The Press, the Public, and the Public Sphere
CCHU 9047
The Press, the Public and the Public Sphere
Final essay
A Critical Evaluation on a News Source and its Role in the Public Sphere:
With Special Reference to the Electronic Version of Apple Daily (HK)
Introduction
The newspaper industry in Hong Kong has been developing gradually since the 19th century, and the Hong Kong Government Gazette, an official publication of the British colonial government, can be defined as the first newspaper providing an important reference to local political and constitutional issues in the past hundred years.1
In the late 20th century, owing to several decades of sustainable and significant development facilitated by various leading publishers receiving considerable support from private or state-owned business communities, the industry was further expanded, and the newspaper market was shared by a great deal of press groups, such as Ming Pao, Oriental Daily News and Sing Tao Daily, attracting a wide range of readers who were professionals, middle class or ordinary people.2 During the 1980s, Hong Kong already became one of the leading media centers in East Asia.
Until the mid-1990, Apple Daily which was a new daily broadsheet established by Jimmy Lai Chee Ying, the founder and chairman of Next Media Limited,3 broke into the competitive market by introducing a tabloid style into news reports with screaming front-page headlines, sensational images and shocking news stories. Such journalistic style not only caused marked and revolutionary changes in the regular newspaper format, but also displayed a new tendency among local newspapers in terms of publicity and universality.
In the 2000s, Apple Daily started to focus on the online publication and established an animation studio called “Next Media Animation”, a subsidiary of Next Media in Taiwan, in order to implement an alternative and innovative approach which would help the spread of domestic and foreign news through web-based discussion platforms,
The Press, the Public and the Public Sphere
Final essay
A Critical Evaluation on a News Source and its Role in the Public Sphere:
With Special Reference to the Electronic Version of Apple Daily (HK)
Introduction
The newspaper industry in Hong Kong has been developing gradually since the 19th century, and the Hong Kong Government Gazette, an official publication of the British colonial government, can be defined as the first newspaper providing an important reference to local political and constitutional issues in the past hundred years.1
In the late 20th century, owing to several decades of sustainable and significant development facilitated by various leading publishers receiving considerable support from private or state-owned business communities, the industry was further expanded, and the newspaper market was shared by a great deal of press groups, such as Ming Pao, Oriental Daily News and Sing Tao Daily, attracting a wide range of readers who were professionals, middle class or ordinary people.2 During the 1980s, Hong Kong already became one of the leading media centers in East Asia.
Until the mid-1990, Apple Daily which was a new daily broadsheet established by Jimmy Lai Chee Ying, the founder and chairman of Next Media Limited,3 broke into the competitive market by introducing a tabloid style into news reports with screaming front-page headlines, sensational images and shocking news stories. Such journalistic style not only caused marked and revolutionary changes in the regular newspaper format, but also displayed a new tendency among local newspapers in terms of publicity and universality.
In the 2000s, Apple Daily started to focus on the online publication and established an animation studio called “Next Media Animation”, a subsidiary of Next Media in Taiwan, in order to implement an alternative and innovative approach which would help the spread of domestic and foreign news through web-based discussion platforms,