Friday, 22 September 2023, 12:30pm-1:30pm (HKT) at CVA 1022 and on Zoom
Research on Chinese journalism is as important as ever, but faces several challenges, including difficulties in data acquisition, restricted fieldwork access, and the need to ensure interviewee safety. In a publishing environment still dominated by American and European journals, pursuing research questions relevant to Chinese themselves can also face resistance from editors applying western-centric frameworks and agendas. These issues underscore the need for methodological and conceptual innovation, rigorous ethical frameworks, and robust support for researchers.
The speakers in this roundtable are launching a new Chinese Journalism Studies Network to sustain and energize research in this area. This international interest group aims to facilitate knowledge exchange, foster collaborative research, and advocate for improved research and publishing conditions. As established and active researchers in the field, Kecheng Fang, Luwei Rose Luqiu and Haiyan Wang are especially keen to encourage junior scholars to take up the challenge of researching this important area despite the challenges.
This roundtable is the first in a series of events planned for the new academic year. The speakers will review the current status of the field and suggest new research directions that can illuminate media dynamics in an important part of the world.
The network is supported by:
- The Centre for Media and Communication Research, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University.
- C-Centre of the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
KECHANG FANG is an Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include journalism, political communication, and digital media. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining academia, he worked as a political journalist at the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly. His work has appeared in New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, among others.
LUWEI ROSE LUQIU is an Associate Professor at the School of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University. She researches censorship, propaganda, and social movements in authoritarian regimes. Her book Propaganda, Media, and Nationalism in Mainland China and Hong Kong (Lexington, 2018) focus on the Chinese government’s propaganda strategy. Her latest book Covering the 2019 Hong Kong Protests (Palgrave, 2021) surveys the challenges frontline journalists have faced while covering protests.
HAIYAN WANG is an Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University of Macau. Her academic interests include digital journalism and feminist media studies. She is the author of Disrupting Chinese Journalism: Changing Politics, Economics and Journalistic Practices of the Legacy Newspaper Press (2023, Routledge), and The Transformation of Investigative Journalism in China: From Journalists to Activists (2016, Lexington Books).
Moderator: Cherian George, Director, Centre for Media and Communication Research, Hong Kong Baptist University
Organised by Centre for Media and Communication Research, Hong Kong Baptist University
