Blurred boundaries: Citizens journalists versus conventional journalists in Hong Kong

Abstract

Hong Kong has a reputation for being one of the freest media societies in Asia, but its ranking on press freedom indices has fallen steadily since the Chinese takeover in 1997. The online media have nevertheless created a space for a widened public sphere. In a situation of growing self-censorship and rise of alternative journalism formats, this study asks whether citizen journalism represents a viable alternative to conventional journalism. The aim of the study is to map out differences between conventional journalists and citizen journalists with regard to role perception. The empirical data consist of 12 semi-structured interviews with citizen journalists and conventional journalists in Hong Kong. The study finds that both groups are concerned about the future of press freedom, perceiving high degrees of self-censorship as well as political and commercial pressure. Concerns about declining trust are strong. Neither of the informant groups trusts the media to be neutral, and they do not express support to “Beijing” (i.e., central Chinese politics). At the same time, professional journalists do not trust citizen journalism to be a viable alternative to traditional journalism, especially because of deficient validation processes and lack of neutrality. The citizen journalists on their part are in fact often organized in one way or another, and they do to some extent follow established editorial procedures. This indicates that even if the conventional journalists are skeptical to the new group of journalists, the two groups may not be as different as they might think. The two groups largely share ideals related to journalistic expertise, duty and autonomy, but differ on the collectivist–individualist dimension. Overall, the study identifies blurred boundaries between conventional journalism and citizen journalism in Hong Kong.