, these three countries—
members of the periphery in the western alliance or, alternatively, what Wallerstein (1976) would call “semi-peripheral countries” in the world capitalist
system—clearly side with the United States and other western allies in the ideological warfare against China. They use democracy, freedom, and human rights
to glue the coalition front in their fight against the common ideological enemy.
Internally, at the second level of analysis, the western camp comprises different
factions of countries pursuing different national concerns and interests. They may
not agree with all the ideological underpinnings and strategies taken by their allies, nor would they want to strictly follow the leadership of the camp. With so
much economic and security interests with China at stake in the post-Cold War
milieu, national interests of the western periphery are likely to come to the fore,
even if this implies a minor or moderate clash with the agendas of the center in
the system.
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Chapter 9
Media Event as Global Discursive Contestation
In some way echoes from China reverberate in every American county
and town.
—Dan Rather, CBS News anchor (Buerk, 1997)
“Ceremonial politics” expresses the yearning for togetherness, for fusion.
—Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz (1992: viii)
The global in the local, the local in the global.
—Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi (1991: 122)
By any yardstick, a world of 8,000 news hunters has created a big “media
spectacle” in a faraway small island of Hong Kong, a ritualized media performance for the consumption of a global audience from Vermont to Sydney,
from Shanghai to Liverpool, or from Hong Kong to Vancouver. Globalization
touches our everyday lives in so many ways, yet it is also illusory to us. Although the media increasingly gain their global reach as part of the globalized
economy, the discourse of a global event remains essentially processed
through national-cum-local prisms. In this volume, we have tried to show that
the global news event is staged, domesticated, and hyped to produce various
media discourses that express different preferred national identities, values,
and order as much as they disclose the real and imagined conditions of Hong
Kong. In a metaphysical sense, is the whole of these discourses larger than the
sum of its parts? These discourses may be juxtaposed to form a totality with a
rather wide spectrum of conflicting perspectives that does not, however, necessarily reveal the whole story. International politics is in part an identity politics; international journalism is in part a struggle over national identity. Each
national media system may claim to have certain solid historical bases for constructing its identity discourse, but each discourse is bound to be partial,
sketchy, and self-serving. Thus viewed, the media event is a key site and moment for staging global discursive contestation, which is nonetheless
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grounded in unequal power and resources of the international political economy. Despite the glowing rhetoric of globalization, this is neither “the end of
history” (Fukuyama, 1992) nor “the end of ideology” (Bell, 1962).
In this closing chapter, we would like to summarize and extend our themes
and arguments in the form of propositions.
The Structure of International News
Power and money make news. It has been said that in the contemporary
age and today’s world, the global is the local, and the local is the global (Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1991). Global events have local consequences, and local
events have global roots. But make no mistake about it: the global and the local
are not created of equal power. If the handover of Hong Kong had not been
billed as the first major clash of global systems and ideologies after the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, it would not have attracted any world media attention
and concern. Despite the absence of his network from Hong Kong for two
decades and the declining audience interest in international news, Dan Rather
of CBS imparts global significance to the handover of Hong Kong in an interview (Beurk, 1997): “We at CBS try to put it in the context of the ongoing story
of China striving to be a world superpower… The world is an increasingly
smaller place, and the echoes from China reverberate everywhere. In some way
they reverberate in every American county and town.”
His colleague and competitor, Jim Laurie, senior correspondent of ABC
News, asks rhetorically: “Whither Hong Kong? In the minds of many Americans, so what!” (Knight and Nakano, 1999: 154). The answer, which he stops
short of providing, seems quite simple and clear: whither China does matter.
Structurally speaking, international communication takes place in the descending order of center-to-center, center-to-periphery, and periphery-to-periphery
relationships (Galtung, 1971). This has at least six major implications for the
international news structure.
1.
The “media event” (Dayan and Katz, 1992) is staged at the
global level for the global media to enact their cultural values in
discursive contestation between nation-states. We shall return to
elaborate on the nature, consequences, and limits of discursive
contestation in the following sections.
2.
Hong Kong is too peripheral to cross the threshold in the structure of foreign news (Galtung and Ruge, 1965). In the final
analysis, Hong Kong only represents foreground skirmishes for
the world media in their continuing, deep-seated background
Media Event
battles against China, the remaining Communist giant and a rising economic and military power on the world stage. Negativity
is a key factor: Hong Kong news will fade out if the transition is
smooth, or else it will continue to be on the radar screen of the
world media. The degree of media attention it begets increases
in direct proportion to the tumultuousness and explosiveness of
the place.
3.
This battle of media discourse is taken up between the most important Communist country and what Wallerstein (1976) calls
“center” nations of the United States and Britain as well as
“semi-peripheral” nations of Canada, Australia, and Japan in the
world capitalist system. They all compete for legitimacy and
recognition on the global stage via media discourses, but the
common interests of western alliance may conceal, mix up with,
and sometimes struggle against specific national interest.
4.
The peripheral nations are at best bystanders to this media spectacle, either too apathetic, too impoverished, or too powerless to
be serious players in the battleground. Moreover, given their
globalized economy of scale and the national strength behind it,
the media in elite nations control the terms, condition, and content of media discourses in peripheral nations through the diffusion of words and images. Galtung and Vincent (1992: 8–9)
conclude, “Reporting about the periphery countries will be not
only scant and quantitatively insignificant, but also highly negative, and even more so for news about periphery people in periphery countries.” Hong Kong is not likely to interest people in
Somalia, for example. If for any reasons poor and weak nations
are interested, they can ill afford to mount their own journalistic
operation and often have to rely on the supply of stories from
such global-scale outlets as the BBC, CNN, Reuters, and the
Associated Press. Even if they “domesticate” the messages to fit
national needs, we would argue that the range of their agendas
remains broadly and strictly dictated by the global-scale media.
5.
The unequal center-periphery relationship is also characteristic
of the world within “Cultural China”; the media in Hong Kong
and Taiwan take defensive and reactive postures toward the
PRC’s offensive pressure. While Beijing basks in national glory
on the global stage but seeks to shield the handover as an issue
of national sovereignty from external intervention, the weaker
parties of Taiwan and Hong Kong prefer to elevate it to the level
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of international concern. The latter have little recourse but to appeal to the international community, via the global-scale media,
for sympathy and understanding and to repel the hegemonic
pressure of the center power.
6.
The logic, mechanism, and news net of domestic and international journalism are integrated with and dependent on institutional rhythm and visions of the power structure. But as Table
9.1 shows, there are also crucial differences. Domestically, both
state and nonstate sectors (including dominant classes and
groups) may play an important role, and the news plurality is
also broader to cater to more diverse constituencies. In an anarchic international order, the state is the chief voice of the nation,
and the media agendas are more attuned to the elite conceptions
of the world, as codified by the state-articulated foreign policy
and the dominant ideological and cultural assumptions. Nonstate sectors are less important. Moreover, the world order sets
the parameter for media discourses on international affairs, but
no single centralized authority has the ultimate power over others. Nation-states participate in international organizations on a
voluntary basis by ceding part of their power and submitting
themselves to agreed-upon rules, but this voluntary submission
can be broken or withdrawn, even though possibly at a price.
Given these constraints, the media are more likely to collaborate
with the nation-state than with the international authorities.
Media Events and Hyping
The handover of Hong Kong is a quintessential “media event,” which defines the nature and outer boundary of the filtered global news. But the event
also turns out to be lacking in blockbuster, something that the world media that
had committed tremendous attention and resources to it discovered much too
late. As a result, the media hype the news.
1.
Instead of seeing “media events” as fitting into one of three
discrete categories (Dayan and Katz, 1992)—contests, conquests, and coronation1—we emphasize their interactive quality that may possess combined attributes. The handover of
Hong Kong is altogether a political and symbolic contest between China and Britain conducted according to negotiated
Table 9.1
Domestic News vs. International News
Dimensions
Domestic News
International News
Interest base
Class-based, sector-based or
community-based interest
Nation-state
Locus of ideology
Less discretion for
journalists’ interpretation
because the claims are more
readily falsifiable and the
issues are more familiar to
the target audience; ruling
ideology is often taken for
granted; contestation over
the articulation of ruling
ideology is possible
Greater discretion for the
journalists’ interpretation
because the issues are more
distant and less familiar to
the home audience; lack of
global ruling ideology;
engaged in dialogue with
home ideology; contestation
with ideologies of foreign
countries
Core audience
The elite and general public
within a nation
The elite within and across
nations
News net
Primacy of government
officials at various levels
and other social agencies;
international forces are
secondary; domestication is
not necessary
Primacy of the nation-state
and international forces;
other domestic social
agencies are secondary;
domestication is essential
Competition
Competing with other
national media and less so
with other local media
Competing with global,
national, or local media
(depending on the nature of
the media outlet itself)
Discursive community
National authorities,
journalists, representatives
of social groups
State officials and
diplomats, correspondents,
representatives of
international and national
groups
Consequences/functions
Media serving more of a
forum for the domestic
social forces; building
consensus and legitimacy;
maintaining the status quo
Projection of preferred
identity and image;
legitimizing and binding the
home system; articulating
foreign policy
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rules, schedule, and rituals; a historical conquest between
charismatic leaders of both sides who get tested in the diplomatic and media ordeal; and a coronation for the rites of
British retreat with honor and of Chinese nationalist victory.
These elements get intertwined.
2.
Furthermore, we emphasize the transformative quality of the
media event. During its life cycle, a media event is likely to go
through the three stages of contests, conquests, and coronations.
Despite being a “calendar event,” the world media endow the
handover with special ideological significance and invest huge
resources into covering it. But the event is not quite up to its
billing as a major (violent) showdown for the world media. Instead, it was transformed during the course of its life cycle, with
contest and conquest gradually receded and coronation coming
to the fore. The event is robbed of its expected excitement as
dictated by the entertainment logic of news.
3.
The handover of Hong Kong, given its choreographed nature,
fails to reach the critical threshold of a media event, with
many defining characteristics of a unique news genre. As a
live, preplanned event, perhaps presented with reverence and
ceremony, it attracts a large horde of journalists but does not
seem to interrupt the flow of everyday life or to electrify large
global audiences. To compensate for the lack of theatrical excitement or dramatic surprises, the world media resort to
“hype up” the news. Hyping is both a set of techniques for
covering a media event and an integral part of news discourse.
Both television and newspapers seem to apply similar “hyping” strategies of certification, visualization, mystification,
and amalgamation.
4.
Professionalism is the cardinal principle of western journalism
(Schudson, 1978). It has increasingly established itself as a
quasi-universal standard of journalism despite a huge gulf that
remains between idealized beliefs and the actual practice
(Weaver, 1998). Even among the state-run media in China,
struggle for professionalism has been valiant and rancorous at
times (Lee, 2000b; Polumbaum, 1990; Zhao, 1998). We argue
that discursive contestation is conducted through the enactment
of professional norms, which is nonetheless predicated on implicit commitment to the established order; journalists can only
be fair and impartial when they subscribe to fundamental social
Media Event
assumptions without challenge. In international news, this commitment to maintenance of systemic stability is often translated
into honing journalistic canons to foreign policy-cum-national
interest as well as cultural repertoire.
5.
We argue that the globalized media in a globalized economy has
infused the entertainment logic into newswork, making hyping
increasingly an imperative to pull in audience interest and attention. The ideological underpinnings of newswork are often expressed through—or behind—the techniques of hyping, and this
practice has come to be widely accepted, assumed, and unrecognized. The use of hyping techniques is particularly important
when the event is perceived to be bland, flat, and not newsworthy, or when its historical significance is not concretely or graphically accessible. Jim Laurie of ABC News, among others,
admits to audience apathy as a major reason for television to pursue ceremonies over substance (Knight and Nakano, 1999: 154).
The light-hearted pieces, “color” and mood stories, and humaninterest reports flaunt as much ideological premises as the conventional, serious, “hard” news.
6.
In hyping the news, the media, especially television, may substitute drama and rituals for “facts” in order to satisfy the “pleasure” principle of the news-entertainment logic, thus eroding
the positivistic epistemology and methodology of journalism.
Journalists are not only observers and storytellers; they are
“star” performers, annotators of events, and makers of attractive
myths. They draw on, circulate, and feed back into the prevailing cultural and ideological reservoir—tending to reinforce the
status quo in a dramatic way.
7.
We argue that when journalists encounter enormous gaps between their hypothesized and perceived realities, they are more
likely to “repair” part of their news perspective in order to save
its overall paradigmatic structure, instead of abandoning their
journalistic paradigms. Beneath the veneer of staged coronations and against the disconfirming evidence, they treat the
ideological background as the foreground. To “repair” the paradigms, they may cull more evidence to support the old
themes, explain away discrepancies as exceptions to the rule,
introduce more stringent criteria for judgment, or invent ad hoc
hypotheses. In the summer of 1997, the western media had predicted a vigorous economy and a repressive polity for Hong
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Kong. A year later, surprised at politics-as-usual and a sick
economy, they nonetheless largely adhere to the old explanatory canons (see epilogue).
8.
The illusion or disillusion of history-making draws the world
media to Hong Kong. Their hyped narratives, in line with
home-base orientations, give world audiences a pseudosense
of participating in the history of the moment. Media events
privilege the role of television as a “live broadcasting of history” (Dayan and Katz, 1992; Scannell, 1995). Compared with
the linguistic and technological barriers of the print media,
television is a high religion of today capable of bringing rich
images from remote locales simultaneously to large numbers
of audiences in the context of time-space distanciation (Featherstone, 1995; Tomlinson, 1999). But emphasis on vivid images may pressure television to produce stereotypical and
hyped realities in place of reasoned analysis.
9.
We agree with the integrative role of media events portrayed by
Dayan and Katz (1992: viii), who state that ceremonial politics
“expresses the yearning for together, for fusion.” Media events
tend to present the authorities, which organize the event, with
solemnity and reverence. Alexander and Jacobs (1998) echo this
functional perspective when they argue that media events construct “common identities and universal solidarities” that “erase
the divide between private and public” and “narrow the distance
between the indicative and subjunctive,” thus legitimizing the
powers and authorities outside the civil sphere.2 In this volume,
we have tried to show that the processes of staging, domestication, and hyping all serve to produce national narratives in confirmation of the political and economic system.
10.
We are somewhat skeptical when Dayan and Katz (1992)
overempower the audience as the agents capable of negotiating
with the media over the meanings of the discourses and of decoding hegemonic definitions of the political establishment.
The active role of an audience to question the meanings of international news is particularly dubious, given the fact that the
audience is generally apathetic to and ignorant of foreign happenings and thus tends to accept the media interpretations uncritically. Whether the integrative role of media events in
“narrating the sacred” can be sustained on a long-term basis is a
topic of further inquiry.
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Media and Authority
Political authorities are primary definers of reality, and the media are secondary definers of reality. The media rewrite the second-order script based on,
and within the limits of, the first-order script written by political authorities,
which usually are event organizers.
1. We argue that a hierarchy of political authorities exercises different degrees of power and influence on the course of the event and,
consequently, on news narratives. In our case, the Hong Kong
government, as the event organizer, is in fact answerable to the
higher powers of China and Britain. Both powers, having concluded the terms of sovereignty transfer in 1982 and having
fought openly and rancorously over their interpretations in the
two subsequent decades, have set a general atmosphere for media
gloom. They also negotiated the agenda and procedures of the
handover ceremonies to their minutest detail, heightening them to
the level of national face and sovereignty. Both powers hotly contested over the joint rights of the BBC and CCTV to provide
“common feed” before they reluctantly relinquished it to a local
television consortium at the last minute. In its interim, the Hong
Kong government as a not-entirely-autonomous event organizer is
at a loss to meet media requests for the schedule because Beijing
does not release it until the final moment. Anything having to do
with matters and presumed symbols of sovereignty is beyond the
jurisdiction of the event organizer, which only has “operational
control” over the event within the set parameter.
2. We argue that within these larger boundary constraints, the event
organizer has the capacity to limit and facilitate newswork
through provision and arrangement of the physical infrastructures
in addition to controlling the flow of events and information. To
mark the occasion, the Hong Kong government has built a magnificent convention center for the ceremony to take place; in its
annex sits the gigantic press center, where the world media operate as the nerve center to emanate stories to the entire world.
Media sociology is thus organized as a centralized activity, with
which the media cooperate and compete to develop reportorial
strategies for tapping their sources and mapping the geography.
3. We argue that through carefully planned administrative routines,
the event organizer may exert structural influences on the constitution of the “news net,” access to news and news sources, and the
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scheduling of journalists’ daily work. The Government Information Services (GIS) issues media accreditation to the global media;
the number of accredited media outlets and journalists seems to be
in positive correlation with the political and economic positions of
the countries they come from (with many small and poor nations
largely absent from the scene). It provides a stream of background
information and daily briefing, and arranges “package tours” participated in by a large number of visiting (especially parachute)
journalists, leading to the production of many similar stories
around the world. These organized activities of routine and “soft”
nature are particularly effective in influencing the news agenda
when journalists do not “smell blood” in the street or fail to find
erupted conflicts and violence to enthrall their audience.
4. Centralized control of information production and distribution,
such as the “common feed” and news pool, promotes content homogeneity in favor of the event organizer and is not conducive to
“enterprising journalism.”
5. In an open news environment the media are subject to the crosspressure of various prominent pressure groups in their effort to
sway the direction of news agendas and public opinion. The
media are, however, sometimes capable of subverting the intentions of such groups, especially when the latter run counter to the
interest and ideology of media outlets. The extent to which this
happens is also related to the logic of media competition and to
the perceived credibility of event sponsors.
Globalization, Domestication, and National Prisms
Modern media have a global reach. They bring events in the once remote
places into our homes and thus make them in some ways familiar to us. Tomlinson (1999), following Anthony Giddens, argues that modern media, especially
television, “stretch social relations in new forms of time-space distanciation.”
Both time and space are compressed by media technologies. Through the mediation of journalists and modern media technologies, the handover of Hong Kong
is presented, often live, in front of the world audiences regardless of geographical distance. The globalization process “deterritorializes,” in the sense of liberating symbolic exchanges from spatial referents (Featherstone, 1995; Tomlinson,
1999; Waters, 1995). The significance of the event thus goes far beyond the
immediate experience of local inhabitants.
Media Event
1. Globalization does not mean universal inclusion. We argue that
globalized news operation, like domestic news, is suspectible to
the law of power and money. The strong nations control media resources, news agendas, and ideological fora, often to the exclusion of the poor and the weak. There continues to be an unequal
flow of news between nations. Nor do nations speak as equals.
The populist and postmodern celebration of the marginal, which
leads to the hypothesized de-centering of the nation-state and recentering of the international civil society and grassroots movements (Hamelink, 1993), has not found sufficient evidence for
support. We also take exception to the claim by Waters (1995) that
economic exchanges localize, political exchanges internationalize, and symbolic exchanges globalize. His romantic formulation
that the territorial boundaries are coterminous with nation-states
whereas globalized culture is liberated from spatial constraints,
may be technologically valid but ideologically problematic. Inasmuch as the media construct meanings and significance, the cultural is the political, and the meaning tends to be of “national”
character even though there is a possibility for the development of
a transnational culture unrelated to any particular nation-state.
2. Inasmuch as all global news is local, the globalizing phenomenal
worlds we inhabit must be filtered through “local knowledge”
(Geertz, 1993). We argue that this is often done sociologically
through the process of “domestication,” thus bringing distant, unfamiliar events to home audiences as if they were an extension of
domestic news (chapter 3). Culturally, the media enact a performance to enthrall a large audience, mobilize the domestic “attention resources,” and put the domestic power hierarchy on stage
(chapter 4). Ideologically, the media essentialize the complex and
contradictory reality into core attributes of a nation and history to
construct a reductive constrast between “us” and “them” (chapters
5–8). It is valid for Featherstone (1995: 118) to argue that the
global and the local are fused to make a blend, which he calls
“glocal.” Thompson (1995) describes this relationship as between
“globalized diffusion” of images and “localized appropriation” of
their meanings.
3. We agree with Sreberny-Mohammadi (1991) that in the arena of
international newsmaking, the “local” often is the “national,”
while the truly “local” is ignored or suppressed. As chapters 5–8
show, different media systems have domesticated the handover of
Hong Kong from the essentialized perspectives of national prisms
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(American democracy, British imperial nostalgia, Chinese nationalism, Japanese economism, and so on) in consonance with each
country’s dominant ideology, coherent myths, sentiments, cultural
repertoire, and collective memories. Such prisms reflect the relative position of each nation-state, along with its central interests,
in the international political economy.
4. We argue that the media domesticate the news within the constraints imposed by the larger political economy and respond to
the “staging” effort of the event organizer. News is a foreground
story pegged to recognized occurrence of an event in accordance
with the background assumptions of top domestic (national) concerns and priorities. The domesticated foreign news favor domestic (high-ranking national officials) and ideologically compatible
sources, and give the event inflated political or historical significance with culturally lucid metaphors.
5. We argue that even the global-scale news organizations (such as
CNN and the BBC) are, contrary to their claims, not exempt from
the process of domestication according to the prevailing norms of
“center” countries in which they are based. They serve the affluent markets of “center” countries and the elite sector of semiperipheral or peripheral countries in the world system.
6. In the domain of international news, we are frankly skeptical
about some versions of the globalization theory that have hypothesized the erosion if not the demise of the nation-state, which is
said to be ceding its power to supranational and subnational entities (see Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1996). It is argued, for example,
that the British nation-state has been in retreat by yielding part of
its sovereign power to the larger European Union and the smaller
Scottish Parliament. But as we have tried to show, in the anarchic
international order, the nation-state acts as the “prime definer” of
mediated culture, for it provides a “quasi-religious sense of belonging and fellowship” (Featherstone, 1995: 108). The nationstate codifies its visions, interests, and myths in terms of foreign
policy, which has strong historical continuity that incorporates the
enduring and consensual interest that the nation has abroad, and
thus nourishes journalistic paradigms as an integral part of the international discursive war.
7. We argue that the national prism, often in the name of national
unity, may suppress “local” dissent, differences, or struggles. By
selectively knitting together an ensemble of celebratory images,
Media Event
for example, the PRC media present a mythical globalized Chinese nation in which people, regardless of ethnic and geographical differences, cheer for Beijing-imposed and Han majority’s
cultural definition of nationalistic triumphalism. Media representations have thus rubbed salt into the historical wound of ethnic
minorities in their unsuccessful struggle against hegemonic
myths, memories, and interests. When a “local” perspective is
presented, it is often derivative of the national narrative; the
“local” perspective is likely to support, not to challenge, the established ideological framework. U.S. local media love to boast of
presenting “local perspectives” by featuring eye-witnessing “people from home” (those who happen to be on the spot), but their
bland perspectives are more often than not based naively on a
stock of clichés and stereotypes rather than on expert knowledge
or cultivation.
8. International newsmaking is a “national” project. We argue that
national prisms, in making what what Featherstone (1995: 111)
calls “external presentation of the national face,” tend to subsume
internal partisan or ideological differences in international news
discourses. When national attention turns to actions and interests
abroad, internal partisan rifts give way to national identification.
In the United States, this is manifested in the rhetoric of a “bipartisan foreign policy” and the syndrome of “rallying around the
flag.” Its elite media may occasionally criticize President Clinton
for his alleged “softness” toward China, but their ideological
common ground toward U.S.-China ties is far more significant
than any technical criticism of this kind. Similarly, the Labor-oriented Guardian and the Tory-oriented Daily Telegraph pretty
much amplify the same “British voice” over the handover of
Hong Kong.
9. As a metaphysical totality, the globalization process may serve to
relativize and pluralize various national media narratives; even if
each narrative articulates a partial facet of the reality, we argue that
narratives of the hegemonic powers are more dominant than those
of the peripheral nations. China’s “one country” is not Taiwan’s
“one country”; China’s emphasis on “one country” is antithetical
to Hong Kong’s emphasis on “two systems,” but the fact remains
that China’s discourse, backed by its stronger power, carries
greater weight. The relativized and pluralized media representations that constitute “complex connectivity” in the global communication system (Tomlinson, 1999) are a tug of ideological war.
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10.
We argue that the clashing of perspectives may force each national media system to consciously clarify, articulate, and defend
its ideological position vis-à-vis that of its friends or enemies
alike. Therefore, the Canadian, Australian, and Japanese media
affirm western ideology and yet show a neurotic anxiety in
search of their identity niche. By the same token, China imposes
a centralized discourse of “hot nationalism” (Billing, 1995),
denying its citizens access to “complex connectivity” through
which the foreign media may offer alternative interpretations
with new vistas and new ways of thinking. Through routine and
steady reinforcement of “banal nationalism” (Billing, 1995) in
everyday life, in contrast, citizens in western countries are in all
likelihood apathetic to, and thus ignorant of, alternative or oppositional discourses of other countries as well. No wonder Anderson (1983) calls a nation “the imagined communities” constantly
in need of constructing and maintaining its own identity.
11.
We argue that media prisms are often constructed by recalling
and activating symbols of national and cultural tradition to incite a sense of imagined grandeur and common sentiments. The
PRC media unproblematically amalgamate traditional cultural
figures (the Yellow Emperor), landscapes (the Yellow River, the
Great Wall, the Tiananmen Square), historical myths (General
Lin Zexu), and ethnic songs and dance to construct the unity of
national glory. Likewise, the British media mobilize a repertoire
of cultural icons (the Royal Yacht, the Union Jack), personalities
(Patten), songs (Elgar) to mystify imperial grandeur of historic
proportion. Media celebration is part of the civil ritual, selectively essentializing the complex histories of national triumphs
and losses, joys and sorrows, conflicts and contradictions into
simple and ageless qualities. Localization, through domestication, is in this sense globalization.
International Discursive Contestation
We have argued that media events represent a site, form, and moment of
international discursive contestation between nation-states. Media narratives
represent national interest, face, identity, culture, and ideology. They certify the
authority structure with purpose, prestige, and legitimacy. They solidify the internal cohesion of the system by drawing sharpened differences with “the
other” (Coser, 1957; Said, 1978). The implications are as follows:
Media Event
1. We argue that not all media narratives assume equal power, visibility, or influence in the stage of international contestation. Winners tend to be countries that assume a central position in the
international political economy. In the western camp, there seems
to be a clear hierarchy of influence, with the central countries’
narratives setting the major tone and their followers going along
with and yet rebelling against them. We don’t believe that defensive Australian or Canadian media narratives (middle powers)
would ever be given the same discursive voice as their U.S. counterparts (a superpower). In the same vein, Taiwan and Hong Kong
are as defensive as the PRC is offensive.
2. We argue that globalized media discourses may produce “mediated
quasi-interaction” (Thompson, 1995: 85) for world audiences,
sometimes so significant as to affect the course of the news event,
moblizing some degree of interdependency such that “localized activities situated in different parts of the world are shaped by one
another” (Thompson, 1995: 150). Knowingly or unknowingly, the
world media in many ways have structured the style and mode of
interaction between various political actors in international politics. For example, western leaders, notably President Clinton and
Prime Minister Blair, take the lead to trumpet “the world is watching China” theme, both for domestic and international media consumption. The G-8 leaders, meeting over the global economic
issues, feel obliged to interrupt their agenda and pledge their support for Hong Kong before the camera. Their pledge immediately
hits the world media headline in a chain-like reaction.
3. We argue that the mediated global communication may change
the local dynamics. The media perform before and for the world
“bystander public,” who watch the play of the power game on the
sideline without much say, but whose support is nonetheless crucial to the players’ legitimacy. Coupled with (or in the absence of)
regular diplomatic channels, various principal national actors use
the media as “a looking-glass mirror” to gauge one another’s intentions that provoke further reactions and counterreactions (Lang
and Lang, 1983). Local people in Hong Kong are openly gazing at
and being gazed at by world journalists in a gigantic news stage.
Opinion polls and media commentataries indicate that the global
media watch seems to have boosted public confidence among
Hong Kong people, for they feel that international pressure may
help to discipline the PRC’s behavior. Asked by CNN if he is Beijing’s “puppet,” the new Chief Executive Tung emphatically
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denies the charge, waving an impatient gesture. In the depth of
structural uncertainty, Anson Chan, Patten’s Chief Secretary (to
be retained later by Tung in the same position), went public with
an interview with Newsweek weeks before the handover was to
take place, to express her concerns through the media to her future
boss, Beijing, and the world. She chose an international newsmagazine for the interview because it gave her a credible platform
and a sense of gravitas that a local paper lacks. Media publicity
has also emboldened local democrats to challenge Tung’s authority and policy. The fact that Beijing blamed the international
media for causing the Tiananmen unrest in 1989 is an implicit acknowledgment of the central media role in exacting a colossal
price for its international diplomacy. Mindful of the PLA’s “killer”
images during the Tiananmen bloodshed, the PRC is intent on
staging a good media show by sending unarmed elite troops into
Hong Kong before the world’s television screen (who, however,
still come across on U.S. television as menacing as they were in
Tiananmen Square eight years ago). Nice media rhetoric and celebratory images are important for domestic audience consumption to reinforce the legitimacy of China’s party-state.
4. It is tempting but untenable to put a postmodern spin on our findings: to empower the marginal, as Thompson (1995) seems to
suggest that the domesticated “national prisms” are so diverse as
to present a formidable challenge to the generality of “media imperialism.” Thus, it is argued that the recipient (usually weak) nation may derive alternative or even oppositional meanings from
western-dominated news rather than accept its intended meanings. But we believe postmodern exaggeration of the national
“agency” power fails to answer this question: To what end? Many
of the national narratives are antidemocratic and suppressive of
dissent. Moreover, it may unduly overlook the structural constraints of domination and power in the international political
economy of news and information.
5. By the same token, we believe that there also is a danger to exaggerate the potential of international discursive contestation in
transforming the hegemonic order or the existing rules of the
game. Discursive struggle is linked to, but different from, substative institutional struggle. In the latter, social movements fight
against the centralized agencies to obtain favorable policy outcomes often involving tangible material resources. The discursive
struggle may not be directed to specific and well-defined institu-
Media Event
tions; it gains and loses not in terms of material base but in terms
of symbolic expressions of preferred values and legitimacy. We
are generally sympathetic to Gitlin’s (1991, 1997) sharp criticism
of the current tendency in cultural studies and postmodern theories to displace more illusive cultural politics for substantive institutional politics. He even condemns certain proponents of
discursive wars as concealing their political inaction and impotence. We believe that there are real limits to how far the protesting voice of the weak can go without the backing of an
institutional framework. As a sad reminder of this point, the Third
World and nonaligned nations made some headway in their attempt to restructure the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) issue agendas in the 1970s (MacBride,
1980) only insofar as the United States was still tolerating conference diplomacy in the United Nations-related agencies, where national sovereignty was assumed to be equal. But irked by the
voting majority, the predatory hegemonic regimes of ReaganThatcher abruptly decided to withdraw from the UNESCO in the
early 1980s, and since then these poor and weak nations have
been deprived of an international forum and hearing, making their
discursive contest totally ineffective, if not irrelevant, in the
gallery of international power (Lee, 1989). Their feeble voices
have fallen to the deaf ear. Discursive contestation, in this case,
may be reduced to unfocused media grumbling.
6. We argue that even so, internationally, discursive contestation
may be an essential but insufficient (and not necessarily effective) “weapon of the weak” (Scott, 1988), the very people who
lack requisite resources and power to foster a common front for
institutional struggle. In the case of the Hong Kong handover,
what we have witnessed is almost a unilateral, yet parallel, declaration of national positions, preferences, and biases in the anarchic global news order, without really joining the battle with
one another. It is almost a (mis)match between distant shouters.
However, for Hong Kong, if major human rights abuses should
occur, the world media can be expected to send out the first
warning. In the worst-case scenario, Marcus Eliason of the Associated Press explains, the media are likely to raise issues with
the U.S. president in regard to invoking the United States-Hong
Kong Policy Act that mandates sanctions against Beijing. In the
case of incremental deterioration, he notes, only the media will
notice it and ask questions in press conferences that would
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oblige the president to respond. The president’s policy response
will undoubtedly hinge on an overall assessment of U.S. national interest in regard to China; considerations of China will
take precedence over those for Hong Kong. After all is said and
done, however, Hong Kong would be worse off without the
close watch of world media.
7. We argue that the effectiveness of discursive constestation
hinges on who wages the fight, for whose interest. To the extent
that the fight (such as the NWICO debate) is hostile to the interests of western nations and their media, it is likely to be marginalized and dismissed. In the 1970s and its aftermath, the western
media treated Third World countries’ struggles for fairer media
voices and representations as nothing but a “cry of pain” by dictators who attempted to muffle the free flow of information.
They refused to acknowledge that such struggles were at least
partially a legitimate challenge to western privileges and domination, and were broadly compatible with the avowed liberal
ideals of equality of which they themselves profess to be ardent
subscribers. Worse, the conservative (some say reactionary) administrations in the United States and Britain took deliberate,
imperialistic measures to incapacitate the international institutional framework in which a modicum of grievances could be
aired. On the other hand, if the fight is perceived to be in line
with the enduring interests of western nations—such as protecting Hong Kong from Communist mistreatment—there might be
a likelihood for discursive contestation to yield substantive results. The seeming contradictions between these two cases actually underscore the enduring continuity between national
interest and media performance.
Coda
We have tried to argue that media events provide a site and moment for the
media to engage in international discursive contestation, which is ultimately
grounded in the unequal power inherent in the international political economy.
Based on our comparative perspectives, where do we stand in regard to the role
of the media in the authority structure?
We have little sympathy for the traditional naïve liberal myth that professional journalists report from “nobody’s point of view” because they just let objective facts speak the truth. We don’t believe that international media objectively
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187
report events without bias. “How do you deal with the ‘half-glass full’ or ‘halfglass empty’ question?” Dorinda Elliot of Newsweek reflects, “That’s why journalism is subjective.” To the extent that journalists report from somebody’s point
of view, this subjectivity is not only caused by personal predispositions but, more
important, by their role as unwitting carriers of larger organizational, national,
and cultural imprints. National journalists may select and repackage information
to best suit their conceptions of domestic (national) needs. They do so not selfconsciously because these imprints have been naturalized as part of their takenfor-granted worldviews. The extent to which resident correspondents can develop
an empathetic “other” view should be acknowledged but not exaggerated.
Nor do we ally with unvarying and homogeneous grand narratives that
treat the media as a subservient lapdog of the power structure. It would be analytically unproductive and morally fatal of the “propaganda model” (Herman
and Chomsky, 1988) and its variants to dismiss relative autonomy of the liberal
media to the point of blunting the real and substantial differences in the role
and function between, say, the New York Times and the People’s Daily. To the
extent that the liberal media collaborate with the authority structure in the hegemonic coverage of international affairs, this process is conducted not through
forced coercion, but through shared consent about what the best interest is for
the nation abroad. Since the liberal media index the range and dynamics of elite
consensus (Bennett, 1990), their relative autonomy becomes crucial in enlarging the wedge of “legitimated controversy” (Hallin, 1986). The British media
have reported the PRC’s virulent attacks on the British nation (albeit dismissively) and the internal policy conflict toward China within the British foreign
policy establishment. Even if falling short of their own rhetoric and ideals, let
alone radical expectancies, the liberal media’s hegemonic role is vitally different from—and in our view, (if the choices have to be between these two) far superior to—the instrumental mouthpiece role of the authoritarian media, as in
China (Kellner, 1990).
The liberal media also differ from the authoritarian media in their definition of news that results from their different institutional distances to the
power structure and the market forces. The authoritarian mouthpieces are
cheerleaders of the regime; good news is good news. The Australian television
reporter Jane Hutcheon attributes China’s getting a lot of bad press to the gulf
China puts up between foreign journalists and the Chinese people and to the
restrictions placed on journalists to see certain statistics or visit certain institutions. She adds, “If you allow people to see what you have, good and bad,
at first there is going to be a lot of negative stories, but eventually it will die
down.” On the other hand, the western liberal media generally take a skeptical view about the morality of politicians and corporate leaders; they are critical of the office holders, while supporting the system itself. For them, bad
news, which sells, is good news. Jonathan Mirsky of the Times of London
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quotes Ernest Hemingway, a reporter-turned-writer, to say, “When interviewing someone, I need to constantly remind myself why this son-of-a-bitch is
lying to me.” Western journalists, in their interviews with us, often caricature
their detractors as not knowing that negativity, rather than cheerleading, is the
basic function of news. Western journalists complain about how hostile the
PRC is to them and compliment Governor Patten and the democratic activist
Martin Lee for being accessible and eloquent—which means that the latter’s
“spin” strategies have worked magically. As we have shown, the western
media may be scathingly critical of national leaders, especially in the way certain policies are implemented (remember how the Washington Post criticizes
President Clinton’s policy of engagement with China), but in the end they still
sing their national anthems. None of the western media systems question the
legitimacy of their national interests in Hong Kong and China; they simply
concentrate on how to realize such goals.
In sum, the age of media globalization is an age of contending national
ideologies. Global media events inspire and reify international discursive contestation. So, what will happen to Hong Kong? Time will be the best judge. But
even in the unlikely event of unequivocal evidence, media struggle will continue to refract different ideological lights. Under the glare of global media
spectacle, ideological fights will go on. The story of Hong Kong reveals the
wonder—dynamics, puzzles, hopes, despairs, achievements, and failure—of
world journalism.
Epilogue
After the Handover
Hong Kong is a graveyard for political prognosticators. Everybody predicted we’d have a bumpy ride politically but the economy would take
care of itself. Exactly the opposite has happened.
—Daniel R. Fung, Solicitor General of Hong Kong
The real transition is about identity and not sovereignty.
—Anson Chan, Chief Secretary of Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region (SAR)
The economy, not Beijing, is Hong Kong’s biggest headache.
—The Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1998
Recent events suggest that the one country is rapidly subsuming the two
systems.
—The New York Times, July 1, 1999
Now Hong Kong is China’s, not Britain’s. “Hong Kong loses its uniqueness (after the handover) and will be treated as part of the larger China story,”
as Dorinda Elliot of Newsweek prognosticated several days after the fatigue of
the “handover hysteria” in 1997. “It will be difficult to keep Hong Kong news
alive.” The fact, after one year of power transition, is that news has declined
but not disappeared. However, since the anniversary, Hong Kong appears to be
fading away rapidly from the world’s news radar, with the Guardian being the
only one among the sampled American and British newspapers carrying an anniversary article in the year 2000. Hong Kong turns out to have partly contradicted world journalists in their political and economic predictions, and partly
confirmed their perception of the impotence of the new government. In 1997
most media, except those in the People’s Republic of China, were pessimistic
about Hong Kong’s political prospects under Chinese rule but confident about
its economic prosperity. Since the first anniversary, they have found just the
189
190
Epilogue
opposite: politically Hong Kong is not as bad as previously envisaged; economically, it has been engulfed in a major financial crisis that sweeps across
almost the whole of Asia and almost wrecks world economy. Is this enough
to revamp the news paradigms of the world media? (The PRC media must reconcile the reality of economic hardship and declining public confidence in the
SAR government with the rhetoric of a more “splendid” Hong Kong in the
arms of the motherland.) As the sampled American and British media outlets
carry only a few articles on Hong Kong during the second and third anniversary of sovereignty transfer, we shall base the current analysis mainly on the
coverage of the first anniversary in 1998.
Explaining “the Surprise”
The world media find Hong Kong no longer “the Pearl of the Orient,” but
a “subdued” place in the midst of an Asian economic meltdown. People are in
“no mood to celebrate” the first anniversary of handover; official celebration,
BBC News (July 1, 1998) observes, is “gloomy.”1 Even the Chinese official
organ, the People’s Daily (July 1, 1998), admits to the “unusualness” of the situation that tests how “Hong Kong people run Hong Kong.” Surprise is a common theme.
Table 10.1 summarizes the main stories or features about the handover
carried by selected media from the United States, Britain, China, Taiwan, and
Hong Kong from June 30 to July 2, 1998.2 U.S. and British newspapers find
that politically Hong Kong “has changed little from colonial days.” Hong Kong
is “a less prosperous and confident metropolis than it once was” (Wall Street
Journal, July 1), but few of its “worst problems are the fault of Beijing” (Los
Angeles Times, July 1). “Defying predictions by experts here and in the West,”
the New York Times (July 1, 1998) reports, “Beijing has left Hong Kong largely
untouched.” The Los Angeles Times even credits China for acting as “a stabilizing force for Hong Kong’s economy.”
Although the western media seem to have rehabilitated Beijing’s credibility in some way, their journalistic paradigms—framing the reality through the
lenses of western ideology and systems—remain largely intact. In the international “ideological repair shop” (van Ginneken, 1998: 32), foreign journalists
appear to have taken three approaches to repair their news paradigms: (a) by
limiting the scope of discrepancies between facts and expectations; (b) by explaining away the troubled facts; and (c) by introducing new criteria.
LIMITING THE SCOPE OF DISCREPANCIES. Hong Kong is only “better than
expected” (BBC News, July 1), but only “the causal observer” will be fooled by
the surface impression. Maggie Farley of the Los Angeles Times acknowledges
little change in Hong Kong before turning around to say that people on the
Table 10.1
Headlines of Hong Kong Anniversary Stories in the World Media
Country
Media
Date
Headline
U.S.A.
New York Times
July 1, 1998
Hong Kong surprise: Politics steady but economy falters
Los Angeles Times
July 1, 1998
The economy, not Beijing, is Hong Kong’s biggest headache
Washington Post
July 1, 1998
Competing visions for Hong Kong’s future point up China’s challenge
July 2, 1998
Hong Kong’s anniversary is subdued; After one year, recession, not repression, is feared
Wall Street Journal
July 1, 1998
No ordinary ex-economy.
Times
July 1, 1998
Hong Kong ends first year under China scarred by Asian crisis
Independent
June 30, 1998
Patten’s anniversary address stirs passion in Hong Kong
July 2, 1998
Hong Kong’s capitalists fly the red flag for Chinese VIP
U.K.
China
Hong
Kong
Taiwan
Guardian
July 1, 1998
Clinton in China, Hong Kong relaxed one year on
Financial Times
June 30, 1998
One year passes in Hong Kong
July 2, 1998
Jiang pledges to reassure Hong Kong currency “will not devalue”
July 1, 1998
Aura remains, grace remains—The successful practice of “one country and two systems” in Hong
Kong
July 2, 1998
Hong Kong SAR government holds a massive meeting celebrating one year anniversary of Hong
Kong’s return to the motherland
South China
Morning Post
July 2, 1998
“Hong Kong, China’s pearl in the lap of South China Sea, will shine even brighter,” We’ll win
through, says Jiang
Ming Pao
July 2, 1998
Jiang proposes six measures to support Hong Kong
Apple Daily
July 2, 1998
Jiang supports keeping the tie of Hong Kong and U.S. currencies
China Times
July 1, 1998
Freedom of expression, surprisingly not repressed
July 1, 1998
Human rights and rule of law are OK: Beijing did not interfere in SAR government operation
July 2, 1998
Jiang: One country and two systems exemplar to Taiwan
People’s Daily
192
Epilogue
street may hardly notice “a quiet, incremental adjustment of Hong Kong’s political and legal infrastructure”—including “the appearance of favoritism for
those with close China connections.” Mark Landler of the New York Times (July
1, 1998) reports, “Chinese officials are seeking to influence Hong Kong’s leaders through hints delivered in back-channel conversations,” noting public fears
about the integrity of Hong Kong’s legal system. Keith Richburg of the Washington Post (July 2, 1998) quotes Martin Lee as saying, “It could have been
worse.” Local democrats—Martin Lee, Emily Lau, Christine Loh, and Margaret Ng—continue to be favored sources.
While sharing this basic framework, the media have their own specific national concerns. The British media privilege their own authoritative figures,
while the U.S. media peg their anniversary coverage to President Clinton’s trip
to China. Stephen Vines (July 2, 1998) of the Independent thus starts his report:
“Celebrations marking Hong Kong’s first year under Chinese rule have given
the people of the former British colony an opportunity to feast their eyes on a
full scale wax model of Margaret Thatcher.” He notes that the celebration
started with “dull speeches” by China’s President Jiang and Chief Executive
Tung. Tung’s speech “appeared to have been drafted on a Chinese Communist
Party word processor,” and the meeting of Jiang and Tung with the performers
“was conducted much in the style of the royal variety performances held in a
bygone era.” Vines’s impression (June 30, 1998) that most of the signs of the
former colonial administration have been expunged” contrasts that of Richburg
in the Washington Post that China’s hands-off policy has left “them ‘untouched.’” Vines claims that “Hong Kong has become a colony of China”:
Tung’s autocratic governing style mimics that of “the great imperial Governors” in the old days, but now he is only one telephone call away from Beijing,
“whereas London was a clipper’s journey away.” Vines continues to iconize
Patten as a hero. Taking the home orientation, the China Times (June 30, 1998)
insists that even if Beijing has behaved well in Hong Kong, the “one country
and two systems” framework does not apply to Taiwan. Hong Kong media primarily report about the activities of celebration and Beijing’s pledge to help
solve the economic crisis.
EXPLAINING AWAY THE TROUBLING FACTS. The Wall Street Journal (July 1,
1998) thinks it uncharacteristic of Communist China to leave Hong Kong
alone; this restraint stems from “the sophistication of Hong Kong people” who
“have segued into a new reality with their standards and expectations intact.”
The Washington Post (July 2, 1998) credits the vocal democrats in Hong Kong
and “the vigilance of the international community and the foreign press” for
helping to “thwart some of Beijing’s most regressive designs for Hong Kong.”
Despite Beijing’s restraint, the New York Times (July 2, 1998) uses the “vox
populi” technique (van Ginneken, 1998: 100) by quoting an unnamed local resident to say that China has “muted Hong Kong’s freewheeling atmosphere.”3
After the Handover
193
The Washington Post (July 1, 1998) argues that Hong Kong continues to
reflect the fundamental incompatibility between western capitalism and Communist authoritarianism. Failing to see the conflict, the Financial Times (June
30, 1998) warns, would run the “risk of complacency.” China’s low profile in
Hong Kong, according to the New York Times (July 1, 1998), only shows Beijing’s “masterly public relations,” because “even staunchly pro-Beijing people
are not ready to predict that Hong Kong will never clash with China.” On the
same day, BBC News reports that Beijing’s hands-off is “to persuade Taiwan to
accept the same formula for reunification” and to attract hard currency investment through Hong Kong. When the PRC-installed provisional legislature expires, a record high 53 percent of the population turns up to cast their votes in
the election for the regular legislature. The People’s Daily (June 30, 1998) interprets the high voter turnout as a “full proof that people support and trust the
Special Administrative Region (SAR) government.” Western and Taiwan media
view it as a sign of the public desire for more democracy.
INTRODUCING NEW CRITERIA. Having found no overt suppression of liberty
in Hong Kong, the foreign media develop new hypotheses from their old news
paradigms by introducing new and potentially more stringent criteria to assess
China’s performance in Hong Kong. The criteria are no longer whether China
will keep its hands off, but if Hong Kong tomorrow will “look like Hong Kong
today” (as U.S. Secretary of State Albright states upon arriving in Hong Kong
to attend the ceremony). The new criteria point to a full democracy and the formation of a Chinese identity among Hong Kong people.
While the PRC press rushes to celebrate the successful “one country, two
systems” policy, other media scream: “Not yet!” The devil, according to the latter, lies ahead in the implementation of the Basic Law. The Financial Times
(June 30, 1998) says that although Beijing has “so far” kept its promise of local
autonomy, “democracy (in Hong Kong) faces tests.” It quotes Martin Lee and
Michael DeGolyer, an American teaching at a local university, to say that the
SAR government has been ignoring public demand for more democracy and
may build up resentment. Recapitulating its position expressed a year ago (see
chapter 6), the Wall Street Journal (June 30, 1998) editorially urges that President Clinton, who is scheduled to be in Hong Kong after his visit to China,
make a “more explicit defense of political freedom in Chinese history and culture.” All western and Taiwan media prominently cover the president’s meeting
with Martin Lee and his calls for democracy.
New facts must be culled to “prove” new hypotheses. A Financial Times
story (June 30, 1998) reports that one year after living under the Chinese rule,
Hong Kong people have “no backlash against all things British” but remain
“contemptuous” of the mainlanders and recent mainland immigrants. The contention is not new, but the formation of a Chinese identity has become a new
benchmark for measuring the success of the handover. The Washington Post
194
Epilogue
(July 1, 1998) characterizes Hong Kong as a “schizophrenic city” locked in a
fierce contest between two visions:
The final outcome of these competing visions will have a great deal of influence on the future of Hong Kong as this outcropping of skyscrapers and trading houses seeks to navigate between its ambiguously Westernized shell and
its ambivalent Chinese heart. At root, the fight is simple: Will Hong Kong be
able to foster and maintain an identity that is fundamentally separate from that
of China? Or will it shed the things that have made it less Chinese, slowly
bonding with the ancient motherland, except with a better airport, more efficient port, and a telephone system that works?
In another story, the same paper (June 30, 1998) reports, “For many, love of the
motherland is a forced one they do not really feel.” The Chief Secretary, Anson
Chan, is widely quoted as saying that “the real transition is about identity and
not sovereignty,” but she is also chided for expressing patriotic feelings when
she sees the national flag on the National Day (see, for example, the Daily Telegraph, June 30, 1998).
The western media tend to interpret occurrences in view of their original
news paradigms. Based on Beijing’s overruling a Hong Kong court on a landmark immigration case and the U.S. Senate’s decision to treat Hong Kong like
the rest of China in exporting American technology with military applications,
the New York Times (July 1, 1999) concludes that these events suggest that “the
one country is rapidly subsuming the two systems,” with Hong Kong taking on
a “disquieting resemblance to its motherland.” Similar concerns are echoed by
some British newspapers. For instance, the Financial Times (July 1, 1999)
sounds alarm over the deterioration of the rule of law, as reflected by the drop
of public confidence in the Hong Kong government. Quoting Martin Lee,
leader of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, the Daily Telegraph (June 28, 1999)
says Beijing’s ruling marked the “beginning of the rule of law in Hong Kong.”
Repairing the News Paradigms
Compared with newspapers, TV coverage of Hong Kong during the year
of the first anniversary is limited. CBS Evening News devotes no single item to
Hong Kong’s anniversary even though at that time the network is following
President Clinton, who would be in Hong Kong after his visit to China. The
network finally files a story about the president leaving Hong Kong for home,
but makes no mention of the anniversary. Again, on July 5, 1998, CBS has another item about Hong Kong’s new airport (which is inaugurated to mark the
anniversary), again without saying a word about the occasion. We run a search
After the Handover
195
of Lexis-Nexis database for TV news transcripts, yielding two CNN stories on
the anniversary (aired in CNN Today on July 1, 1998). They do not deviate
from the U.S. print stories. Later that day, CNN Worldview airs a report by Andrea Koppel on Clinton’s scheduled visit to Hong Kong and his scheduled
meeting with Martin Lee and other democratic legislators. Both American networks’ systematic, if not deliberate, inattention to the anniversary completely
reverses the hyped TV hoopla presented a year ago.
In contrast, BBC News has continued to give extensive coverage to Hong
Kong during the first year and to the anniversary itself. We search the BBC
News archive online, yielding three long stories on the first anniversary on July
1, 1998. One of them depicts the change of Hong Kong’s economy from “the
biggest boom in history” to being “mired in recession.” Another describes
Hong Kong’s “gloomy celebration.” And the third explains why the previous
expectations of Hong Kong all turn out to be wrong.
Hong Kong has gone through its first year after handover in what the finance secretary describes as “a roller-coaster ride” (quoted by the Financial
Times, July 2, 1998). Locally, the Ming Pao Daily News (July 1, 1998) says that
the year is filled with “nightmares and public resentment.” Disputing the PRC’s
claims of “more prosperity,” the populist Apple Daily (June 30, 1998) observes
that the year has seen Hong Kong’s wealth “evaporated.” The SAR government
seems also to have mismanaged a series of accidents: the bird flu, the poisonous red tide that seriously hurts the local fishing industry, the right to abode by
mainland children born of a Hong Kong parent, the controversial rules for the
first legislative election, and the chaos in the new airport. In some way, the
tough year for Hong Kong might have helped to prevent Hong Kong from disappearing from the world media.
How does the foreign media cover the entire year in the wake of the handover? A search of Lexis-Nexis from July 6, 1997 to July 5, 1998 shows that
Hong Kong continues to receive a fair amount of coverage by top U.S. and
British newspapers4 (Table 10.2). As part of the legacy of the previously staged
“handover spectacle,” they probably feel obliged to keep Hong Kong under
constant surveillance. The New York Times (March 22, 1998), for example,
quotes Martin Lee as saying that if nobody paid attention to Hong Kong, its
freedoms would “erode away.” In contrast to the print media’s vigilance, TV
shows little enthusiasm for Hong Kong. For the whole year, CBS News has
only twenty-one stories about Hong Kong; all three political items are nothing
but brief announcements read by Dan Rather.5 Most prominently covered are
the health scare caused by the bird’s flu (nine stories) and the plunge of the
stock market amidst the Asian financial crisis (eight stories).6 Reliance on domestic authorities is obvious: four of the nine “health” stories refer to health officials from the United States or world health organizations, and two other
stories quote domestic “health experts.” Clearly, for reasons of high cost and
196
Epilogue
Table 10.2
Topical Distribution of U.S. and British Media Coverage of Hong Kong1
(July 6, 1997–July 5, 1998)
Topical Categories
Media
CBS Evening News
New York Times
Washington Post
Los Angeles Times
The Times
Daily Telegraph
Guardian
Politics
(%)
Economy
(%)
Health
(%)
Other
(%)
Total
(n)
14
47
36
45
48
47
58
38
35
30
16
13
16
7
43
15
30
24
16
19
16
4
4
4
14
23
18
18
21
101
92
49
62
79
55
1. The figures are based on a Lexis-Nexis database search. The percentages do not add up to 100% due to rounding error. “Politics” includes stories about court rulings, protests, changing election rules, the Provisional Legislation, individual rights, political structure, the right to abode, legislative elections, the Chief Executive’s
statements and policy address. “Economy” includes stories about the stock market, the property market, the
changing economic structure and policies, various aspects of the economic activities. “Health” includes stories
about the “bird’s flu” and the “red tide.”
obsession with good visuals, CBS has done a poor job at taking the undercurrent’s pulse of subtle, incremental, and thus less visible structural changes in
Hong Kong. For American television, catching the graphically eye-catching
bad news is the name of the game. (Throughout the year, BBC News is much
more attentive to Hong Kong, consistent with the British vow to monitor the
former colony. From July 4 to July 9, 1998, it reports eight stories about the
new airport, thanks partly to the attendance of Prime Minister Blair and Foreign
Secretary Cook at the anniversary ceremony.)
In contrast to CBS’s almost exclusive emphasis on Hong Kong’s bad
economy and health scare, top U.S. and British newspapers devote nearly a half
of their coverage to its political development. Television turns away from the
“nitty-gritty” items, such as those reported by the Los Angeles Times: a ruling
by the Hong Kong Court of Appeals that dismisses the challenge to the Provisional Legislature (July 30, 1997), the passage of election law in the Provisional Legislature (September 13, 28, 30, 1997), the Chief Executive’s policy
address to the legislature (October 9, 1997), the controversy over “mothertongue education” (March 9, 15, 1998), the first legislative election (May
23–29, 1998). U.S. television networks seem to have no memory of their manufactured hysteria just a year back. CBS has no bureau in Hong Kong; with its
local bureau and more generous airtime, CNN fares only slightly better.
After the Handover
197
In Taiwan, the China Times gives Hong Kong comprehensive coverage
throughout the year; it asks its correspondents and invited scholars and former
officials to write about the implications of the “one country, two systems”
scheme to Taiwan. Even though Hong Kong seems to experience “little
change” politically after the handover, according to the paper (January 1 and
18), it has received “the heaven’s curse” and run into so many bad situations.
The paper covers Taiwan-related issues extensively: for example, a Taiwan delegate to the APEC summit rebuffed Chief Executive Tung who suggests that
“one country, two systems” is applicable to Taiwan (November 24, 1997); and
Hong Kong’s ban on the display of Taiwan’s flag on its National Day. Hong
Kong media also pick up these stories but frame them on the basis of “the right
to free expression.” Before and after the first anniversary, the China Times publishes many column articles expressing concern that Taiwan may see its international space further shrunk by the Hong Kong example. It urges President
Clinton not to praise the “one country, two systems” policy while in Hong
Kong, for it is both “unnecessary and hurtful to Taiwan.”
As expected, the PRC media cover Hong Kong prominently throughout
the whole year. The Guangzhou Daily, a local paper in the capital of Guangdong province adjacent to Hong Kong, covers topics ranging from street crimes
to Mr. and Mrs. Tung’s celebration of the Chinese New Year with children. The
paper reports that the Hong Kong SAR government is taking strong measures
to boost its faltering economy, while completely ignoring local democrats in
Hong Kong. In contrast, Hong Kong papers are highly critical of the SAR government’s incompetence and declining credibility, while covering local democrats extensively.
As with their anniversary reports, the western press throughout the year
also seeks to repair their news paradigms by resorting to the three approaches
we have identified earlier. The Los Angeles Times (October 8, 1997) accuses
the SAR government of “strip(ping) away the fledgling rights and democratic reforms enacted during the last days of British rule” even though there are
“few signs of the market chaos, political repression or economic interference
from Beijing.” Edward Gargan of the New York Times, in summing up the
first 100 days after handover on October 9, 1997, reports that even a pro-Beijing real estate tycoon “after some prodding, admitted that at least politically,
the territory had regressed under Beijing’s hand.” On the same day, Keith
Richburg of the Washington Post stresses the fact that Tung’s first policy address “was almost devoid of any discussion of politics or civil liberties.” On
May 9, 1998, Farley of the Los Angeles Times reiterates her view: “Piece by
piece, law by law, the elements that made Hong Kong independent and
unique before its restoration to Chinese rule last July are being eroded.” The
embedded ideological framework enables the western press to see the first
anniversary in the same vein.
198
Epilogue
In sum, we have been impressed with (a) the persistence of national
prisms; (b) the continuing ideological contestation between the PRC media
and all other media systems in the U.S.-led camp; (c) the media’s reliance on
domestic authorities to “repair” their news paradigms; and (d) U.S. television
networks’ retreat from Hong Kong compared with the relative vigilance of
the U.S. and British newspapers. Surprise and bad news combined have managed to keep Hong Kong in the news. The media acknowledge the surprises
before they quickly return to old paradigms to dismiss the significance of
these surprises. The news paradigms, in the face of (un)comfortable evidence, are thus “repaired.”
Appendix I
Sampled Media Organizations1
Apple Daily: Hong Kong’s mass-circulated newspaper, populist, critical of the PRC,
sensational, founded in 1995. Readership (1999): 1,780,000.
Asahi Shimbun: Founded in 1979, Japan’s quality national paper. Circulation (1999):
8,321,138 (morning edition), 4,239,094 (evening edition).
Asahi TV: Founded in 1957, located in Tokyo, currently with 26 local affiliated stations,
one of the biggest national broadcasting corporations in Japan.
Associated Press (AP): Global newsgathering organization, a nonprofit cooperative established in 1948. Based in New York, sending more than 20 million words per day to
more than 15,000 news organizations in 112 countries.
Australian: Australia’s national quality newspaper. Founded in 1824, acquired by Rupert
Murdoch’s News Corporation in 1964. Estimated circulation: 129,000.
Australian Broadcasting Cooperation (ABC): Founded in 1932, Australia’s only national public broadcaster. Weekly reach of ABC Television averages 8.9 million people
in the five metropolitan cities and 4.2 million people in regional areas.
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC): Founded in 1927 as Britain’s public service
broadcaster, with far-reaching global influence and prestige. Funded by the license fee.
Survived Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s attempts to make the BBC carry advertising (1979–1990). BBC1 caters to the majority interest, and BBC2 serves the minority
interest. BBC World (TV) is influential overseas; BBC Radio broadcasts in English and
40 other languages.
Cable News Network (CNN): Launched in 1980 by Ted Turner as an all-news network.
Now owned by AOL Time-Warner. Atlanta-based, specializing in international news
1
Partial sources: Tunstall and Machin (1999); Chan and Lee (1991); Lee (2000a, 2000c).
199
200
Appendix I
reporting. Feeding its service to foreign broadcasters and “international” hotel rooms.
Built up its European audiences during the 1990s and became one of the only three
profitable pan-European networks. CNN International (CNNI) was launched in 1985
as a separate entity.
Cable Television (CTV): Founded in 1993, Hong Kong’s pay cable television. Subscribers (1999): 450,000.
Canadian Broadcasting Cooperation (CBC): Founded in 1932, Canada’s national public
broadcasting network of ninety-five owned stations and other affiliates. Public funding
with supplemental advertising revenues.
Central Daily News: Founded in 1927, official organ of the Nationalist Party (Guomindang) in Taiwan with declining influence. Estimated circulation: 87,000.
Central News Agency (CNA): Founded in 1924 as an organ of the Nationalist Party
(Guomindang), turned into Taiwan’s national news agency in 1996.
Chicago Tribune: Founded in 1847, Chicago-based daily, with regional influence. Conservative editorial position. Weekday circulation (2000): 674,603. The parent Tribune
Company now also owns the Los Angeles Times.
China Central Television (CCTV): Launched in 1958, China’s state-owned flagship national TV network, currently with 8 channels and a regular staff of 3,698, broadcasting
138 hours of programs daily, covering 87.4 percent of national audience.
China Times: First established in 1950, one of the two major press conglomerates in Taiwan. Centrist editorial policy. Estimated circulation: 900,000.
Chinese Television Network (CTN): Hong Kong-based satellite TV news channel. Originally owned by Ming Pao, now acquired by Taiwan interests.
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS): One of the New York-based broadcasting networks with international influence. Founded in 1927, the second oldest broadcasting
network (after NBC) in the United States. Currently owned by Viacom.
Daily Telegraph: Founded in 1855, major national quality newspaper in Britain. Acquired by the Hollinger Company and its chairman, Conrad Black, a Canadian, in 1986.
Supporter of the Conservative Party (pro-Thatcher, anti-Major, pro-USA, anti-Europe).
Circulation (2000): 1,033,680.
Des Moines Register: A respected local newspaper in the state of Iowa, the “heartland”
of America. Weekday circulation (2000): 157,705.
Sampled Media Organizations
201
Economic Daily: Founded in 1983, nationally circulated organ paper of the PRC’s State
Council. Circulation (1998): 578,411.
Far Eastern Economic Review: Launched in 1946, Hong Kong-based, premier regional
English-language economic and political weekly journal. Published by Review Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Jones. Circulation (2000): 95,000.
Financial Times: Founded in 1888, Britain’s leading financial paper with international
influence (outselling the Wall Street Journal on the continent of Europe). Grew rapidly
after 1950s with the expansion of the London financial market. Pearson-owned. Has
now the largest British newspaper team of foreign correspondents. Owns leading financial dailies in Paris, Madrid, and Hamburg (with Bertelsmann). Now prints each day in
five European locations outside Britain, in two Asian locations, and in three U.S. locations. Circulation (2000): 457,653.
Globe and Mail: Founded in 1844, Canada’s Toronto-based national quality newspaper, with strength in national and international news coverage. Weekday circulation
(1998): 330,679.
Government Information Services (GIS): Hong Kong government’s information arm.
During the handover, it hosted local and international media, issued press credentials,
organized field trips, provided background information and daily briefing.
Guangming Daily: Founded in 1949, Beijing-based national newspaper targeting the
PRC’s intellectual readers. Circulation (1998): 303,802.
Guangzhou Daily: Founded in 1952, Communist Party organ of the Guangzhou municipality in Guangdong province. China’s first officially approved “newspaper group” and
top advertising revenue earner (US$1,171 million in 1999). Circulation (1999): 1,200,000.
Guangzhou TV: Metropolitan official broadcaster operating under the jurisdiction of the
Guangzhou municipal government, with regional influence in Guangdong province.
Guardian: Founded in 1821, major British national quality newspaper, read by affluent
Labor supporters. Circulation (2000): 396,534.
Independent: Founded in 1986, based in London, major British national quality newspaper. Since 1998, wholly owned by the Irish Independent Group and its chairman,
Tony O’Reilly. Circulation (2000): 224,224.
Independent Television (ITV): Britain’s commercial broadcaster, a federation formed by
fifteen independent regional contractors, each with a franchise for a set period, broadcasting in fourteen regional areas. Average peak-time audience share: 38.8 percent (1999).
202
Appendix I
Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK): Founded in 1925, Japan’s influential publicservice broadcaster, financially independent of government, all funded by the receiver fee.
Kyodo News Agency: Japan’s leading national news agency. Established in 1945 as a notfor-profit cooperative. Serving 47 million people (1999) through newspaper subscriptions.
Liberty Times: A proindependence mainstream newspaper, with a fast-growing readership in Taiwan.
Los Angeles Times: Founded in 1881, one of the elite newspapers in the United States
and most influential on the West Coast. Coowns a syndicated news service with the
Washington Post. Now bought by the Tribune Company, which also owns the Chicago
Tribune. Weekday circulation (2000): 1,153,706.
Maclean’s: Canada’s most influential weekly newsmagazine. Paid circulation (1999):
503,369.
Ming Pao: Founded in 1959, Hong Kong’s major elite Chinese-language paper.
Founded by Louis Cha. Now owned by a Malaysian-Chinese tycoon with considerable
investment interests in China. Readership (1999): 285,000.
Minzhong Daily: A small proindependence newspaper in southern Taiwan.
New York Times: Founded in 1851, “a newspaper of record,” one of the most influential
newspapers in the world. The parent company owns the Boston Globe and coowns the
Paris-based International Herald-Tribune. Its syndicated news service has global influence. Weekday circulation (2000): 1,149,576.
Newsweek: Founded in 1933 and bought by the Washington Post Company in 1961.
America’s most influential news magazine, along with Time (owned by AOL TimeWarner). Newsweek International publishes in four English-language editions. Circulation (1999): 4,443,261 (U.S. edition); 752,000 (Newsweek International, in four
English-language editions).
Nihon Keizai Shimbun: Founded in 1876, Japan’s leading business and financial newspaper. Circulation (1998): 3,007,792 (morning edition), 1,656,341 (afternoon edition),
52,835 (international edition).
Oriental Daily News: Major mass-circulated newspaper in Hong Kong, sensational,
founded in 1969. Readership (1999): 2,551,000.
People’s Daily: Founded in 1948, official organ of the Chinese Communist Party. Politically most important in China. Circulation (1998): 2,001,058.
Sampled Media Organizations
203
People’s Liberation Army Daily: Founded in 1956, official organ of the People’s Liberation Army in China. Circulation (1998): 470,000.
Reuters: Founded in 1850, Britain-based global news and television agency, with 2,101
journalists in 184 bureaus in 109 countries, reaching 521,000 users in 52,800 locations
and providing news and information to over 900 Internet sites.
San Jose Mercury News: A newspaper in Silicon Valley, California. Weekday circulation
(2000): 289,462.
Sankei Shimbun: A leading national financial daily in Japan, with mainstream conservative editorial policy. First established as Japan Industry News in 1933; renamed as
Sankei Shimbun in 1958. Circulation (1999): 1,951,546.
South China Morning Post: Founded in 1903, Hong Kong’s most influential Englishlanguage newspaper. Readership (1999): 206,000.
Taiwan Television Company (TTV): Founded in 1962, Taiwan’s first commercial television, broadcasting thirty-seven hours of news programs per week in 1999.
Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB): Founded in 1967, Hong Kong’s dominant television station. Owns TVBS, a satellite TV channel, in Taiwan. Average primetime audience share (1999): 71 percent (Chinese Jade Channel), 76 percent (English Pearl
Channel).
The Times: Founded in 1785, Britain’s flagship newspaper targeted at intellectuals and
officials. Acquired by the News Corporation and Rupert Murdoch (an Australianturned-American citizen) in 1981. Supports the Conservative Party (pro-Thatcher, proU.S.A., anti-Major, anti-Europe). Waged a price war against the better-selling Daily
Telegraph. Circulation (2000): 722,642. (Murdoch owns the Fox Channel in the United
Sates, the Sky Channel in Britain, the Australian in Australia, and the Star television in
Hong Kong. A supporter of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, he has recently befriended Beijing leaders.)
United Daily News: Founded in 1951, one of the two major press conglomerates in Taiwan. Somewhat conservative editorial policy. Estimated circulation: 800,000.
Wall Street Journal: Founded in 1889, the world’s leading financial daily. Based in New
York. Takes a conservative editorial policy. Grew rapidly after 1950s with the expansion
of the New York financial market. Now prints each day in four European locations and
four Asian locations. Weekday circulation (2000): 1,812,590. The parent company, Dow
Jones, also owns the Asian Wall Street Journal and Far Eastern Economic Review, both
based in Hong Kong.
204
Appendix I
Washington Post: Founded in 1877, one of the most influential newspapers in the United
States. The parent company owns Newsweek and coowns the Paris-based International
Herald Tribune with the New York Times, as well as coowning a syndicated news service
with the Los Angeles Times. Weekday circulation (2000): 812,559.
Xinhua (New China) News Agency: Founded in 1931 as an official organ of the Chinese Communist Party, now state-owned and official national news agency. Number of
customers (1998): 5,298.
Yazhou Zhoukan (Asia Weekly): Hong Kong-based Chinese-language news weekly
magazine, owned by Ming Pao.
Yomiuri Shimbun: Founded in 1874, national mass newspaper with highest circulation in
Japan. Circulation (1999): 10,223,923 (morning edition), 4,252,200 (evening edition).
Appendix II
Interviewees
Fiona ANDERSEN
Hong Kong Bureau Chief, BBC (UK)
CHAN Chung-kwan
Chief Assignment Editor, Oriental Daily News
(Hong Kong)
CHAN Wai-yee
Political Editor, Apple Daily (Hong Kong)
Raymond CHAU
Reporter, Associated Press (USA)
CHIA Kuan-ching
Deputy Chief, Domestic News Division, China
Television Service (Taiwan)
Mike CHINOY
Hong Kong Bureau Chief, CNN (USA)
John COLMEY
Hong Kong Correspondent, Time Magazine (Asian
Edition) (USA)
DAI Zhong-ren
Deputy Head and Anchor, News Department,
Taiwan Television (Taiwan)
Marcus ELIASON
Hong Kong Bureau Chief, Associated Press (USA)
Dorinda ELLIOT
Hong Kong Bureau Chief, Newsweek (USA)
FUNG Tak-hung
Head of Assignment Desk, Cable TV (Hong Kong)
Susanne GANZ
Staff Correspondent, Kyodo News Agency (Japan)
Edward GARGAN
Hong Kong Bureau Chief, New York Times (USA)
GU Yuan*
Correspondent, Hong Kong Bureau,
People’s Daily (China)
*Pseudonym is used for PRC journalists to protect identity. For most Chinese journalists, the surname precedes the given name.
205
206
Appendix II
Andrew HIGGINS
East Asia Correspondent, The Guardian (UK)
HUANG Yili*
Director, News Department, Guangdong TV (China)
HUANG Zhao-song
President, China Times (Taiwan)
Jane HUTCHEON
China Correspondent, Australian Broadcasting
Corporation (Australia)
Graham HUTCHINGS
China Correspondent, Daily Telegraph (UK)
Hamayi ICHIKAWA
Correspondent, Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
Akira IWASE
Staff Correspondent, Kyodo News Agency (Japan)
Joseph KAHN
China Correspondent, Wall Street Journal (USA)
Antonio A. KAMIYA
Deputy Editor, World Service Section,
Kyodo News Agency (Japan)
Kristi KHOCKSHORN
Correspondent, San Jose Mercury News (USA)
Miki KOGAI
Producer, Asahi TV Production House
V. G. KULKARNI
Regional Editor, Far Eastern Economic Review
(Hong Kong)
LAN Xuan
Reporter and News Anchor, TVBS (Taiwan)
Frank LANGFITT
Correspondent, Baltimore Sun (USA)
LI Yuet-wah Daisy
Assistant Chief Editor, Ming Pao Daily News
(Hong Kong)
LIN Shan*
Correspondent, Xinhua News Agency (China)
LIN Tian-gui
Deputy Managing Editor, Liberty Times (Taiwan)
LIU Kun-yuan
Hong Kong Bureau Chief, Central News Agency
(Taiwan)
Paul LOONG
World Editor, Canadian Press (Canada)
Carmen LUK
News Manager, TVB News (Hong Kong)
LUO Can*
Director, General Editorial Office, CCTV (China)
LUO Ding-wei
Hong Kong reporter, Minzhong Daily (Taiwan)
Charles MAK
Assistant News Director, Fairchild Television (Canada)
MAK Yiu-on
Assistant Managing Editor, Chinese Television
Network (Hong Kong and Taiwan)
Richard McGREGOR
Correspondent, The Australian (Australia)
Jonathan MANTHORPE
Asian Correspondent, Southam News (Canada)
Interviewees
207
Risa MARTYN
Business Consultant, National Newspaper
Association (USA)
MENG Rong-hua
Head, Political News, Central Daily News (Taiwan)
James MILES
Correspondent, BBC (UK)
Jonathan MIRSKY
Hong Kong Bureau Chief, The Times (UK)
Ryuichiro NAKABURA
Hong Kong Bureau Chief, NHK (Japan)
Maynard PARKER
Editor-in-chief, Newsweek (USA)
PENG Chun-bi
Reporter, Broadcasting Corporation of China (Taiwan)
PENG Wen-zheng
Reporter, TVBS (Taiwan)
Pilar PEREYRA
Reporter, Hong Kong Bureau, Kyodo News
Agency (Japan)
Eric RANKIN
Producer, Pacific Rim Report, Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation (Canada)
Joseph RIDDING
Hong Kong Correspondent, Financial Times (UK)
Satoshi SAEKI
Correspondent, Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan)
SHUI Lo-sin
Assistant Director, Radio Television Hong Kong
(Hong Kong)
Angela SO
Reporter, UBT (Feifan Satellite Television) (Taiwan)
Lillian SO
Senior Editor, Chinese Edition,
Maclean’s Magazine (Canada)
Akihio SUZUKI
Correspondent, Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
SZE Mei-ling
Assistant News Director, Managing Editor and Anchor,
KTSF Lincoln Broadcasting Co. (USA)
Mr. TAMI
Correspondent, Asahi Broadcasting Corporation (Japan)
Hideo TAMURA
Hong Kong Bureau Chief, Nihon Keizai Shimbun
(Japan)
TAN Zhi-qiang
Reporter, Hong Kong Bureau, China Times (Taiwan)
TSANG Yui-sang
Consultant, BBC TV (UK)
Steve VINES
Correspondent, Independent (UK)
Nora WANG
Reporter, Broadcasting Corporation of China (Taiwan)
Ian WILLIAMS
Correspondent, ITV (UK)
Jan WONG
Reporter, The Globe and Mail (Canada)
208
Appendix II
Chris WOOD
Vancouver Bureau Chief/Senior Editor, Chinese Edition,
Maclean’s Magazine (Canada)
WU Ge-qing
News Manager, TVBS (Taiwan)
WU Xian-shen
Correspondent, Hong Kong bureau, Central News
Agency (Taiwan)
XU Fang*
Associate Director, Guangdong TV (China)
L. P. YAU
Editor-in-Chief, Yazhou Zhoukan (Hong Kong)
YAU Shing-mu
Chief Reporter, Hong Kong Financial Times
(Hong Kong)
Chris YEUNG
Political Editor, South China Morning Post
(Hong Kong)
ZHANG Qiaoling*
Correspondent, Hong Kong Bureau, Radio Beijing
(China)
ZHENG Han-liang
Hong Kong Bureau Chief, China Times (Taiwan)
ZHENG Qiang*
Chief, Hong Kong Bureau, People’s Daily (China)
ZHOU Chuan-zou
Reporter, Taiwan Television (TTV) (Taiwan)
Appendix III
Guideline for Interview
I. Organizations
1. Do you have a regular correspondent or stringer stationed in Hong Kong?
2. How important is news about Hong Kong to your media organization?
3. How important is the handover as a news topic? Why is it important?
4. How much newshole or airtime do you have regularly? How much will
you have on July 1? Do you have to fight for it? In what format (special
programs, regular news, etc.) are your stories about the handover being
presented?
5. How do you coordinate your efforts with home editors? Have you encountered any obstacles with them? When you come up with an idea, do you
have to seek their approval? When in disagreement, how do you resolve it?
6. How many journalists does your organization have for covering the Hong
Kong handover? How many of them are regularly stationed in Hong
Kong? How long have they been stationed here? How many of them are
on temporary assignment? How long are they going to be here? What sort
of backgrounds do they have? How do you divide the labor?
7. How many helpers do you hire? What do they do? Do you need help in
translation or interpretation?
II. Self
A. General Characteristics
1. Gender, approximate age, years of journalistic experience in the field and
in the present organization, job title.
2. Name of news organization, country of origin.
3. Reading and speaking proficiency in Chinese.
209
210
Appendix III
B. Personal Experience and Knowledge
1. How were you chosen to cover Hong Kong?
2. How often have you been to Hong Kong, China, or Asia? Have you covered any other Asian country? How transferable is that experience to covering Hong Kong?
3. For you, what are the most frequently used or most useful sources of information about Hong Kong?
4. How do you prepare yourself for covering the handover? How long have
you been following Hong Kong and China?
5. What is your impression of Hong Kong? How different is it from what
you thought it would be like?
C. Political and Journalistic Attitudes
1. In your opinion, where will Hong Kong be ten years from now? Will the
“one country, two systems” model work? How will Hong Kong fare in
terms of its political democracy, economic development, and press freedom? What kind of a relationship will Hong Kong have with China?
2. What kind of things do you do to help your home readers understand
what is happening in Hong Kong?
D. Perception of Readers or Audiences
1. Please describe for me a profile of your average readers or viewers. How
much do you think they know about Hong Kong? Do you think they really care about Hong Kong?
2. How do you find out their interests?
III. News Net
1. How do you develop and process news tips while in Hong Kong? To what
extent do you rely on the local media as sources? How good are they?
2. To what extent do you interact with local journalists and academics? Do
you seek their help? How helpful are they?
3. Do you seek help from the Government Information Services (GIS)? Do
you seek help from the Xinhua News Agency? How helpful are they?
Guideline for Interview
4. How have you built up contacts in Hong Kong within a relatively short
period of time?
5. Has anyone approached you to give you an interview?
6. Have you approached the following individuals for interviews: Chris Patten, Tung Chee-hwa, Anson Chan, Lu Ping, Martin Lee? Have you approached any other important individuals for interview? What are your
major impressions of these people?
IV. Working Conditions
1. With whom are you competing? How keen is this competition? What do
you do to be different from your competitors?
2. How much do you consult the wire services? How much do you consult
the work of your competitors? Do you compare notes with your colleagues from other media or with the leading media? Do you think they
do a good job? How different is your work from their work?
3. Would you be feeling uncomfortable if you find your interpretation of a
story different from that of other leading media? In that situation, what
would you do?
4. Do top international journalists get special treatment from the GIS or
from the sources?
V. Framing
A. Agenda-setting
1. What do you think are the most important problems facing Hong Kong?
2. What are the most important issues that you have covered or planned to
cover? What topics would you hate to miss the most?
3. What are the issues or topics that you think should be covered but were
not covered? Why?
B. Themes
1. What are the primary themes of your media organization with respect to
the handover of Hong Kong? What are the secondary themes? Why are
these themes important?
2. Do you see different themes that different media from different countries
emphasize? What are these themes?
211
212
Appendix III
C. Processes
1. How do you decide on which topics and themes to cover? Do you discuss
these topics with your editors—or your colleagues, or people from other
media organizations—beforehand? What do you talk about?
2. When your views differ from your editors’ views, what do you do? Do
you incorporate their views and adjust your own perceptions?
3. Overall speaking, what topics do you think have been well covered by
foreign journalists? What topics have not been well covered? Are there
any topics you think should be covered but are not?
4. Among all of the journalists, who do you think has done the best job? Is a
particular national group doing a better job than others? What makes
them stand out?
5. What role do you see international media playing in Hong Kong? What
impact do you think they will have on the future development of Hong
Kong?
6. What role do you see western nations playing in Hong Kong? What impact will they have on the future development of Hong Kong?
D. Cases
(a) The Story That Best Captures Hong Kong
1. Please show me a story that you think would capture the essence of Hong
Kong.
2. How do you get the idea? How do you develop it? What angle do you
take? What other angles have you considered? Why do you take this
angle?
3. Who else are involved in developing this story? Do you discuss it with
your editors while developing this story? Do they give you specific instructions? Do you agree with them? If not, what do you do?
4. Who are your major sources for this story? How do you identify them?
How do you contact them? Are there instances where sources try to influence you and push their points of view really hard? In those cases, what
do you do?
5. When your sources have different views, how do you assess their credibility? Do you consult with your editors?
6. Do your editors change the story you file? What do you think of these
changes they make? Do you ever argue with your editors over the story?
If yes, what do you argue about? How does it turn out?
Guideline for Interview
7. While developing this story, do you talk to reporters from your country,
local reporters in Hong Kong, or reporters from other nations?
(b) July 1 Ceremonies
1. What kind of a story would you write about the handover ceremony?
2. There will be many activities going on simultaneously. How would you
divide the labor among your colleagues? Where are they going to be
posted? Whom are you and your colleagues going to interview?
3. Do you talk to your editors about the field situation? What do you talk
about?
4. Would you prepare a background piece to go along with the ceremony?
What will the main takes of this background piece be?
5. What do you have to do to make the story about the handover of Hong
Kong appealing to your readers or viewers?
6. What kinds of pictures will you take?
7. Do you run into any obstacles in taking photos and getting your people
stationed at the right places? What obstacles do you expect in carrying out
the “game plan” of coverage on July 1?
213
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Appendix IV
Content Analysis
We perform a content analysis of 26 media outlets from 7 national media systems,
totaling 3,883 stories (Table 1.1). For television, we only code the main regular newscasts, but not special programs. We decide not to do a full-scale content analysis of all
the data collected due to (a) resource constraints; (b) sampling efficiency; and (c)
methodological limitations. From the sampling perspective, a complete sample may not
yield additional insights that justify the tremendous additional effort. Moreover, we feel
that the current status of the arts in content analysis is inadequate for revealing the thematic, rhetoric, and syntagmatic features of media discourses (Pan and Kosicki, 1993).
We use the content analysis as a supplement to the discourse analysis, in setting the parameter and in providing some, albeit limited, basis for generalizing our inferences.
This content analysis does not include Japan. None of us reads or speaks Japanese. We hire a Japan-educated media scholar to read the sampled newspaper issues and
watch taped television newscasts; he translates each story title and writes down a thematic summary of the story. We hold frequent communication with him to get an overall perspective.
Having defined the coding variables, we proceed to develop a coding scheme. The
research assistant assembles an assortment of newspaper articles and television newscasts for us to do a trial round of coding. We study the intercoder reliability coefficient
with a view to revising the coding scheme and refining the operational definition of each
variable. After three trial runs we finalize the coding scheme (Appendix V). The level of
agreement among the four coders on the “factual” variables (such as the size and time of
a story) reaches above 90 percent. They agree around 80 percent on the more “subjective” variables (such as the “tone”).
Table IV-1 summarizes the amount of media coverage. In terms of the size of newspaper coverage (in squared centimeters), Hong Kong and the PRC rank highest, followed by Taiwan, Britain, and Australia. The United States ranks low because the Wall
Street Journal and two “local” papers (the Chicago Tribune and the Des Moines Register) devote a smaller space to the handover, but the three elite papers (the New York
Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times) all produce large amounts of
stories. The amount of television coverage (in seconds) differs only slightly. CCTV
(China) ranks first, followed by TVB (Hong Kong) and TTV (Taiwan), and Australian,
British, and US networks.
215
216
Appendix IV
Table IV-1
Amount of Media Coverage1
PRC
USA
Britain
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Australia
Canada
Total
Number
of
outlets
coded
Number
of
Items
Total
newspaper
Space
(cm2)
Total TV
Airtime
(seconds)
space per
paper
(cm2)
Time per
channel
(seconds)
3
8
5
4
2
2
2
26
717
335
503
1,607
500
84
137
3,883
213,015
143,398
140,538
428,130
79,250
44,836
39,926
975,379
24,134
13,742
11,820
13,554
11,791
7,018
2,100
84,159
106,508
23,900
46,846
142,710
79,250
44,836
39,926
—
24,134
6,871
5,910
13,554
11,791
7,018
2,100
—
1. The figures include only the items (news, editorials, column articles, photos, and tidbits) from 26 media
outlets that are directly relevant to the handover. For television, only main newscasts are coded.
The handover, as a prescheduled calendar event, has a clear life cycle. Media coverage peaks on June 30 and July 1. Table IV-2 shows the standardized size of daily
media coverage by country in three phrases of the study period. The score is generated
by dividing the size of an item (in newspaper squared centimeters or in TV seconds) by
the range of story size (maximum minus minimum) of a particular media outlet. During the prehandover preparatory period (June 16–29), daily media coverage is only 11
percent to 33 percent of the amount produced in the peak period. The posthandover coverage (July 2–5) tails off to range from 7 percent to 39 percent of the amount produced
in the peak period.
We construct a summary measure of source diversity based on the content data. We
coded the top ten sources quoted (Table 3.5). Where there were multiple sources in a
story, we coded only the first ten sources. Based on the data, we classified the sources in
terms of (a) their national affiliation; (b) social position (officials, political opinion leaders, business elite, media and journalists, academics and think thanks, other kinds of
opinion leaders, and ordinary people.) For each of the two dimensions, we calculated an
H-statistic, or the entropy measure in the information theory (Shannon and Weaver,
1964). The statistic is calculated in the following formula:
H ⫽ ⫺ ⌺ pi ln pi
where,
pi ⫽ the percentage of cases falling into category i;
i ⫽ 1 to I, with I equals to the total number of categories involved;
ln pi ⫽ the natural logarithm of pi.
The resulting H statistic has a minimum of 0 (least diverse), if all the cases fall into
a single category. The maximum value (most diverse) is the natural logarithm of the
217
Content Analysis
Table IV-2
Daily Volume of Media Handover Coverage1
Preparatory
Phase
(June 16–29)
PRC
USA
Britain
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Australia
Canada
Peak
Tail-off
Phase
Phase
(June 30–July 1) (July 2–5)
229.38
514.88
412.41
753.37
248.65
152.11
74.91
2180.94
1787.18
1418.46
2715.38
1192.97
456.32
459.84
Prep./Peak
Ratio
(%)
Tail./Peak
Ratio
(%)
10.5
28.8
29.1
27.7
20.8
33.3
16.3
19.2
20.2
24.4
26.9
18.7
39.5
6.9
419.07
361.63
345.72
730.61
223.64
180.28
31.77
1. The cell entries are standardized daily volume. The standardized scores are calculated by using the following formula: standardized score ⫽ size of an item in the original metric (cm2 or second) ⫽ (maximum ⫺
minimum) of story size of a media outlet.
number of categories, with equal cases in every category. This statistic has a theoretical
rectangular distribution, unsuitable for parametric tests. We standardize the H-statistic
within each country—by multiplying it by 100/lnI2—into a scale ranging from 0 to 100,
to facilitate comparison across variables and samples.
Table IV-3 shows both the raw and standardized H scores. The “diversity in country of origin” measures the extent to which a national media system gives voice to
sources in a multiplicity of countries. Australia and Taiwan media score high. The PRC
media rely primarily on domestic sources; Hong Kong and Canadian media are low too,
for they treat the handover as a domestic story.
The other set of H statistic measures the diversity of the news sources in terms of
their social positions. This H statistic is even lower than “country diversity.” Most media
rely on officials and members of the political and economic elite to make news. The
PRC media score high because they spread their sources across different social categories to create the spectacle of national celebration; very often, they show many people on the street who utter the same thing. Hong Kong media also score high in their
effort to “record the history” and to “reflect how people feel.” Australian and Taiwan
media may quote sources from a wide range of countries, but these sources are likely to
be officials, elite members, and other media.
Diversity in Country
Diversity in
Social Position
Low
High
Low
—
Australia, Taiwan
High
PRC, Hong Kong, Canada
USA, Britain
218
Appendix IV
Table IV-3
Diversity of News Sources (H-Statistic)1
Diversity in
Country of Origin
Raw
PRC
USA
Britain
Hong Kong
Taiwan
Australia
Canada
Overall
Diversity in
Social Position
Standardized
1.36
1.48
1.40
1.25
1.60
1.65
1.17
1.49
69.89
76.06
71.95
64.24
82.22
84.79
60.13
76.57
Raw
.96
.90
.77
.87
.55
.57
.84
.86
Standardized
49.33
46.25
39.57
44.71
28.26
29.29
43.17
44.20
1. The H statistic is computed as ⫺ ⌺ pi ln pi and it is then standardized by multiplying the raw score by
100/lnI2, where pi ⫽ percentage of cases falling into the ith category and I ⫽ total number of categories.
Table IV-4
Rank Order Correlations (Spearman Rho) of the
10 Most Frequently Cited Sources by Country
UK
Hong Kong
Taiwan
US
Canada
Australia
China
UK
Hong Kong
Taiwan
US
Canada
.09
.10
⫺.20
.24
.18
⫺.01
.60**
.08
.57**
.74**
.69**
.08
.56*
.72**
.56*
.05
.11
.15
.75**
.47*
.74**
* p ⬍ .01; ** ⬍ p.001
Three patterns of media system are revealing:
1. The resource-rich pluralistic system: The U.S. (a global power) and the British
(an outgoing sovereign) have media resources that enjoy an easy access to news sources
from various countries and from various walks of life. To them, the handover is a global
event.
2. The resource-restricted pluralistic system (Australia, Canada, and Taiwan) that
regards the handover as a globalized regional event.
3. The resource-rich system, including Hong Kong and its diaspora, Canada, that
regards the handover as a “local” event with global implications. The PRC media treat
the event as a national celebration.
Content Analysis
219
To further assess the extent to which the news sources overlap across nations, we
calculate the rank-order correlation coefficients (Spearman’s Rho) of the ten most frequently cited sources in seven national media systems (Table IV-4). China and Taiwan
differ from one anther significantly. Both are also distinct from all other systems. The
remainder—Hong Kong, U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia—seem to share a highly
overlapping pool of top ten news sources. Although operating in a marketized and democratized environment, Taiwan media have a local lens so strong as to differ markedly
from Hong Kong and western media.
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Appendix V
Coding Scheme
Name of coder: ________
Note:
Analysis date: _______
Time needed: ______
1. Remember to photocopy the newspaper, but do not enlarge or reduce it.
2. Use a ruler to map the perimeter of the photocopied article.
3. Use felt pen to highlight the people mentioned and information source in
the article.
Name of newspaper: ______________
Name of Page: ___________________
Date of newspaper: _______________
Page number: ___________________
Type of article:
(1) pure news
(2) interview
(5) news analysis (6) commentary
(3) feature (soft) (4) editorial
(7) others: ____________
Source of article:
(1) from own reporter/editor
(3) from international news agencies
(5) submission by author
(2) from local news organizations
(4) from various sources
(6) others: ________________
Prominence of article position:
(1) front page, headline
(3) nonfront page, headline
(2) front page, but not headline
(4) nonfront page, not headline
Accompanied by photograph(s):
(1) yes
(2) no
Area of article (excluding article title):
(excluding photo) ________ cm2
(including photo) ________ cm2
Area of article title: __________ cm2
Number of words: _________ (in case the areas cannot be ascertained)
221
222
Appendix V
Article’s tone 1 (prediction about Hong Kong’s situation after handover):
• Will Hong Kong change?
(1) yes
(2) no
(3) not mentioned
• If Hong Kong will change, the direction is:
(1) better (2) both better and worse (3) worse (4) not certain
Article’s tone 2 (attitude/stand towards mainland Chinese government):
(1) friendly, positive
(2) neutral, balanced
(3) hostile, negative
(4) not certain
(5) not mentioned
Thematic categories:
(1) British colonialism
(2) British legacy, influence, promises
(3) China’s observance of “one country, two systems”
(4) People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
(5) China market for Hong Kong
(6) Hong Kong economy, economic prosperity
(7) Hong Kong’s influence on China
(8) Democracy, human rights, press freedom
(9) Profiles of Hong Kong: social reaction, daily life
(10) Handover ceremonies, hoopla, fun, pomp
(11) New chief executive and SAR government
(12) U.S. policy, U.S.–China or U.S.–HK relations
(13) Reactions: China
(14) Reactions: Taiwan
(15) Reactions: Chinatowns, overseas Chinese communities
Specific mentioning of the following in the article:
(1) June 4, 1989, or the Tiananmen Square crackdown
(2) Taiwan
(3) Singapore
(4) One country, two systems
Notes
Chapter 1
1. We use “journalists” in a broad and generic sense. The majority of them are undoubtedly technical staff of television, including engineers, camera people, electricians,
and producers. This total figure is based on applications made to the Government Information Services (GIS) of the Hong Kong government for media accreditation. How
many of them did actually come is unknown, but even half of the 8,000 people would be
considered very formidable.
2. The New York Times editorials had given Hong Kong sustained attention before
1997, but rarely commented on Hong Kong after the handover. In contrast, it has given
substantially more prominent coverage to China in the late 1990s.
3. As the subject matters and themes call for, not all chapters involve the analysis
of all national media systems. Chapter 5 is exclusively an analysis of the U.S. media,
chapter 6 is primarily an analysis of the British media in comparison with the PRC
media, while chapter 7 is an analysis of the media systems in three contending Chinese
societies. Chapter 4 does not include Japan, but the general theoretical points still hold.
Chapter 2
1. In fact, eight years before 1997, some media in Europe already contacted
Hongkong Telecom about renting satellites during the handover period. The Japanese
media have also started to book satellite time a few years ago. As a result, Hongkong
Telecom has spent U.S.$6.5 million to upgrade its facilities. Between June 15 and July
10, Hongkong Telecom rented out 5,000 hours of satellite time, which is about double
the normal demand. It has a team of 300 people to serve the eight huge satellite dishes
in its Stanley transmission station (Apple Daily, July 1).
Chapter 5
1. However, human rights abuses of similar magnitude committed by U.S. allies
have been played down (Mahlasela, 1990; Herman and Chomsky, 1988). The reductive
223
224
Notes
themes of anti-Communism in the Tiananmen reports also missed many historical and
sociological dimensions (Wasserstrom and Perry, 1994).
2. They are Edward Gargan (Hong Kong bureau chief and formerly, Beijing bureau chief), Seith Faison (Shanghai bureau chief), aided by Patrick Tyler (Beijing bureau
chief), Nicholas Kristof (former Beijing and, in 1997, Tokyo bureau chief) and his wife,
Sheryl WuDunn. Kristof and WuDunn won a Pulitzer Prize for their reports of the
Tiananmen movement.
3. For the ten days before Rather arrived in Hong Kong, from June 15 to 24, CBS
offered ten brief stories about the handover, all measured in seconds, including an announcement of his trip to Hong Kong. The 25 longer stories, from June 25 to June 1,
were all measured in minutes. He also anchors a one-hour live special on the handover
ceremony (June 30).
4. During the eight-day interval before Shaw’s arrival (from June 15 to June 22),
CNN’s daily one-hour Worldview news program broadcasts only five stories related to
Hong Kong’s handover, but after his arrival it offered a total of 45 such stories (from
June 23 to July 1).
5. Lee (2000a) argues, contrary to writers such as Tuchman (1978), that the media
in Hong Kong use “strategic rituals” not so much to reify the established order, but to
create journalistic space in a politically turbulent environment.
6. On July 6, 1997, CBS News analyst Laura Ingraham muses on the significance
of Independence Day:
This past week two countries celebrated their independence from British rule, but for
two very different reasons. Where America honors liberty, China crushes it. Hong
Kong, once one of Asia’s freest cities, is now under the control of the one of the world’s
most repressive regimes. So many of the images of the transfer last week were of smiles
and dancing and parties . . . The mobs celebrating in Tiananmen Square might lull us
into believing that the clampdown of ’89 was an aberration. China should serve as a
constant, haunting reminder to us that the cause of liberty has not yet triumphed.
She continues to argue that while big business is making big money in China, American
foreign policy makers should not be blind to “all that China has done to its own people,
and maybe later to the people of Hong Kong.”
Chapter 6
1. In the 1964 World Youth Forum, Moscow deliberately included Hong Kong and
Macau in a resolution on the elimination of colonies in Asia. China accused the Soviets
of “interfering in the internal affairs” and reiterated its intention of recovering Hong
Kong and Macau “at an appropriate time.” To a similar charge made in early 1963 by the
U.S. Communist Party, the People’s Daily claimed in a sharply worded editorial that the
PRC could not be held accountable for an issue left over by unequal treaties signed between the Qing dynasty and the British imperialists (Lane, 1990).
Notes
225
Chapter 7
1. Jinghai Temple is where the negotiation for the Nanjing Treaty took place in the
summer of 1842. In 1989, on the site of the old temple, a museum was built to display
the historical archives related to the first Opium War and the Nanjing Treaty.
2. Among these cities are Shanghai (the CCP’s birthplace), Nanjing (where the
treaty of ceding Hong Kong was signed), Guangzhou (the capital of Guangdong
province adjacent to Hong Kong), Shenzhen (a special economic zone next to Hong
Kong), and Dongguan (a small city along the Hong Kong border where burning of
British opium triggered a war that lost Hong Kong).
3. The Oriental Daily News has bought eight time-sharing digital cameras particularly for the occasion, each costing over US$26,000. Other local newspapers also invest heavily to buy professional-grade digital cameras and portable computers so that
their reporters can send pictures back to the organizations as soon as possible. The
Kodak Company in Hong Kong reveals that in May sales figures of digital cameras
jump five times compared with the same time period in previous year.
4. Just before July 1, TVB airs 90 hours of nonstop handover programs via microwave channels and the outside broadcast (OB) facilities. The fiber optics alone cost
more than US$100,000 for two days’ use.
5 The Hong Kong branch of Xinhua News Agency has, until 1999, been China’s
command post; its news function was only of secondary importance. See Chan and Lee
(1991) for an analysis of its role in media management. The political arm of Xinhua
News Agency has been renamed the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong
Kong. Xinhua is a news operater now.
Chapter 8
1. The biggest newspaper chain in Canada has bought Sing Tao’s Canadian editions. Each year Hong Kong’s TVB hosts a major charity in Toronto or Vancouver and
broadcasts the program for Hong Kong audiences. In the past few years, the winners of
Miss Hong Kong are residents from Vancouver.
2. The Canadian Commission (renamed Canadian Consulate after 1997) is one of
the largest federal government offices abroad, headed by a commissioner with an ambassadorial rank. Many provinces have established their own offices in Hong Kong to handle
immigration, trade, and tourism. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong—
the largest branch outside of China—has published a bimonthly magazine Canada Hong
Kong Business since 1988. The nonprofit Canada China Business Council launched another bimonthly business magazine, the Canada China Business Forum, in 1992.
3. Many Hong Kong celebrities and billionaires are citizens of Canada, where Li
Ka-shing, Hong Kong’s richest man, has major business investments (Husky Oil and
others). Ethnic Chinese have gained increasing visibility in Canada’s political life,
226
Notes
counting the Governor-General of Canada (Adrienne Clarkson), the former Lieutenant
Governor of British Columbia (David Lam), and a current Secretary for Asia-Pacific Affairs (Raymond Chan) among them. The Hong Kong Bank of Canada, wholly owned by
HSBC Holdings in Hong Kong, is the largest foreign bank in Canada with over 100
branches from coast to coast.
4. He does not forget to remind the readers of Hong Kong’s success as measured
by its being the world’s seventh-largest trading economy, fourth-largest stock market,
largest exporter of clocks, calculators, imitation jewelry, and radios. Hong Kong also has
the world’s tallest outdoor seated bronze statue of Buddha, the world’s largest road and
rail suspension bridge, the world’s highest rate of horse-race betting, the world’s highest consumption of Cognac, and five of the world’s busiest McDonald’s restaurants.
(Marcus Gee, “Brash, Booming Hong Kong,” The Globe and Mail, June 25, p. A23)
5. Australia reversed its notorious “White Australia” policy in the 1960s. By 1991,
51% of the migration intake was drawn from Asian nations, and 4.1% of the Australian
population had been born in Asia. Multiculturalism has replaced assimilation and integration as a keystone of ethnic policy. The policy of enmeshment with Asia has gradually reduced the influence of European stereotypes.
6. In 1997, about 350 Australian companies maintain offices in Hong Kong and a
further 1,000 companies are estimated to have regional offices in the territory. The Australian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, established in 1986, is the second largest
of its kind in Hong Kong and is Australia’s largest business association overseas, with
1,200 members. For many years, Australia has enjoyed a significant trade surplus with
Hong Kong. The Hong Kong immigrants in Australia bring investments that benefit the
real estate market and finance sector (Taneja, 1994). Hong Kong has been Australia’s
largest education market in terms of financial return. In 1996, more than 12,000 Hong
Kong students were enrolled in Australian schools, which amounted to about 10 percent
of all students studying in Australia. While Hong Kong was Australia’s ninth largest
source of visitors in 1995, Australia was Hong Kong’s sixth largest sources of visitors in
the same year. Also, Hong Kong was the sixth largest destination for Australian overseas
investment, while Hong Kong was the fourth largest source of foreign investment in
Australia (Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade, 1997).
7. A survey conducted by the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong in
1994 indicated that 82% of the Australian business people intended to remain in Hong
Kong after the handover. Another survey by the AustCham also found that over 90% of
respondents said they were confident that they would be active in Hong Kong after 2000
(Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade, 1997).
8. Hong Kong people rank second in having taken advantage of Australia’s more
lax immigration laws since 1982. Canada requires immigrants to have at least three
years of continuous residency to develop commitment and loyalty before they can apply
for citizenship. Australia only requires two years of cumulative (not necessarily continuous) stay; hence many return to live in Hong Kong. Political representation of Chinese
in Australia is insignificant, as is Hong Kong’s media involvement there.
Notes
227
9. Japan’s investment in Hong Kong in 1999 increased by 40.5% over the previous
year.
Chapter 9
1. Some writers have pointed out that these three categories of “ceremonial politics” may not be inclusive of “disaster marathons” (Liebes, 1998) or “political rituals of
shame, degradation, and excommunication” (Carey, 1998). Thompson (1995) distinguishes “media events” from the media genre of “receipt address,” mediated everyday
activity, and fictionalized action. Scannell (1995), in a generally sympathetic view, criticizes Dayan and Katz for a lack of historical depth in their analysis. He also questions
whether different events—ranging from the moon landings and the British royal wedding to President Sadat’s journey to Jerusalem and President Kennedy’s assassination—
are of the same order.
2. Scannell (1995) notes that historically television has been associated with the
slow erosion of autocratic authority and the decay of charisma.
Epilogue
1. Unless otherwise noted, all the dates in this epilogue refer to 1998.
2. For the media outlets that have multiple anniversary pieces, only the most important piece, based on the location and the size of headline, is included in the table.
3. “Communist Hong Kong has its first birthday.”
4. On the U.S. side, there are 101 items on the New York Times (Foreign and Editorial Desks), 49 items on the Los Angeles Times (Foreign and Editorial Desks), 92 items
on the Washington Post (A Section and Op-Ed Sections). On the British side, there are
also 62 items on the Times of London (Overseas News Section), 55 items on the
Guardian (Foreign and Editor Pages), and 79 items on the Daily Telegraph (International Section). This search does not include stories published in the financial, fashion,
style, and entertainment pages.
5. These three stories report that Hong Kong police allow a peaceful demonstration
(July 22, 1997), Hong Kong celebrates the first Chinese National Day after the handover
(October 1, 1997), and Hong Kong is holding its first legislative election (May 24, 1998).
6. The series on the bird’s flu starts with the first death attributed to “influenza A”
and ends with the slaughter of all chickens in Hong Kong. In between, there are officials
from the World Health Organization explaining how “the Hong Kong flu” might be
transmitted, and U.S. experts from the Center for Disease Control “rushing to create a
vaccine for the Hong Kong flu virus.”
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Authors
Chin-Chuan Lee is a professor of journalism and mass communication and the
director of the China Times Center for Media and Social Studies at the University of Minnesota, formerly visiting chair professor at the Chinese University
of Hong Kong. Among his English publications are Media Imperialism Reconsidered: The Homogenizing of Television Culture (author); Mass Media and Political Transition: The Hong Kong Press in China’s Orbit (coauthor); Voices of
China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism (editor); China’s Media,
Media’s China (editor); Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns
and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China (editor). He is also an author or editor of eight books in Chinese.
Joseph Man Chan is a professor in the school of journalism and communication
at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Among his publications are Mass
Media and Political Transition: The Hong Kong Press in China’s Orbit (coauthor); Hong Kong Journalists in Transition (coauthor); In Search of Boundaries: Communication, Nation-State and Cultural Identities (coeditor); Press
and Politics in Hong Kong: Case Studies from 1967 to 1997 (coeditor); Communication and Societal Development (coeditor, in Chinese); Mass Communication and Market Economy (coeditor, in Chinese).
Zhongdang Pan, formerly associate professor at the Chinese University of
Hong Kong, is an associate professor in the Department of Communication
Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Among his publications are To
See Ourselves: Comparing Traditional Chinese and American Cultural Values
(coauthor); Mass Communication and Market Economy (coeditor, in Chinese);
Symbol and Society (coeditor, in Chinese).
Clement Y. K. So is an associate professor of journalism and communication at
the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Among his publications are Press and Politics in Hong Kong: Case Studies from 1967 to 1997 (coeditor); Television Program Appreciation Index: Hong Kong Experience (coeditor, in Chinese); Impact
and Issues in New Media: Toward Intelligent Societies (coeditor).
245
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Index
ABC, U.S. 159–62
Albright, Madeleine, 37, 45, 57, 91, 98,
145
Alexander, Jeffrey C., 176
Altheide, David L., 3, 6, 66
Althusser, Louis, 149
Amalgamation, 67, 79–82, 174
Anderson, Benedict, 3, 182
Anderson, Fiona, 48, 52
Apple Daily, Hong Kong, 74, 124,
141–144, 195
Aronson, Steven, M. L., 107
Asahi Shimbun, Japan, 165–166
Asia Television (ATV), Hong Kong, 142
Aung San Suu Kyi, 98
Australian media, ideological package
amazing Hong Kong, 162; demonic
China, 159–160; economic Trojan
horse, 160; independent foreign policy, 160–161
Australian, The, 159–162
Authoritarian media vs. liberal media,
187
Axworthy, Lloyd, 57
Banal nationalism, 182
Barthes, Roland, 77
BBC, 25, 32, 35, 77–78, 112–113,
121–122, 195
Benford, Robert D., 128–129
Bennett, W. Lance, 64–65, 187
Berger, Peter L., 4, 43
Blair, Tony, 117, 120, 196
Blystone, Richard, 70
British legacy, 117–119, 143
British media, ideological package
Britain as protector of freedom in
Hong Kong, 119–121; British
legacy, 117–119; de-essentializing
colonialism, 116; dignified retreat,
121–123
Broadcast feed, 30–31
Broder, David, 91
Brokaw, Tom, 70, 89, 139
Buerk, Simon, 70
Bush, George, 91
Cabot, John, 113
Calendar journalism, 6
Canada, 153–157, 166–167
Canadian media, ideological package
end of democracy, 153–155; exotic
Orient, 156–157; special ties,
155–156
Carey, James W., 79, 227
Casey, John, 118
CBS, 70, 75, 81, 88–90, 99, 154–157,
170, 194–195, 224
CCTV (Chinese Central Television),
China, 25, 32, 70, 75–76, 78–81,
130–32, 134–135
Center countries, 180
Central Daily News, Taiwan, 136
Certification, 67, 69–71, 174
Chan, Anson, 34, 100, 184, 194
Chan, Joseph M., 9, 14, 42, 64
247
248
Index
Chang, John, 138
Chang, Tsan-kuo, 152
Charles, Prince of Wales, 8, 28, 76, 96,
105, 120, 123
Chen, Qichen, 166
Cheung, Man-yee, 119
Chiang, Kai-shek, 96, 113, 137–138, 140
Chinese media, ideological package (see
PRC media, ideological package)
Chicago Tribune, U.S., 88, 94
China and Chinese, definition of,
127–128
China Times, Taiwan, 136–140, 192, 197
Chinese Communist Party, 115, 131
Chinoy, Mike, 2, 29, 31, 41, 46, 48–49,
51–52, 60–61, 68, 70, 85, 88, 90, 99
Chirac, Jacques, 95
Chomsky, Noam, 86, 152
Chu, David, 99
Churchill, Winston, 96, 113, 138
Clinton, Bill, 57, 91, 96, 181, 188,
192–193
CNN, 29, 35, 49, 70, 75–76, 88–90, 195,
224
Coda, 186–188
Cohen, Akiba A., 2, 44–45
Cohen, Bernard, 152
Cold war, 1, 85, 151–152
Colonialism, 17–18, 96, 109, 113–123,
125; 152; characteristics of, 110;
defined, 112
Color stories, 38, 47, 81 (see also mood
stories,)
Combs, James E., 8, 38
Conquest, 6–7, 174
Constructionist approach to discourse
analysis, 13
Content analysis, 8, 13, 215–219,
221–222
Contest, 6, 7, 172
Cook, Robin, 117, 120, 196
Coronation, 6, 7, 174
Cox, Christopher, 96
Cradock, Sir Percy, 119
CTN, 32
Cultural China, 9, 18, 127–128, 137,
171
Daily Telegraph, U.K., 17–18, 119–120,
123, 194
Dayan, Daniel, xiii, 1, 6, 7, 23, 36, 63,
70, 169–170, 172–176
Debord, Guy, 63, 83
Decolonization, 116
De-essentializing, 18, 116 (see also
essentialization)
DeGolyer, Michael, 193
Delano, Warren, 103
Democracy, 162–166; end of, 153–155;
erosion, 98–100; quest for, 142–143
Democratic Party, Hong Kong, 27–28
Demonic China, 159–160
Deng, Xiaoping, 7, 79, 95, 114, 130–131,
160
Diana, Princess of Wales, 65–67
Dignified British retreat, 121–123
Dimbleby, Jonathan, 121
Discourse: (see also structure)
discourse analysis, 8, 13–15 (see
also framing); discursive battle, 18;
discursive community, 3–4, 21;
discursive contestation, 15, 174,
182, 185; discursive packages,
13–14 (see also ideological
packages); discursive structures,
147–149; discursive struggle, 3–6,
184–185
Domestication, 2, 17, 44, 61, 178–182;
consequences, 53–60; defined, 43;
hypothesis of, 55; and local
perspectives, 104–105; secondary
factors, 48–53; strategies, 45–48
Donohue, George, 5
Douglas, Mary, 83
Downer, Alexander, 57, 151, 161
Duara, Prasenjit, 146–47
Dunn, H. A., 158
Economic Daily, China, 133–134, 136
Edwards, Derek, 86
Eliason, Marcus, 51, 122, 185–186
Elite nations, 171
Elizabeth II, Queen (of England), 155
Elliot, Dorinda, 68, 71, 187, 189
Enduring values, 64, 148
Index
Enterprising journalism, 178
Epstein, Edward, 49
Erosion of democracy and freedom in
Hong Kong, 98–100
Essentialism, 110–111
Essentialization, 17–18, 111, 113–116,
132 (see also de-essentializing)
European Broadcasting Union (EBU), 32
Exotic orient, 156–57
Fact journalism, 60
Fairchild Television, 156
Faison, Seith, 47, 100, 102, 224
Family-nation, 128–136, 146
Fanon, Franz, 110
Farley, Maggie, 190, 197
Featherstone, Mike, 42, 179–180, 181
Fenby, Jonathan, 41, 160
Fenton, Tom, 70, 89
Financial Times, U.K., 193–194
Fishman, Mark, 26
Fitzgerald, John, 127–128
Flournoy, Don, 61
Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC),
Hong Kong, 28, 51
Foucault, Michel, 74
Foundation for a Better Hong Kong
Tomorrow, 29
Framing, 44, 106; analysis, 148; master
frame, 128–129; media frames, 2,
14, 90–101 (see also discourse
analysis, ideological package,
signature matrix)
Framework for analysis, 15–19
Frankel, Max, 82
Franzosi, Roberto, 14
Fraser, Malcolm, 161
Freedom Forum, 29
Freedom, 98–100; Britain as a protector
of, 119–121
Freeman, Chas W., Jr., 95
Friedman, Thomas L., 1, 95
Fukuyama, Francis, 85
Galtung, Johan, 170–172
Gamson, William, 13–14
Gans, Herbert J., 5, 38–39, 45, 63–64, 148
249
Gargan, Edward, 35, 47, 50, 76–77, 81,
87, 224
Geertz, Clifford, 4, 179
Gellner, Ernst, 127
Geographical configuration, 133–134,
145–146
Giddens, Anthony, 42, 178
Gitlin, Todd, 14, 104, 185
Globalization, 2, 17, 169; and discursive
struggle, 184–185; and domestication, 178–182; effects and consequences of, 42, 60, 181; and local
perspective, 104–105, 179, 180; and
national perspectives, 178–182; and
soft news, 101–104
Glocalization, 42, 60, 179
Globe and Mail, Canada, 154–57
Government Information Services (GIS),
Hong Kong, 24–27, 178
Gratham, Sir Alexander, 113
Guangdong TV, China, 136
Guangming Daily, China, 131–133
Guangzhou Daily, China, 132, 197
Gu, Zhenfu, 139
Guardian, The, U.K., 118, 120–122
Hall, Stuart, 44, 110–111, 131
Hallin, Daniel C., 43–44, 65, 85, 104
Hanrahan, Brian, 77, 122
Hardman, Robert, 122
Harris, Stuart, 158
Helms, Jessie, 94–95
Hemingway, Ernest, 188
Herd journalism, 35
Herman, Edward S., 86, 152
Heroes vs. villains, 126, 146
Higgins, Andrew, 36–37, 63, 68, 69,
119–121
Hoagland, Jim, 91
Home agenda, 17
Hong Kong Economic Journal, 142
Hong Kong media, ideological package,
144–146; British legacy, 143; mixed
feelings, 143; “one country, two systems,” 142; quest for democracy,
142; in search of identity, 123–125;
smooth transition, 143
250
Index
Hong Kong TV consortium, 29
Hot nationalism, 182
Howe, Geoffrey, 95
Human rights, 167
Hutcheon, Jane, 49, 159, 187
Hutchings, Graham, 33, 50, 68, 117
Hyping, 107, 172–176; amalgamation,
79–82; certification, 60–71; effects
of, 8; and essentialization, 17; logic
of, 83; mystification, 77–79; as
a process, 45; and reality
entertainment, 76–77; and soft
news, 101–104; as strategy, 17,
66–68; visualization, 71–77
Identity, of Hong Kong, 123–125
Ideological contestation, 1, 17, 167
Ideological discourse, 3
Ideological packages, 8, 13–14, 90 (see
also discursive packages, news
paradigm, national prisms; see
also country-specific coverage);
Australia, 159–162; Britain,
117–123; Canada, 153–157;
China, 129–130; China vs.
Taiwan, 138–140; China vs.
Taiwan vs. Hong Kong, 146–149;
Hong Kong, 140–142; Japan,
164–166; and soft news, 101–104;
U.S., 91–101
Ideological professionalism, 4
Ideological struggle, 1
Ideological wars, 15
Imagined communities, 3, 182
Independent, The, U.K., 192
Independent foreign policy, of Australia,
160–162
Independent Television (ITV), U.K., 119,
122
Indepth interviews, 8, 11–12, 209–213
Ingraham, Laura, 224
International journalism (news), 2–6, 21,
44, 61, 169; structure of, 170–172;
vs. domestic news, 173
Interpellation, 149
Interpretive community, 64
Jacobs, Ronald N., 65, 176
Japanese media coverage, 162–167
Jenkins, Simon, 118
Jennings, Peter, 70, 89
Jiang, Zemin, 8, 57, 74, 76, 79, 97, 120,
132–133, 142–143, 192
Journalists (see media sociology)
Kahn, Joseph, 34, 50, 52
Katz, Elihu, xiii, 1, 6, 7, 23, 36, 63, 70,
90, 169–170, 172–176
Keane, Fergal, 119
Kelly, Paul, 161
Khockshorn, Kristi, 35, 41, 46, 47, 61
Knight, Alan, 26–28, 86
Kohl, Helmut, 95–96
Koppel, Andrea, 70, 71, 90, 195
Kosicki, Gerald M., 14
Kristof, Nicholas, 100, 101, 224
Kuhn, Thomas S., 64
Kyodo News Agency, Japan, 165
Lai, Jimmy, 34
Lam, David, 226
Landler, Mark, 192
Lau, Emily, 192
Lau, Sai-leung, 21
Laurie, Jim, 170, 175
Lazarsfeld, Paul, 33
Lee, Allen, 99
Lee, Chin-Chuan, 6, 9, 14, 43, 64, 141,
174, 185, 224
Lee, Kuan Yew, 97–98
Lee, Martin, 28, 29, 31, 35, 71, 76, 95,
98, 120, 154, 188, 192–195
Lee, Tenghui, 137–139
Lee, Yee, 109
Levi-Strauss, Claude, 128
Li, Ka-shing, 225
Li, Peng, 57, 145
Lian, Zhan, 57, 138–139
Liberal media vs. authoritarian media,
187
Liberty Times, Taiwan, 137, 140
Liebes, Tamar, 227
Lilly, James, 91
Index
Lin, Zexu, 131–132, 182
Liu, Kunyuan, 136
Local knowledge, 4, 179
Local media as clues, 33–34
Local perspective, 101–102, 104–105,
181 (see also national
perspective)
Localization, 42
Loh, Christine, 192
Los Angeles Times, U.S., 81, 88, 96–97,
190–91, 196–197
Lu, Ping, 155
Luckmann, Thomas, 4
Luk, Carmen, 32
Ma, Eric, 42
MacAloon, John J., 83
MacBride, Sean, 185
Mackerras, Colin, 158
Maclean’s, Canada, 156
Macro structure, 14
Mann, Jim, 97
Manning, Peter K., 67
Manthorpe, Jonathan, 151, 153
Mao, Zedong, 114, 125
McGregor, Richard, 159
McGurn, William, 126
McLuhan, Marshall, 48–49
Media and authority, 177–178
Media discourse, 65, 171; context of, 4;
meaning of, 1
Media event, 1, 6–8, 24, 64–66, 83,
169–170; and hyping, 172–176;
media spectacle, 3, 6; type of, 6
Media imperialism, 184
Media logic, 3, 38, 66; entertainment
logic, 6, 174–175 (see also media
event, news paradigm)
Media prisms, 182
Media sociology, 34–39, 177; British
journalists, 112–113; competition,
35–36; Hong Kong journalists,
141–142; international, 15 ; PRC
journalists (mobilization and orchestration), 134–136; reporting
strategies, 36–39; resident vs.
251
parachute journalists, 50–52; the
situs news perspective, 52–53; U.S.
journalists, 87–90
Media stages, 31–34 (see also news
stage, staging)
Medium type, 48
Meisner, Maurice, 96
Merton, Robert K., 33
Methodology, 8–15
Meyer, Karl, 103
Middleton, David, 86
Miles, James, 34
Millerson, Gerald, 21–22
Ming Pao Daily News, Hong
Kong,124–125, 142–145, 156, 195
Mintier, Tom, 70, 76
Minzhong Daily, Taiwan, 138
Mirsky, Jonathan, 50, 68, 119, 187–188
Mobilization, of the Chinese media,
134–136
Mood stories, 38 (see also color stories)
Mosco, Vincent, 4
Mother Teresa, 66
Mufson, Steven, 80–81
Mystification, 67, 77–79, 174
Nakano, Yoshiko, 26–28, 86
Nanjing Treaty, 138
Narrative codes, 64
Nation family, 129–130
Nation, 127–128, 172
National festival, 129–130
National interests, 2, 5, 18, 44, 152, 167
National prisms, 9, 15, 17–19, 49, 184,
198; and globalization, 178–182;
and local perspective, 104–105,
170–180 (see also ideological
package)
National themes, 3
Nationalism, 17–18, 125, 128, 182
Nation-state, 138, 146–149, 152, 172,
180
Nehru, Jamaharlal, 97
Nelms, Henning, 22
New cold war, 94–98
New guardian, 91–94
252
Index
New World Information and
Communication Order (NWICO),
185
New York Times, U.S., 76–77, 81–82, 87,
95–101, 192–195, 197
News discourse, 5
News paradigm, 64, 64, 198 (see also
ideological package, media
sociology); journalistic paradigm,
190; repairing of, 194–198
News peg, 38
News stage, 16–17, 22–24 (see also
media stages, staging)
News, nature of, 2, 64; domestic news vs.
international news, 173
Newsmaking: international, 2, 3–6, 181;
news agenda, 16–17; news net, 4,
23, 88, 148, 177; sociology of news,
39, 87–90 (see also news paradigm,
media sociology)
Newsweek, U.S., 41
Ng, Margaret, 192
NHK, Japan, 164
Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan, 165–166
Nimmo, Dan, 8, 38
Objectivity, 4
Occidentalize, 126
O’Connor, Michael, 158
Olien, Clarice, 5
Olympic Games, 22
One country, one system, 137, 139
One country, two systems, 114, 119, 130,
137–139, 192; as a frame, 142
Opium War, 113–114, 117
Orchestration, 134–136
Oriental Daily News, Hong Kong
141–142, 225
Orientalist discourses, Orientalism, 96,
111, 126
Orwell, George, 1
Osterhammel, Jurgen, 110, 112
O’Sullivan, John L., 105
Pan, Zhongdang, 14
Parachute journalists, 29, 50, 52
Parker, Maynard, 41
Patten, Chris, 7, 8, 29–30, 38, 51, 74,
76–78, 95–98, 105, 109, 116–126,
142–145, 154, 188, 192
Patten, Lavender, 78
People’s Daily, China. 74, 75, 79–82,
131–135, 190, 193, 224
People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 26, 81,
131–133, 184
PLA Daily, China, 132–133
Peripheral nations, 171, 180
Personification, 48
Plate, Tom, 106
Political geography, 134, 138–141
PRC media, ideological package
brighter prospect, 130;
essentializing colonialism, 113–116;
historical script, 130–133; media
festival, 130; nation as a family,
130; national achievement,
120–130; social taxonomy and
geographical configuration,
133–134
Press and Broadcast Center (PBC), 24
Professionalism, 12, 174
Provisional Legislature, 27–28
Pseudo-event, 106
Ramaprasad, Jyotika, 152
Rankin, Eric, 153
Rather, Dan, 51, 70, 75, 81, 89–90, 94,
99, 169–170, 195
Reality entertainment, 76–77
Reid, Tim, 155
Repairing, news perspective, 175;
paradigm, 194–198
Reporting strategies, 36–39
Republic of China (ROC) government,
138
Richburg, Keith, 88, 192, 197
Robertson, Roland, 42
Robson, Eric, 78, 121
Roosevelt, Franklin, 96, 113
Rosenthal, A. M., 94
Rottenberg, Sidney, 89
RTHK, 33, 142
Index
Said, Edward W., 5, 18, 43, 85–86, 96,
99, 102, 110–112, 182
San Jose Mercury News, 46, 88
Sankei Shimbun, Japan, 164
Scaffolding, 118, 125
Scannell, Paddy, 227
Scheiffer, Bob, 70, 89
Schramm, Wilbur, xi
Schudson, Michael, 12, 87
Script: first-order, 15, 23, 36, 177;
historical, 130, 137–138, 144–147;
second-order, 15, 36, 177
Shakespeare, William, 21
Shaw, Bernard, 70, 76, 89–90, 98, 101
Sheridan, Greg, 162
Sigal, Leon V., 67, 136
Signature matrix, 13 (see also framing)
Simon, Bob, 70, 81, 89, 95, 99,
154–155
Sing Tao Daily News, Hong Kong, 156
Sino-British Joint Declaration, 21
Sly, Liz, 104
Smooth transition, 143–144
Snow, David A., 128–29
Snow, Robert P., 3, 6, 66
So, Clement Y. K., 9
Social taxonomy, 133–134
Soft news, 101–104
Sources, 37, 57
South China Morning Post (SCMP),
Hong Kong, 74, 124, 142–143,
145
Special ties, 155–156
Spivey, Lisa, 104
Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle,
42–43, 169, 179–180
Staging, 22, 180; and spatialization,
74–75 (see also media stages, news
stage)
State, 127–128, 172
Stein, Peter, 101
Stereotypes, 37–38
Story grammar, 14
Storytelling, 14
Strahan, Lachlan, 157
Strategic ritual, 105, 145
253
Structure: global, 14; narrative, 14;
rhetorical, 14; super, 14; thematic,
14 (see also discourse)
Sun, Yatsen, 101, 110, 118
Taiwan media, ideological package
delinking nation and state,
138–140; drawing political borders,
140–141; reorienting the triangular
relationship, 140
Taiwan Television (TTV), 32, 140
Television anchors, 70, 89
Television Broadcast (TVB), Hong
Kong, 32, 124, 142, 145
Thatcher, Margaret, 7, 95–96, 101,
117–118
Thick description, 11
Thompson, John B., 4, 83, 179, 183, 184,
227
Tiananmen Square, 2, 51; crackdown,
18, 86, 89, 124, 119, 158; and
international media, 193; massacre,
144, 154, 159
Tichenor, Phillip J., 5
Times of London, U.K., 78, 118–120
Tomlinson, John, 106, 178, 181
Touraine, Alain, 152
Trojan Horse, 7, 18; as a frame, 100–101,
160
Tu, Weiming, 127
Tuchman, Gaye, 4, 6, 14, 26, 43–45, 88,
145
Tung, Chee-hwa, 8, 28, 46, 98, 106, 127,
142–143, 159, 183, 192, 197
Tunstall, Jeremy, 49
Turner, Victor, 67
TV Asahi, Japan, 166
Tyler, Patrick, 100, 224
Uncertainty of Hong Kong, 141–145
United Daily News, Taiwan, 136–140
U.S. media, ideological package
erosion of democracy and freedom,
98–100; local perspective,
104–105; new cold war, 94–98;
new guardian, 91–94; soft news,
254
Index
101–104; Trojan horse,
100–101
van Dijk, Tuen A., 14
van Ginneken, Jaap, 1, 2, 43–44, 60, 80,
190–194
Villains, 126, 146
Vincent, Richard, 171
Vines, Stephen, 40, 52, 192
Visualization, 67, 71–77, 174
Vogel, Ezra, 162
Volkmer, Ingrid, 60
Von Vorys, Karl, 152
Wall Street Journal, U.S., 88, 95–96,
100–101, 192–193
Wallerstein, Immanuel, 151–152, 167,
171
Washington Post, U.S., 80–81, 87, 91–94,
96–101, 192–193, 197
Waters, Malcolm, 42
Weaver, David, 12
Wei, Jingsheng, 91
Williams, Ian, 119
Wong, Anny, 163
Wong, Fanny, 124
Wong, Jan, 37–39, 154, 156–157
Wood, Chris, 1, 33, 47, 50, 68, 156
WuDunn, Sheryl, 224
Wuthnow, Robert, 4, 128
Xinhua News Agency, China, 25, 135,
144
Yeung, Chris, 40, 47
Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan, 164–166
Zelizer, Barbie, 63, 88, 129
Zhao, Ziyang, 142
Zhou, Nan, 69, 138