CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
5.2 Limitations And Future Research
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5.2 L
IMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH－LIMITATIONS
This study is an exploration, it does not test any cause-effect-relationship between the online media, anti-government actions and civil society thus it is hard to tell if these three elements interacted with each other and their connection. Therefore, it is also difficult to interpret the degree of the online media’ influence on civic activism and civil society.
Furthermore, there have been some limitations impacting this research. This study could not collect enough examples from the pro-establishment media due to there being too few posts by the pro-establishment camp consequently it is difficult to give a clearer picture to show the differences of how the two media camps represent anti-government actions. Additionally, one senior pro-establishment media outlet – True. Love Macao (真.愛澳門), which was an interview target declined to talk also making it hard for the researcher to collect more opinions.
In terms of activists who share similar backgrounds and experience in participating in civil actions it may result in homogenous views on some issues. For example, the four activists either had close connections or are still key members of New Macau Association (新澳門學社), a local pro-democracy political group. This association owns pro-democracy media outlet Macau Concealers.
Furthermore, one activist –Chao Teng Hei (周庭希) – had been director of this media although he was not the real one in-charge of the media. Furthermore, the interviewee Choi Chi Choi (崔子釗) who had been working as an assistant to the lawmakers from the New Macau Association (新澳門學社) before becoming the person- in - charge of Macau Concealers that there is no surprise that he and another activist Lei Kuok Keong share similar views when responding to how the emergence of the pro-establishment camp impacted the rival camp. Both see the pro-democracy camp’s influence over social issues being undermined.
Due to the fact that there is not many relevant references to local online media and civil society it has been difficult to provide comparative views on how far both are from neighbouring regions such as Hong Kong.
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－FUTURE RESEARCH
Media’s key members think there is no intention to construct the identity of Macau people while literature reviews suggest that new media helped to build it. There is room for further study on:
- The survival of pro-democracy media as both activists and pro-democracy media outlets see the local media ecology as worsening as the local government seems to be further restraining the media’s behaviour, particularly those dissenting media outlets by putting out more regulations.
- A big picture of the pro-establishment media camp including its development and its impact because of its extensive influence.
- How to apply discourse analysis to discuss the two media camps’ interpretation of the subjectivity of Macau, the identity of Macau people. One of the original purposes of this paper was to apply discourse analysis to compare how the media outlets of the two camps employ such elements in their reports but unfortunately there have been too few examples collected in this study to make comparison. Media have their influence of affecting people to envisage how their society should develop. Online media’s construction of subjectivity of the city and the identity of Macau people also impacts their thoughts on of the future of the city.
- The differences between Hong Kong’s independent media and local pro-democracy media camp is to see which role they can play to better assist the development of civil society in the two former colonies, Hong Kong returned to the mainland in 1997 while Macau returned in 1999.
- Online media have their advantages and influence which the traditional media cannot compete with and there has been a great deal of research suggesting that the Internet has an impact on social change. If online media in Macau just prefer to maintain their reporting role, whether that may be a key advantage by using social media as the main platform in making possible changes to local society needs further study.
Compared to online media in Hong Kong and Taiwan, it seems that local online media are less diverse and less active in taking part in social movements. However, whether such characteristics are good for the development of the city’s civil society or
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not is still a question. Although All About Macau and Macau Concealers have their strong beliefs for upholding some values such as justice and dissenting voices. All About Macau and Macau Concealers are considered alternative online media (Su, 2017) these media outlets provide alternative information and views different from the mainstream media and also facilitate the development of local civil society. The question that I may ask “is that enough?”.
Based on the findings, I believe that activist media outlets should be developed for the local community and meanwhile investigative reports should be more detailed. With more in-depth and investigative reports I believe that they should be the means to fight against the authorities, the more investigative reports he more people can know about what is really behind the news. To some degree Sou and Choi think the potential mobilising power of the online media should be concentrated on their disseminative ability and doing more investigation of a particular issue. Moreover, online media should develop more in constructing the identity of Macau people. As mentioned by pro-democracy media outlet All About Macau it stresses the term of “Macau people”
more when it covers topics relevant to Macau culture and heritage. I believe such topics should be paid more attention to with an attempt to strengthen local people’s sense of belonging which may help the unification of the local community. To summarise, online media should play the role of promoting diversified values which are generally accepted by international community and to ensure the public’s right to access information and to know what really happened.
Macau should develop its civil society with diverse values such as democracy and social justice and embedded in the local community. As some findings of this study indicate although more people are becoming more active in expressing their views and demanding justice, as well as more being willing in taking part social actions, most of the actions have been done because people’s individual interests or income were damaged not because of social injustice. I believe that some universal values such as democracy, freedom and social justice should be a matter of course in a mature civil society.
Online media in Macau can have a role in the public sphere or to facilitate the discussion about such values and help to reach a consensus on what the contents of such concepts should include to fit the local community.
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APPENDICES
APPENDIX A：SCREENSHOTS 1.
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4
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5a
5b
5c
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Pro-democracy camp
10 All About Macau （論盡媒體）
11 Macau Concealers（愛暪日報）
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Pro-establishment camp
12 UTV （澳門網絡媒體）
13 True. Love Macao（真·愛澳門）
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APPENDIX B: QUESTIONS SPECIALLY-DESIGNED FOR INDIVIDUAL MEDIA Macau Concealers
1. Being a media outlet with close connections to a local political group How do you balance the political group’s interests and public interest?
2. How to attract more readers?
3. How to survive?
4. How to evaluate the impact of your media on society?
5. How do you define your media’s role in developing civil society in Macau?
6. What do you think about the ecology of online media?
7. Do you think the colonial background of Macau affects the landscape of online media? How and why?
8. Can you evaluate the relationship between your medium and social movement/NGOs?
All About Macau
1. Do you worry about survival?
2. How to survive?
3. How to attract more readers?
4. How to evaluate the impact of your media on the society?
5. How do you define your media’s role in developing civil society in Macau?
6. What do you think about the ecology of online media?
7. Do you think the colonial background of Macau affects the landscape of online media? How and why?
8. Can you evaluate the relationship between your medium and social movement/NGOs?
UTV
1. Why focus on video?
2. Why do you prefer producing contents that are so-called positive or pro-establishment?
3. How do you define your role when facing the role of supervising the government?
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4. How do you evaluate the impact of your media on society?
5. How do you define your media’s role in developing civil society in Macau?
6. Do you worry about survival?
7. How can you survive?
8. How will you attract more readers?
9. Why does your media seem to prefer promoting Macau government rather than criticising it?
10. What do you think about the ecology of online media?
11. Do you think the colonial background of Macau affects the ecology of local online media? How and why?
12. UTV’s first video was released on YouTube in 2011 but on its Facebook page the first video was released in 2015, can you explain why?
13. Can you evaluate the relationship between your medium and social movement/NGOs?
True. Love Macao
1. Why post such much so called positive and pro-establishment news?
2. How do you define your role when supervising the government?
3. How do you evaluate the impact of your media on society?
4. How do you define your media’s role in developing civil society in Macau?
5. True. Love Macao was founded in 2004 but the first post was only published in May 2014, what are reasons for that?
6. Why does your media seem to prefer promoting Macau government rather than criticising it?
7. What do you do think about the ecology of online media?
8. Do you think the colonial background of Macau affects the landscape of local online media? How and why?
9. Can you evaluate the relationship between your medium and social movement/NGOs?