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National security law & Hong Kong protests

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National security law & Hong Kong protests

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This is a video of BBC introducing the national security law and different reactions towards the law.

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Hong Kong security law- Life sentences for breaking China-imposed law - BBC News

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Since the handover of power in 1997 from British to China, a part of Hong Kong citizens has not stopped the protests (Cai, 2016, p.18). Among numerous discussions of Hong Kong protests, the mass media have a wide audience and have played an important role in propagating political ideas. Veneti, Karadimitriou, and Poulakidakos indicate that different media have different views on Hong Kong protests, which to some extent represents its political tendency (2017).

Besides, there is a protest paradigm in many reports which are against the protests. It is a mode of reporting that emphasizes the violent and destructive nature of protests, portrays the official opinions of administrative, and ignores the voice of protesters (Lee, 2014, p.2727). Even though the protest paradigm does not apply to all the coverage, it is useful to recognize the function and the attitude of news media (Lee, 2014, p.2740).

The Hong Kong National Security Law was promulgated in June this year, which triggered a new wave of protests and attracted media’s attention. Therefore, I will study the coverage concerning this protest published in People’s Daily from June 2020, so as to investigate whether these news reports follow the protest paradigm and to show People’s Daily’s attitude towards Hong Kong protests.

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Method: Content analysis is a popular research method for objectively, systematically and quantitatively describing the content of communication (Wimmer & Dominick, 2013). This study will adopt content analysis to analyze the content and attitude of People's Daily on Hong Kong protests from an objective perspective.

Sample: Samples of this study are coverage written in English in People’s Daily. Both the Factiva database and the official website of People’s Daily will be used to identify news articles published during June and August that contain the terms ‘Hong Kong’ or ‘protest’ in the headline or lead paragraph.

Coding: Based on research conducted by Veneti, Karadimitriou, and Poulakidakos (2016), two frameworks are used in this research:
1) main object of coverage: protester, bystander, administrative.
2) main content of coverage: legality or illegality, the violent behavior and appearance of the protesters, the reasons and claims of the protesters, impact on the economy and society, measures taken by the government and police, attitudes of bystanders and other.

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One of the findings is about the main object of coverage. Out of the 24 selected news reports, there is 20 coverage that contains a clear main object. As can be seen from the chart below, nearly 50% of the main objects of coverage are the government and the police, one-fifth news reports are direct description of protesters, and 16% of coverage is based on bystanders.

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As the official newspaper of the Chinese government, People's Daily chose to report administrative and portray negative images of protesters. Therefore, it can be seen that the People's Daily has a negative attitude towards Hong Kong protests.

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Cai, Y. (2016). The occupy movement in   Hong Kong: Sustaining decentralized protest. Taylor & Francis.

Lee, F. L. (2014). Triggering the protest paradigm: Examining factors affecting news coverage of protests. International Journal of Communication, 8, 22.

Veneti, A., Karadimitriou, A., & Poulakidakos, S. (2016). Media ecology and the politics of dissent: representations of the Hong Kong protests in the Guardian and China Daily. Social Media+ Society, 2(3), 2056305116662175.

Wimmer, R. D., & Dominick, J. R. (2013). Mass media research. Cengage learning.