While much has been written about the recent shifts in editorial stance of the Hong Kong press in anticipation of the transfer of sovereignty from Britain to China, little attention has been paid to the causes of these changes. This article examines the political economy of the Hong Kong press system in the decade leading up to the sovereignty transfer and accounts for editorial changes by tracing structural changes in the pattern of ownership. In The US Increase in Chinese immigration in the United States over the past decade has resulted in the growth and vitality of Chinese media as well as competition for market share. Although a number of recent content analysis studies have examined the coverage of specific events such as Tiananmen and its aftermath and Hong Kong's return to China, relatively little research has been conducted from an audience perspective. This essay first appeared in Quadrant, May 1998.
Obscurantism is assumed to equal profundity.
The author asserts that journalism educators should draw from their professional experience, write their own textbooks and develop their own 'journalism theory'. The case study examines the relationship between cyber technology and potentially new ways of imagining the nation. We end up with a split between theory and design which defeats the role of theory as a critical and analytical part of the design business or education program. This article argues that it is a false economy to have such an oppositional split between theory and practice or studies and production. The ideal of a popular gathering of citizens to participate in journalistic endeavours has been rarely realised.