CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
5.1 Summary of Findings
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CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
5.1SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
The role of the online media in the local media market has become significant.
Therefore, the ways and attitude the online media have adopted while reporting social issues or conveying messages are worth studying, especially when they report controversies and massive actions opposing the authorities. To some degree the news reports about controversies and anti-government actions by online media will impact what their readers think about them and how they react to them.
Therefore, this study applied two research methods – discourse analysis and semi-constructed interview – to explore how the online media report civic activism and whether their stance affects their representation; and the relationship between online media and the development of local civil society.
The development of the Internet has brought a significant impact to the landscape of the local media industry thus the local print media were attracted to exploring the potential market. Meanwhile, the Internet also encourages the growth of local online media, particularly those preferring to publish alternative views to the mainstream media and that causes pressure on the government.
The findings, although restrained by the scope of research methods, suggest online media in Macau have been rapidly developing over past few years, particularly after 2014, which local activists consider remarkable. On the one hand, the role of online media, namely the pro-democracy media outlets have never reached a peak. On the other hand, the local online media market has been diversifying. It has not dominated by the pro-democracy camp any more as its counterparts have become significant.
Since 2014 the city’s online media obviously separated into two rival camps and the power of the two camps seems to be level pegged over the past few years. However, so far it seems that there is little research about the two online media camps and their operations, as well as their influence. To some degree this research fills the gap. The results of this research suggest that the two media camps have relatively opposite preferences in their contents, attitude towards anti-government actions or civic activism and their methods of survival are also different. In general, the pro-democracy camp supports civil actions, underprivileged groups and those that embarrass the government while the pro-establishment camp goes in the opposite direction. The pro-democracy
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camp is more dependent on the general public so crowd funding is their main way of surviving while the pro-establishment camp relies on their social connections.
Interviews with working journalist, former journalist and activists confirmed the ecology of online media, especially in terms of the pro-democracy media camp, has been deteriorating. More competition, few financial resources and a lot of suppression from regulations have made the pro-democracy media outlets face more difficulties meanwhile the pro-establishment online media camp has been steadily increasing its influence by providing entertainment information or soft contents.
The findings of the discourse analysis indicate that the two media camps have different emphasis when they reported news related to the case of disqualifying local lawmaker (DQ) Sou Ka Hou ( 蘇 嘉 豪 ) and the related demonstration. The pro-establishment media stresses on the rule of law and those who must face penalties when they break law regardless of what they had done and the reasons behind it. Conversely, pro-democracy media outlets stress the terms such as citizens, civil rights, Macau people and civil actions and power when they are facing social injustice issues. Such findings proved the existing research which suggested that two pro-democracy media outlets – All About Macau(論盡澳門) and Macau Concealers(愛瞞日報) as anti-establishment or online alternative media and they can break the hegemony of
“harmonic news” of the city’s mainstream media (Chou, 2016, Su, 2017). Previous research also suggests media and new media, namely those which relay on the Internet as a platform (Hao, 2013, Leung, 2012) had helped to construct a collective identity of Macau people. However, this study finds that online media have no intention to do anything aimed at constructing the identity of Macau people. However, the pro-democracy camp sometimes uses the term “China” instead of the mainland in their reports to make a distinction or emphasising the term “Macau people” when depicting the city’s landscape.
On the one hand, comments from activists and online media outlets indicate that it is difficult for online media to motivate people to take real actions although their dissemination power is vast thus, they believe that they should go back to the real world.
This study also finds that local activists had not paid much attention to media strategies when they were moving local people to take into civic activism, explicitly the protests related to the perks-bill and the donation incident. On the other hand, findings presented in current research indicate all three online media outlets disagree that they should be
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involved in moving people to take part in any individual civil action thus none of them consider activist media as direction for their future development. Scholar Su (2017) suggested Macau Concealers acted in the role as an activist media but the findings of this research indicate this media outlet has no intention of being an activist media.
Comments from activists and online media outlets suggest that the role of the pro-democracy media camp in affecting civil actions such as protests has been declining, particularly when comparing their roles in 2014’s protests and 2016’s protest. The main players of these protests confirmed the influence of the pro-democracy media camp in terms of massive civic activism has been marginalised after the arrival of the pro-establishment media camp.
In describing the latest development of civil society, most of pro-democracy online media and activists see it is not ideal and those who take part in anti-government actions are doing it more for the sake of personal interest than demanding a change to institutions such as the political system. Pro-democracy media outlet – All About Macau – sees that Macau civil society has not arrived at the level demanding democracy instead residents have a strong voice when their personal interests are involved. In terms of the situation of local civil society, the findings confirm the existing literature that suggests that civil society in Macau is not mature (Hao, 2013).
Furthermore, the findings also indicate that although a larger variety voices are heard although most of them are not involved in the pursuit values such as democracy or social justice, thus whether more people taking part in social issues or actions has moved the development of local civil society remains questionable. However, the findings of this study suggest that the development of Macau civil society is not that optimistic and its development and the central government has power over how it should grow thus the local community seems powerless to decide the outlook of the future civil society for Macau. Furthermore, the findings also indicate that online media has limited impact on the development of civil society in Macau. Su (2017) suggested that the emergence of the alternative media, namely All About Macau and Macau Concealers, was believed to facilitate the development of local civil society. This scholar suggested their role of alternative online media on the growth of Macau’s civil society has recently become more and important. In Su’s article, he has not discussed the arrival of the pro-establishment media and the influence over its rival and local civil society.
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Over recent years the society has developed rapidly namely its economy which is benefiting from the gaming industry. Therefore, the local government has repeatedly recorded huge fiscal surpluses. The wealthy government uses public money to subsidise pro-establishment groups and many associations established their own online media to promote the values they believe in or are favoured by the government. However, concerning the government’s intention of further restricting the operation of the local media industry and the growing influence of the pro-establishment online media camp, the pro-democracy camp probably face more challenges and difficulties, even a survival crisis. It could be a question whether the pro-democracy media camp could keep its influence over public issues or controversies, even with the growth of local civil society.
Unsurprisingly the Internet or social network sites have been a battlefield for groups believing in various values. Online media in Macau have also followed such a trend and fight to spread their influence wider and more deeply. The findings of the research reveal that over the past decade more resources have been invested in developing online media, particularly the pro-establishment camp, even the traditional print media have also allocated their resources to spread or propagate their messages and values. Macau is a small city, which mainly relies on tourism and gambling, but it has its fragile side, in which the number of tourists has been a critical factor influencing the city’s economy. According to the latest official data, most of the visitors to the city come from mainland China. In other words, the central government policies have a decisive impact on the local economic development. The Chinese authorities could have an overwhelming impact on the local economy if the economic structure does not fundamentally change and if so, local media should lean towards polarisation as most local media know to choose a position which benefits their development.Thus, it could be seen that more and more local media even online media could choose to keep in line with the existing authority.
Before 2004 the local gaming industry was still a monopoly and local society still enjoyed a relatively diversified economic structure while local media had also preferred to expressing fairly different preferences in their standpoint. However, currently the local media including online media tends to be more uniform while the local economy has becoming very dependent on the gaming and gaming-related businesses. It could be that local media are leaning towards being more pro-establishment and that is not an ideal condition to help the city develop with diversified values.