Luwei Rose Luqiu’s research while affiliated with Hong Kong Baptist University and other places

While online harassment directed towards women journalists are under wide discussion, the mechanism of audience intervention in stopping online harassment is less explored. Integrating bystander invention, ambivalent sexism, and social identity theories, we propose and test an integrative framework of audience intervention in online harassment of women journalists. Results from an online experiment in Hong Kong showed that type of harassment, ideological similarity between the audience member and the harassed journalist, and the presence of other responsive bystanders could shape the appraisal of harassment incidents and willingness to intervene. The study advances the literature by clarifying the contextual nuances and challenges of audience intervention in online harassment of women journalists. It bears practical implications on how to defend women journalists so as to protect press freedom, cultivate journalist-audience relationship, and enhance an inclusive and egalitarian online space.

While online harassment directed towards women journalists are under wide discussion, the mechanism of audience intervention in stopping online harassment is less explored. Integrating bystander invention, ambivalent sexism, and social identity theories, we propose and test an integrative framework of audience intervention in online harassment of women journalists. Results from an online experiment in Hong Kong showed that type of harassment, ideological similarity between the audience member and the harassed journalist, and the presence of other responsive bystanders could shape the appraisal of harassment incidents and willingness to intervene. The study advances the literature by clarifying the contextual nuances and challenges of audience intervention in online harassment of women journalists. It bears practical implications on how to defend women journalists so as to protect press freedom, cultivate journalist-audience relationship, and enhance an inclusive and egalitarian online space.

This study focuses on digital activism against sexual misconduct in higher education in China. It demonstrates the dynamic of digital activism in an authoritarian regime, explicating how different stakeholders are involved in addressing sexual violence. While the hashtag #MeToo connotes the transnational effort to use social media to demonstrate the prevalence and magnitude of sexual violence, we also highlight the importance of local experience in the power struggle between grassroots digital advocacy and state institutions and within state institutions such as the news media, universities, and policy-making bodies, with their respective histories and development trajectories. Using social media to fight sexual violence creates possibilities for change in a situation where is difficult to act independently. The study not only contributes to our understanding of the complexity of digital activism against sexual violence in an authoritarian state but also highlights the strengths and weaknesses in each effort. © 2022 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published by The University of Chicago Press.

I interviewed Wendy, a journalist for a mainstream HK newspaper, in December 2020. During the interview, which was conducted in Cantonese in my office, she recalled an editorial that her organization had published on June 13, 2019, that described the demonstration on the previous day as a riot, strongly condemned violent attacks, and accused those who questioned the use of force by police of selectively viewing the video footage and being biased toward the protesters. The editorial drew criticism for its focus on the protesters’ activities and its failure to mention that the police had beaten unarmed protesters, shot some with projectiles, and sprayed others with tear gas at close range. Several reporters and editors in Wendy’s organization had posted signs in the newsroom protesting the editorial, and other staff members had left messages on the signs expressing their concern that it would damage the newspaper’s credibility. A group of journalists and editors later issued an open letter saying that the editorial had brought shame on the staff and revealed that frontline reporters had in some cases been unable to conduct interviews as a result.

In June 2019, journalists wearing reflective clothing and protective gear shuttled between protesters and police to document the longest-running and most violent social movement in the city since its handover in 1997. The journalists were subjected to political pressure, violent attacks, and criticism and also, at times, received praise. On the ground, as violence escalated between protesters and police and the latter employed increasingly heavy-handed tactics in their dealings with frontline journalists, reporting became an ever more dangerous undertaking. Simultaneously, the political stance of the media outlets and constraints on reporting resources further complicated journalists’ efforts to document the facts on the ground. An accurate and comprehensive record of a social movement is necessary if the public is to make well-informed judgments and choices about it. As guardians of the truth, journalists seek to perform their duties without interference from either police or protesters.

City Broadcasting Channel (CBC) has been one of the independent campus channels that broadcast from Hong Kong universities. As a central unit of the Student Union of City University of Hong Kong, CBC has been managed by an elected team of students. CBC’s Facebook page states that it, “as a multimedia channel, endeavors to deliver both on- and off-union information to students, ensuring their right of acknowledgment. This [channel] thus enables students to monitor CityU and union affairs as well as things happening in society.”

Online media have been an essential source of information in the anti-ELAB movement. In fact, from television to newspapers, traditional media are no longer the first choice of consumers of news in Hong Kong (CUHK, 2020). Among online media outlets, Stand News stands out because of its live broadcasting and the respect that audiences have for its journalists—as well as its unambiguous stance as an advocacy media outlet that does not shy away from mobilizing participation in social causes. For this reason, Stand News merits investigation as a case study of the role of journalists in the anti-ELAB movement.

When the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded in 1949, the Communist Party’s press policy banned private newspapers. Therefore, two influential newspapers in mainland cities, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, relocated to Hong Kong. There, they became the external propaganda mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the control of the party’s Hong Kong and Macau Working Committee and publishers dispatched from Beijing (He, 2020). In 2016, the two newspapers merged to form the Hong Kong Dagong Wenhui Media Group under the direct control of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which is an organ of the State Council of the PRC in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). After Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997, the control of the media by the central and local governments increased. The Shenzhen Press Group brought the Hong Kong Commercial Daily in 1999. Even earlier, in 1996, Phoenix Satellite Television was founded in Hong Kong by Liu Changle, a former People’s Liberation Army officer who was suspected of maintaining extensive links to the Chinese military (Ma, 2007).

The months-long Anti-ELAB Movement was widely covered by media outlets from many countries. Indeed, among the protests staged around the world in 2019, those in Hong Kong received the most international attention, in no small part because the city has been the Asian hub of the global media industry (Chen, 2015). After the handover in 1997, Hong Kong guaranteed press freedom under the “one country, two systems” framework and thus became the preferred location for many foreign media outlets to cover China and Asia. In addition to The New York Times, major international media outlets such as Agence France-Presse (AFP), CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times have located their Asia-Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. AFP, for example, has the news stories produced by its 26 bureaus in the Asia-Pacific region sent to Hong Kong, where they are edited and then distributed to clients worldwide.