CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1INTRODUCTION
It is believed that the massive protest on 25th May 2014 not only shocked Macau government with its huge number of the protestors but also awakened the government and the whole society to think about how and why it occurred and was supported by many people. This largest protest after Macau returned to mainland China in 1999, in which the organiser claimed that over 20,000 participants sat in front in the Legislative Assembly (AL), expressed their outrage at a government-drafted bill regulating the welfare and benefits for retired high-ranking officials including the chief executive.
However, according to the police authority, there were just about 7,000 people took part in the rally.
Apart from its social and political meaning, how this protest, or anti-perks bill protest as called by Macau media in general, had been reported in traditional media and online media as well as drawing the public’s attention. Such a massive social campaign not only impressed the general public with its numbers and its appeals but also how the local media interpreted and represented it. However, there has not yet been much research comparing the online media and traditional print media in reporting the incident. Nevertheless, a stark difference between both was seen when comparing the contents and forms of print media and online media
Taking this protest as a case in comparing the way the print media outlets and online media outlets reported it, I found that two online media outlets, namely Macau Concealers(愛暪日報) and All About Macau (論盡媒體), continuously updated their social network -Facebook page on the latest developments in the protest, while the former even had live-streamed the protest.
These two online media outlets kept updating netizens about the protest with text, videos and photos on their Facebook pages. However, most print media outlets just released news about the protest the next day.
According to the data provided by All About Macau, on the day the protest occurred, it had composed six posts and released 53 photos updates of the latest development of the march during the demonstration which lasted about eight hours.
Those updates received 4,520 likes, 518 shares and 15 comments. Facebook functions not only allow people to express their views, ideas and comments but also, they are able
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to express their emotions with emojis and interact with others. One of the comments stated that “If I don’t take part in this protest I will regret it for my whole life”1 and other response stated “Overthrow corrupted officials”2. Through the social network site, people not only showed their attitude towards the protest but it also allowed them to interact with others.
Within such new form in receiving and reacting to contents from the media, whether or not there it affects an on-going incident, whether such change can become a power to move people to express their opinions and even take online action and whether such a space can become a public sphere for people to discuss social issues and policies, all these questions need to be addressed.
On the same day, another online media Macau Concealers had also composed six posts and 20 photos to update people on the latest situation of the march. Those updates and photos received 19,355 likes, 1,206 comments and 994 shares. Besides the posts and photos, Macau Concealers also released two videos which lasted a total of about five minutes, which received 4,400 likes and 353 shares. Among the comments one stated that "We must continue taking action to show them our determination," 3while another stated that "Today's incident strongly shows us that sheep-like people produce the wolf-alike government"4.
However, a total of eight articles were published the day after the protest by eight local Chinese language newspapers including two opinion articles. Of the eight print media outlets only newspapers – Macao Daily News(澳門日報), Seng Pou (星報) and Cheng Pou (正報) put the protest as their front page headline while the three other newspapers –Vakio Daily(華僑報), Shimin Daily(市民報) and Taichung Daily (大眾 報) put three lawmakers calling for a review of the bill as their front page story while Sanvaou Daily (新華澳報) and Exmoo News (力報) published opinion articles about
1. Source : https://www.facebook.com/allaboutmacau/posts/661541847244323. Also, see screenshot NO.1 on Appendix A.
2. Source : https://www.facebook.com/allaboutmacau/posts/661541847244323. Also, see screenshot NO.2 on Appendix A.
3. Source : https://www.facebook.com/macauconcealers/photos/a.538666702869102.
1073741826.153478958054547/655275611208210/?type=3&theater. Also, see screen shot NO.3 on Appendix A.
4. Source : https://www.facebook.com/macauconcealers/photos/a.538666702869102.
1073741826.153478958054547/655275611208210/?type=3&theater. Also, see screen shot NO.4 on Appendix A.
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
the protest.
When just simply comparing the quantity and form of the contents of the protest that online and print media published, there were very obvious differences found. When such a stark variance is just directly clashing with the print media outlets, it is necessary to carry an in-depth study on the emergence of the online media and their impact on the traditional media and the media ecology, as well as to society.
Liu and Lou (2010) mentioned that the eight government-subsidised Chinese language newspapers have not fully utilised their role of supervising the government.
They urged that with the diversified ways of using the Internet the city's netizens have become empowered to make dialogue and take part in actions (Liu & Lou, 2010). While another scholar said that the most representative online alternative media in Macau are Macau Concealers and All About Macau Media (Su, 2017) and these two online media are the research targets of this study.
However, regarding such a massive protest, some online media including True.
Love Macao (真・愛澳門), which is also research target of this paper did not report anything. Even from May 7 to July 10 there was no news or shares about this incident5. With using the case of action against the perks bill, we can find how different the traditional print media and online media work regarding the form and content when reporting the incident. However, there are different online media outlets, which have different viewpoints from Macau Concealers and All About Macau, that seem to lean towards being pro-establishment and establishment. Now I take a case that occurred late in 2017 about a directly-elected lawmaker Sou Ka Hou （蘇嘉豪） facing the possible disqualification from his post to show that online media had a different standpoint when dealing with the incident and what comments were left on their Facebook page. The issue of disqualifying a lawmaker was one visible consequence of the protest against the government’s donation to Jinan University in 2015. Sou was one of the key leaders of the anti-Jinan donation campaign and he was elected in 2017's legislative election. At the time of writing this thesis, he was suspended from his position in the Legislature because of the charge of the aggravate disobedience since he was accused of disobeying orders issued by the police authority in the protest against the donation decision. Sou resumed his duty in July 2018.
5. Source : https://www.facebook.com/pg/true.lovemacao/posts/?ref=page_internal.
Also, see screenshot NO.5a,5b & 5c on Appendix A.
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On 13 November 2017, True. Love Macao released videos and an opinion article titled “lawmaker violates law must be punished like an ordinary person” and two comments stated, "[He] deserves it”.6 The video titled “Use 2.5 minutes to understand why ‘lawmaker who violates the law must be punished like an ordinary person'".
Furthermore, the opinion article has been published twice. 7Meanwhile, another online media UTV（澳門網絡媒體）, which is also a target research media for this paper just shared a post from Macau Cable TV about Sou and there was no follow-up information about the ongoing case8. A comment left under the post was “[He] deserves it”.9 However, All About Macau and Macau Concealers paid continuous attention to the development of the case. Further elaboration about the differences that the four online media made while reporting this case will be further discussed in Chapter 4.
The emergence of online media is usually expected to improve the “public sphere”
and expand the way for people to voice their opinions on public issues. With the rise of online media which have a starkly different standpoint and whether they will become forces to propel local civil society to develop healthily, and provide the general public with more channels to supervise the government in a more transparent way or the opposite, should be addressed in this paper.
However, as observed it was seen that there has been very little academic research about the impact of online media on Macau's civil society. Thus, in this paper, I am going to investigate whether the city's online media has a role in promoting people to take part in massive social campaigns or movements and propel the development of civil society for the benefit of the local society. In this thesis, I shall focus on some of them including the four online media outlets mentioned above to see how they develop, their limitations, how their news reports or the information they share, is distinguished from each other, as well as looking into the association between their news reports and significant social issues and the related social campaigns, which mainly occurred between 2014 and 2017, namely the anti-perks bill and anti-Jinan University donation.
6. Source: https://www.facebook.com/pg/true.lovemacao/posts/?ref=page_internal. Al so, see screenshot NO.6 on Appendix A.
7. Source: https://www.facebook.com/true.lovemacao/videos/vb.756251414437439/1 619605791435326/?type=2&theater. Also, seescreenshot NO.7 on Appendix A.
8. Source: https://www.facebook.com/true.lovemacao/videos/vb.756251414437439/1 619605791435326/?type=2&theater. Also, seen screenshot NO.8 on Appendix A.
9. Source: https://zh-tw.facebook.com/pg/utvmacau/posts/?ref=page_internal. Also, se e screenshot NO.9 on Appendix A.