Bücher der Reihe Hong Kong Studies Reader

This book explores the challenges to news professionalism and media autonomy stemming from the state, market pressure, the digitalization of communication, and a polarized civil society in Hong Kong. China is tightening its control over post-handover Hong Kong, which includes press freedom. Harsh market competition, coupled with shifting readership from mainstream media to digital platforms, is squeezing the business viability of media organizations. The polarization of civil society in post-handover Hong Kong had degraded consensual values upon which news professionalism relies. Journalists have had to reorient news professionalism and media power in the midst of state-society tension, market pressure, and the shifting communication mode driven by digitalization. These are the key questions for Hong Kong media. This dynamic intervention will be of interest to journalists, scholars of civil society, and scholars of Asian politics.

This book borrows the concept of "high-definition" from digital broadcasting to highlight our unique approach to Hong Kong society, which gives a sharper image than analyses. It intends to highlight contrasts with many common and taken-for-granted stories, myths and representations of Hong Kong- which often presented with a low level of detail, lacking proper connections between grounded personal experiences and the macro social context. With chapters covering various salient dimensions of Hong Kong's society, including migration, economy, inequality, identity and social movements, our "high-definition" approach presents images with high enough "resolution" to match multiple layers of experiences from walks of life of Hong Kong people, contributing to an understanding of how global transformation impacts local people's experiences, as well as Hong Kong's significance in the regional and global system.