Abstract
This book provides corpus-linguistic evidence for declining freedom of the press in Hong Kong. It applies a mixed-method approach, integrating social science with natural language processing, to a corpus of western- and Hong Kong–based English-language news articles spanning 22 years. Our analysis shows that the Hong Kong press publishes copiously about protests, portrays them with a consistent, limited set of frames despite the evolving character of the protests, and a negative tone heightened by the use of the protest paradigm. It also employs strategic ambiguity, reflected in the diminished and appellatory use of key terms like freedom and democracy. These findings point to an agenda set to relentlessly delegitimize the protests, which, over time, curtails press freedom.
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Notes
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The Legislative Council is Hong Kong’s legislature and comprises 70 members, 35 of whom are directly elected by five geographical constituencies under proportional representation. The remaining 35 members are indirectly elected through interest group–based functional constituencies, with limited electorates. Since its establishment in 1843, as an advisory council to the Governor, the powers and functions of the Legislative Council have expanded. https://www.legco.gov.hk/general/english/members/
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“The idea of one country, two systems originated in 1979, when China offered to allow Taiwan to keep its economic and social systems, government, and even military in return for acknowledging that it was part of the People’s Republic. Taiwan rejected that proposal. [Then-Premier] Deng Xiaoping next used the idea to resolve an emergent crisis over Hong Kong. The biggest section of Hong Kong, the New Territories, was scheduled to revert to mainland rule in 1997, and real-estate investors feared they would lose everything in the reversion. Those concerns led to a historic confrontation between Deng and [British Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher in December 1984, and the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, which promised “to preserve the judicial system, legislative and executive autonomy, and all the key freedoms to which Hong Kong people had become accustomed for 50 years.” Overholt, W. (2019). Hong Kong: The Rise and Fall of “One Country, Two Systems, Boston: Harvard Kennedy School, p. 1.
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Often compared to Wall Street, the Central district is Hong Kong’s financial and business center, and where the headquarters of major international and domestic corporations and numerous countries’ consulates are located. https://www.scmp.com/article/1604649/what-occupy-central-10-things-you-need-know
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The name Umbrella Movement comes from the protesters’ use of umbrellas to shield themselves from tear gas and pepper spray that the police used to disperse protesters.
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Lindsay Maizland and Eleanor Albert. 2021. “Hong Kong’s Freedoms: What China Promised and How It’s Cracking Down.” Council of Foreign Relations, 100 |Backgrounders. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hong-kong-freedoms-democracy-protests-china-crackdown
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See footnote no. 6
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Dore, G.M.D., McCarthy, A.D., Scharf, J.A. (2023). Introduction. In: A Free Press, If You Can Keep It. SpringerBriefs in Political Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27584-5_1
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