Browsing by Projects - Department "Department of Journalism & Communication"

Throughout the world, the mainstream news media have tended to attach more importance to political news than court news. However, in recent years, Hong Kong (“HK”) has witnessed a very different scenario, where court news has increasingly become an important news genre. In 2019, Hong Kong experienced arguably the most tumultuous political crisis in the contemporary era. The anti-extradition bill amendment movement (“Anti-ELAB Movement”) has resulted in a large amount of court trials, with numerous political figures and protesters being sent to the courts to defend their alleged illegal activities during the period of social unrest. According to the Hong Kong Police’s figures, up until May 2022, more than 10,200 people were arrested among which 2,850 people were charged (Mok, 2022). After the street protests and the political conflicts in political institutions (such as the legislature) had subsided following the end of the movement and the promulgation of the national security law (“NSL”) in 2020, legal conflicts have persisted in the courtrooms between prosecutors, defendants, and judges. Over the past three years, HK media have closely and relentlessly monitored all these court trials, elevating the salience of court news in both media and public agendas (Tang, 2022). It is perhaps for the first time in recent decades that HK citizens are being exposed to legal information on such a large scale.

The growing prominence of court news related to protests and politics deserves more scholarly attention. This study aims to examine the conceived significance and journalistic roles, the production practices, and the content of the associated news reports. For the conceived significance and journalistic roles, it is imperative to find out why HK journalists have paid so much attention to court news related to protests and politics against the city’s democratic backsliding in the post-NSL era. As HK journalists have long held a liberal conception of the press, believing in the monitorial and adversarial roles of the media in providing checks and balances on the authorities, including the judiciary, it is also important to examine whether they would still uphold these types of professional roles when covering court news.

For production practices, this study will identify the political and other non-political factors that may affect the production of court news related to protests and politics. Politically, in face of growing concerns over the decline of press freedom, it is important to examine whether the growing political and legal pressures in the post-NSL era have affected the production of the concerned court news. Organizationally, we will pay attention to the relationship between the media and the court and examine whether and how it may also affect the room for newsgathering practices for court news. Technologically, with the digital transformation of the news landscape, there has been a rise in online alternative media and social media influencers specializing in court news in recent years. We will examine how they make use of digital platforms to produce alternative court news. At the individual level, the mainstream and alternative court news journalists may also differ in their conceived significance and journalistic roles in covering court news. In order to map out the new ecology of court news production in the post-NSL era, the differences in the production practices as well as the contents between the mainstream and alternative media necessitate investigation. Finally, with regard to contents, this study will examine what sorts of court information have been communicated to the public. We will analyze their content features, including their news values (e.g., deviance, conflicts, and importance), framing, and enacted professional roles.

To address the above conceptual issues, we will mainly conduct qualitative in-depth interviews with the court news journalists and a quantitative content analysis of the court news.

As HK has witnessed paradigmatic changes in the legal system, the political field, and the news landscape in the post-NSL era, a study of court news would provide a unique theoretical window to re-examine and reflect upon their changing relationships in the new political and legal context of HK. To the best of our knowledge, this study will be the first of its kind in HK, which will fill the long-standing theoretical void of court news research locally.

With the rise of political consumerism, consumers and other stakeholders often assert pressures on firms to voice their stance on sociopolitical issues (Jungblut & Johnen, 2021). In response to these pressures, multinational corporations (MNCs) have been increasingly engaging in corporate social activism (CSA), which refers to a public statement or action taken by a firm to express its support for or opposition to a sociopolitical issue (Bhagwat et al., 2020).

In the recent Russo–Ukrainian War, various MNCs (e.g., Apple, Nike and McDonald’s.) announced their withdrawal from the Russian market to demonstrate the stance against the war. These CSA-oriented market-exit decisions are substantially different from the traditional view of market exits with the economic logic of abandoning underperformed markets (Karakaya, 2000). Firms engaging in CSA can satisfy target stakeholders, which may benefit the corporate brand. Nevertheless, market exits implicate resources and cost commitments, making the financial return of the CSA-oriented market exits questionable.

Taking the MNCs’ market exit from Russia amidst the 2022 Russo–Ukrainian War as the research context, this project aims at exploring whether a CSA-driven market exit benefits firm performance in terms of (a) corporate brand equity and (b) profitability. This project will conduct a natural experiment to examine the treatment effect of CSA-oriented market exits on corporate brand equity and profitability. The analysis aims to quantify the impacts of CSA- oriented market exits by capturing significant abnormal changes in corporate brand equity and profitability after the decisions were made.

In addition, this project explores the factors that affect the benefits of CSA-oriented market exits. Through the theoretical lens of instrumental stakeholder theory, this project will examine the moderating roles of target market structure and media reaction in the abnormal performance changes caused by CSA-oriented market exits.

The outcome of this project is expected to provide theoretical contributions. Specifically, this project can contribute to the CSA literature by providing empirical evidence concerning the long-term impacts of CSA on brand and profit performance of firms. Furthermore, this project will provide evidence to demonstrate the importance of major markets’ support and positive media reaction to the benefits of engaging in CSA. In addition, this project can also enrich the literature on market exits by incorporating the lens of CSA in investigating the impacts of market exits.

Practically, this project will provide references for MNCs deeply involved in global markets in terms of how CSA-oriented market exits may affect their brands and profits. This project will also provide guidance on managing market exits in a more effective manner in the current international markets involving complex sociopolitical issues. The project outcomes can also inform governments of the quantitative effects of CSA-oriented market exits and the potential impacts on the economy, which can be important references for future policy making.

Although history is usually based on tangible materials such as printed texts, documents and sound recordings, some histories, such as the history of contemporary journalism in Hong Kong, can only be known through the oral narratives of veteran journalists.

This project will systematically interview senior veteran journalists about their experiences working in the Chinese media in Hong Kong. We will then verify their testimonies, analyse them and place them in their historical context.

Veteran Journalists Will Be Interviewed (including but not limited to the following):

For decades, the relationships among the functions of public relations, advertising, and marketing have long been discussed by scholars across disciplines. Stepping into the digital era, such a cross-disciplinary controversy gets complicated that the prevalent usage of digital-driven technology may bring a convergence of the three domains. This project attempts to enhance participants’ understanding of the emerging trends on the applications of digital-driven experiential technology (e.g., augmented reality, virtual reality, and extended reality) to marketing communications that bring convergence and/or divergence of public relations, advertising, and marketing from a theoretical perspective.

By facilitating dialogues between academics and practitioners, the project will offer three research seminars to explore the main theme of revisiting the significance and exploring the future directions regarding the practices of digital-driven technology, particularly experiential technology, in marketing communications. Three workshops concerning the emerging trends of experiential technology in affecting organization-consumer relationships in public relations, advertising, and marketing will provide both academics and practitioners with cutting-edge and hands-on experience to reflect on the challenges of digital practices and rethink the effectiveness of digital practices in public relations, advertising, and marketing. Prominent scholars, top practitioners, and experienced researchers will be invited to speak at the seminars and workshops to exchange insights with participants. The primary targets of this project are scholars, researchers, and practitioners from local and overseas institutions. Apart from seminars and workshops, other deliverables of the project (e.g., project website, online teaching manual, publications) will be beneficial to undergraduates and secondary school students, as well as the community.

Confusion and conflict have emerged on the relationship between public relations and marketing both theoretically and practically in the past few decades. Recent research has highlighted the discrepancy of public relations functions and public relations values between the professions of public relations and marketing. Stepping into the digital era, it is critical to examine the use of social media by public relations practitioners in Hong Kong and how interactivity brings similarities and differences to public relations functions and values in the professions of public relations and marketing. This research will use a coorientation framework to explore how the two groups of professionals (Public Relations VS. Marketing) perceive the public relations values they could attain, and the public relations functions and interactivity function they performed. A two-stage analysis, which involves both an empirical survey and a series of in-depth interviews targeting at public relations and marketing professionals, will be conducted to finalize a Public Relations Function Index in the digital era. The findings will generate both theoretical and practical contributions to the understanding of the public relations and marketing professions in Hong Kong.