PUBLIC SERVICE

School launches FactCheck Service

The School of Communication has launched its FactCheck Service on social media. Drawing on research insights about the global phenomenon of viral misinformation, it aims to provide timely, independent and transparent fact checks for the general public. It zeroes in on material that is going viral, and identifies suspicious claims for further investigation. It is now on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and Twitter. The website is expected to be launched in October.

Operated jointly by the Institute for Journalism and Society and the AI and Media Research Lab, the service is co-directed by Celine Song and Raymond Li, and managed by Stephanie Tsang. The inter-departmental working committee is chaired by Huang Yu, and co-chaired by Kara Chan and Steve Guo. The project will also conduct studies on fake news using various inter-disciplinary approaches. For more information, please contact Stephanie Tsang.

PANEL DISCUSSION

Hong Kong Press Freedom under the new Law

Saturday 5 September, 3–5pm, by Zoom.
The new National Security Law has sparked concerns about the fate of Hong Kong's press freedom. Cherian George of the Department of Journalism will be one of the panelists in a seminar on this topic organised by the Hong Kong University Faculty of Law. He will be talking about lessons from beyond China, based on his global research on media freedom and censorship. Also on the panel is Sharron Fast of HKU (who will be teaching media law in the School's MA in International Journalism Studies programme in the coming semester), and Chris Buddle of the South China Morning Post. The webinar is moderated by HKU Law Dean Hualing Fu. HKUST's Christine Loh, a former undersecretary in the Hong Kong government, is the discussant. > Register here.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Student Symposium: Narrating the New Normal

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the phrase “new normal” has entered the everyday lexicon. The expression can serve to legitimize regulations, laws, and policies that ensure organizational survival in crisis, thereby relegating the people whose uncertain livelihoods they normalize as expendable. Our new journal, Global Storytelling: Journal of Digital and Moving Image, together with the Academy of Film's Centre for Film and Moving Image Research, is organising a graduate student symposium in May 2021, "Narrating 'New Normal'", to look critically at digital and moving image stories and storytelling about “new normal(s)”. Deadline for abstracts: 1 December 2020 > Details.

HONOURS

Awards for Rose Luqiu and Timothy Fung

Luwei Rose Luqiu received the 2020 Chinese Communication Association Best Faculty Article Award for her co-authored paper, “Does political efficacy equally predict news engagement across countries? A multilevel analysis of the relationship among internal political efficacy, media environment and news engagement”. The study advances our understanding about the individual and contextual mechanisms of news engagement. It has significant implications for news organizations to consider the role of media environment while practising engagement.
 
Timothy K. F. Fung received the AEJMC ComSHER Article of the Year Award for his paper, “The role of counterfactual thinking in narrative persuasion: Its impact on patients’ adherence to treatment regimen”. The best papers published in 2019 were selected after two rounds of peer review. His  experimental study, published in Health Communication, found that narratives with counterfactual information influence attitudes and behaviors by eliciting anticipated regret and mental simulation.

NEW PUBLICATIONS

• Coe, Jason G. 2020. “The Spy Who Ought to Love Me: Se, Jie and the Melodrama of Shame Nationalism.” JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 59(4): 8–31. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2020.0039.   

• Liu, Piper Liping, and Lei Vincent Huang. 2020. “Digital Disinformation About COVID-19 and the Third-Person Effect: Examining the Channel Differences and Negative Emotional Outcomes.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.0363.   

• Zhang, Ke, and Kineta Hung. 2020. “The Effect of Natural Celebrity–Brand Association and Para-Social Interaction in Advertising Endorsement for Sustainable Marketing.” Sustainability 12(15): 6215. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12156215.    

• Man, Kit Wah Eva. “Ban Zhao.” In The Philosopher Queens, edited by Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting, 14–22. Unbound publishing, 2020.

• Ng, Kenny Kwok-Kwan. “Remaking China: The Canonization of Fei Mu’s Cinema.” In Chinese Culture in the 21st Century and Its Global Dimensions: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Kelly Kar Yue Chan, and Chi Sum Garfield Lau, 63–79. Springer Singapore Pte, 2020.
• Ng, Kenny Kwok-Kwan. “Hong Kong 1941: Cinematic Memories of an Occupied City and Regional Politics.” In A Different Brilliance—The D & B Story, edited by Ching-ling Kwok, and Ha-pak Wong, 189–203. Hong Kong Film Archive, 2020.
• Ng, Kenny Kwok-Kwan. “The Museum as Expression of Local Identity and Place: The Case of Nanjing.” In The Heritage Turn in China: The Reinvention, Dissemination and Consumption of Heritage, edited by Carol Ludwig, Linda Walton, and Yi-Wen Wang, 191–212. Amsterdam University Press, 2020.
• Ng, Kenny Kwok-Kwan. “Dialect, Sound, and Politics: Xue Juexian and Cantonese Film The Platinum Dragon.” In Currents and Counter-currents: Rewriting Hong Kong Film Historiography, edited by Su Tao, and Poshek Fu, 15–34. Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2020.
• Ng, Kenny Kwok-Kwan. “Leftwing Utopianism in Postwar Hong Kong Cantonese Cinema: On Union Film’s Adaptation of Literary Classics.” In Currents and Counter-currents: Rewriting Hong Kong Film Historiography, edited by Su Tao, and Poshek Fu, 98–118. Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2020.

• Ragragio, Jefferson Lyndon D. “Commodification.” In The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication, edited by Karen Ross, 1–3. Wiley-Blackwell, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119429128.iegmc059.

• Tsang, Stephanie Jean, and Hernando Rojas. 2020. “Opinion Leaders, Perceived Media Hostility and Political Participation.” Communication Studies, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2020.1791203.

This newsletter is published by the Associate Dean (Research and Development), HKBU School of Communication.