Francis L F Lee
Biographic Data
| ID | 228683 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Francis L F Lee |
| GIVEN NAMES | Francis L F |
| FAMILY NAME | Lee |
| SIGNATURE | LEE F L F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Chinese University of Hong Kong |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 185 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Are self-censoring media less efficacious? Examining public perceptions of news efficacy in an autocratizing society
This article examines how the news audience in an autocratizing society judges the efficacy of the news media to carry out its normative roles and functions. When a society undergoes autocratization, the news media are subjected to increasing political control and may frequently self-censor. Unwillingness to report on sensitive information and viewpoints can limit the media’s ability to facilitate deliberation and inform the public. However, citi…
Value Shift or Suspension? Hong Kong Youth under Economic Precarity and Political Inhibition
Commentators and scholars have considered the shift to post-material value orientation among young people in Hong Kong as a driver of the rise of social mobilization since the 2000s. However, post-materialism is theoretically premised on a sense of security. As young people face both economic precarity and political inhibition in the post–National Security Law era, will their value orientation shift? We use an interpretive approach to address thi…
Echoes of silence: How Social Influence Fosters Self-Censorship Under Democratic Backsliding
Adaptation and Resilience: How Pro-democracy Protesters Respond to Autocratisation in Hong Kong
Hometown Associations as Mobilizing Agents
Scholars have noted that the Chinese government has been grooming a range of grass-roots social organizations in Hong Kong since the handover. Hometown associations (HTAs), in particular, are seen as an important cultural nexus capable of integrating patron–client relationships based on material benefits with social relationships rooted in common culture and identity. Few studies, however, have documented the mobilizing power of HTAs quantitative…
Total Mobilization from Below: Hong Kong's Freedom Summer
This article examines the origins and dynamics of an extraordinary wave of protests in Hong Kong in 2019–2020. Despite lacking visible political opportunities and organizational resources, the protest movement drew resilient, mass participation unparalleled in the city's history and much of the world. Drawing from original on-site surveys and online datasets, we conceptualize the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement as a form of “total mo…
Affordances, movement dynamics, and a centralized digital communication platform in a networked movement
Much contemporary social mobilization is digitally enabled. Digital media may provide the communication platforms on which supporters deliberate movement goals, share information, discuss tactics, and generate discourses in response to ongoing happenings. Yet digital media’s capability to serve these functions should depend on platform-specific affordances and movement dynamics. Based on such premises, this article examines how the online forum L…
Hong Kong Media: Interaction Between Media, State and Civil Society
Hong Kong Media: Interaction Between Media, State and Civil Society
Surveying Spontaneous Mass Protests: Mixed-mode Sampling and Field Methods
Protest survey is a standard tool for scholars to understand protests. However, although protest survey methods are well established, the occurrence of spontaneous and leaderless protests has created new challenges for researchers. Not only do their unpredictable occurrences hinder planning, their fluidity also creates problems in obtaining representative samples. This article addresses these challenges based on our research during Hong Kong’s An…
Dynamics of Tactical Radicalisation and Public Receptiveness in Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Bill Movement
The Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) movement in Hong Kong was marked by a significant degree of tactical radicalisation in its first six months. Yet the movement also succeeded in maintaining a high degree of solidarity and public support. This article explains how tactical radicalisation and public receptiveness toward radical actions was achieved. It does this by drawing upon protest onsite survey data, public opinion poll data,…
Memories of Tiananmen: Politics and Processes of Collective Remembering in Hong Kong, 1989-2019
Five Demands and (Not Quite) Beyond
This article examines the Anti-Extradition Bill (Anti-ELAB) Movement and uses claim making and claim transformation as a window to look at ideological struggle in Hong Kong. The analysis recounts the emergence of a specific configuration of movement claims: the supplementation of the moderate “Five Demands” with the abstract slogan “Revolution of Our Times” and other, more radical demands. The development of the configuration is explained by the …
Understanding investment culture: Ideologies of financialization and Hong Kong young people's lay theories of investment
Echoing calls for research on the complex ways various factors intersect with the formation of financial subjectivities in specific places (Lai, K. P. Y. 2013. “The Lehman Minibonds Crisis and Financialisation of Investor Subjects in Singapore: The Lehman Minibonds Crisis.” Area 45 (3): 273–282), this study examines how young people in the highly financialized Hong Kong society negotiate with the ideologies of financialization and develop lay the…
Advancing Comparative Media and Communication Research
Contesting the Idea of Civil Disobedience
This chapter discusses the pressure toward radicalization in the social movement sector in Hong Kong in the immediate years before the Umbrella Movement. The proposal of Occupy Central in early 2013 was understood against this background, and the chapter analyzes the discursive contestations surrounding the notions of Occupy Central and civil disobedience in the 20-month period between January 2013 and August 2014. The analysis shows that the Occ…
Social Transformation and the Rise of Protests, 2003–2014
This chapter places the Umbrella Movement against the background of the rise of social protests in Hong Kong in the previous 15 years. The development of Hong Kong as a social movement society was traced by the rising number of protests, the diversity of issues addressed and organizers, the increasing level of acceptance of protests by the general public, and the rising levels of generalized protest potential and collective efficacy. The chapter …
Conclusion
The concluding chapter summarizes the account of the Umbrella Movement provided in the book. It discusses the implications of the analysis on several key issues in the study of media and social movements, including the origin of connective action, the power and limitations of digital media and connective action, the significance of movement frames, and the relationship between digital media and mainstream media. The implications are discussed by …
Media, Participation, and Public Opinion toward the Movement
This chapter discusses the role of the media in the formation and mobilization of the protest campaign under the concept of the partially censored public monitor. Embedded in the dominant political economic structure, the mainstream media were on the whole negative toward the Umbrella Movement. However, (self)-censorship was only partial, and the media system continued to play the role of the public monitor. The media played an important role in …
Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era: The Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong
Digital and social media are increasingly integrated into dynamics of protest movements. They strengthen the mobilization power of movements, extend movement networks, facilitate new modes of protest participation, and lead to the emergence of new protest formations. Meanwhile, conventional media remain an important arena where the contest for public support between protesters and their targets play out. This book examines the role of the media—u…
Advancing Comparative Media and Communication Research
Economic Conditions, the Policy Cycle, and Media Visibility of Environmental Organizations
The extent to which social movements have access to the news media has important implications on the capability of social movements to communicate with and garner support from the public. Factors that shape movement organizations' media visibility thus deserve scholarly attention. This article deals with news coverage of environmental movement organizations (EMOs) in Hong Kong and focuses on the impact of economic conditions, the policy cycle, an…
Digital media activities and mode of participation in a protest campaign: A study of the Umbrella Movement
Although digital media are widely recognized as a predictor of protest participation and a platform for the coordination of connective actions, few studies have examined how digital media activities systematically relate to protesters’ mode of participation in protest campaigns. This study aims at filling the research gap through analyzing the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. It identifies time spent in the occupied areas, participation leadership…
Media, Mobilization and the Umbrella Movement
Opinion polling and construction of public opinion in newspaper discourses during the Umbrella Movement
Public opinion not only influences the likelihood of success for a protest movement; images of public opinion can also be used to legitimize or delegitimize a protest. In contemporary societies, opinion polling is the most authoritative way to “measure” public opinion. Yet the meanings of poll findings need to be interpreted and are often contested. Following these premises, this article analyzes the construction of images of public opinion throu…
Dynamics of Tactical Radicalisation and Public Receptiveness in Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Bill Movement
The Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) movement in Hong Kong was marked by a significant degree of tactical radicalisation in its first six months. Yet the movement also succeeded in maintaining a high degree of solidarity and public support. This article explains how tactical radicalisation and public receptiveness toward radical actions was achieved. It does this by drawing upon protest onsite survey data, public opinion poll data,…
Symbolic Use of Decisive Events: Tiananmen as a News Icon in the editorials of the elite U.S. press
The Tiananmen crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in 1989 was a decisive event that has provided an enduring prism for the world media to interpret China. This article examines how two of the most preeminent U.S. newspapers— New York Times and Washington Post —editorially invoked Tiananmen as a “news icon” in the past twenty years. We contend that the meanings of Tiananmen were reconstructed over twenty years partly but not completely in line…
Tolerated One Way but Not the Other: Levels and Determinants of Social and Political Tolerance in Hong Kong
Five Demands and (Not Quite) Beyond
This article examines the Anti-Extradition Bill (Anti-ELAB) Movement and uses claim making and claim transformation as a window to look at ideological struggle in Hong Kong. The analysis recounts the emergence of a specific configuration of movement claims: the supplementation of the moderate “Five Demands” with the abstract slogan “Revolution of Our Times” and other, more radical demands. The development of the configuration is explained by the …
How Journalists value Positive News: The influence of professional beliefs, market considerations, and political attitudes
Although the negative bias of the news media is generally recognized in many countries, the media also regularly feature various types of positive news, ranging from touching human interest stories to news about national or community achievement. However, few scholarly analyses have examined whether and how professional journalists value positive news. This article examines Hong Kong journalists' perceptions of the values of five types of positiv…
Radio Phone-in Talk Shows as Politically Significant Infotainment in Hong Kong
Past research has generated two main characterizations of the radio phone-in talk show phenomenon. Some argue that talk shows can provide forums for public deliberation, while others regard talk shows as a form of infotainment that displaces serious political journalism. This study argues that public forum and infotainment are not necessarily incompatible with each other, and it tests this possibility by a case study of talk radio in Hong Kong. A…
Internet Alternative Media Use and Oppositional Knowledge
Journal Article Internet Alternative Media Use and Oppositional Knowledge Get access Francis L. F. Lee Francis L. F. Lee School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong Francis L. F. Lee is Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the lead author of Media, Social Mobilization and Mass Protests in Post-colonial Hong Kong (Routledge, 2011) and auth…
Becoming Extra-Ordinary: Negotiation of Media Power in the Case of Super Girls’ Voice in China
This article aims at understanding the popularity and cultural and social significance of the highly prominent Chinese television show Super Girls' Voice (the 2005 season), a talent contest largely modeled upon “reality shows” such as American Idol in the United States and Pop Idol in the United Kingdom. We focus particularly on whether the show, as some critics have claimed, has altered the power relationship between the media and the audience. …
Surveying Spontaneous Mass Protests: Mixed-mode Sampling and Field Methods
Protest survey is a standard tool for scholars to understand protests. However, although protest survey methods are well established, the occurrence of spontaneous and leaderless protests has created new challenges for researchers. Not only do their unpredictable occurrences hinder planning, their fluidity also creates problems in obtaining representative samples. This article addresses these challenges based on our research during Hong Kong’s An…
Internet, citizen self-mobilisation, and social movement organisations in environmental collective action campaigns: Two Hong Kong cases
Much research on online activism has shown that the Internet enhances social mobilisation by lowering the costs of information, mobilisation, and participation. The Internet thus facilitates the rise of citizen self-mobilisation (CSM) – organisation of and mobilisation for collective actions by ordinary citizens unaffiliated with social and political groups. However, the rise of CSM does not render social movement organisations (SMOs) irrelevant …
Constructing Perfect Women: The Portrayal of Female Officials in Hong Kong Newspapers
In recent years, top-level women officials have become increasingly prominent in Hong Kong. Media discourses are also largely positive towards them. This study thus analyses how women officials are constructed as ‘perfect women’ in two Hong Kong newspapers. It shows that the newspapers affirm women officials as having both masculine and feminine characteristics, and as having both a successful career and a harmonious family. Yet the potential ide…
Adaptation and Resilience: How Pro-democracy Protesters Respond to Autocratisation in Hong Kong
Journalist–Source Relations: The case of Taiwan correspondents in China
This article examines the news work of Taiwan correspondents in mainland China, focusing particularly on the issue of journalist–source relations. Drawing upon the concepts of tie strength and homophily from social network analysis, this article argues that strong and heterophilous ties play a crucial role for foreign correspondents working within a context where news information does not always flow freely. Data from in-depth interviews and a su…
Country, National, and Pan-national Identification in Taiwan and Hong Kong
This study, based on analysis of survey data collected in 2011 in Taiwan and Hong Kong, shows that cultural identification explains the choice of country and national identities and that Chinese nationalism emerges as an important factor connecting the minds of people in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong
Echoes of silence: How Social Influence Fosters Self-Censorship Under Democratic Backsliding
Opinion polling and construction of public opinion in newspaper discourses during the Umbrella Movement
Public opinion not only influences the likelihood of success for a protest movement; images of public opinion can also be used to legitimize or delegitimize a protest. In contemporary societies, opinion polling is the most authoritative way to “measure” public opinion. Yet the meanings of poll findings need to be interpreted and are often contested. Following these premises, this article analyzes the construction of images of public opinion throu…
National lenses on a global news event: Determinants of the politicization and domestication of the prelude to the Beijing Olympics
This article utilizes a 14-country comparative data set and analyzes how different countries' television news has covered the events and controversies surrounding the Beijing Olympics in the months before the Summer Games. Conceptually, the focus is on the notions of domestication and politicization. However, rather than simply illustrating the presence of these phenomena, the analytical interest resides mainly in uncovering their "determinants".…
Advancing Comparative Media and Communication Research
How Citizens React to Political Scandals Surrounding Government Leaders: A Survey Study in Hong Kong
Public opinion research has suggested that the negative impact of scandals on public evaluation of the politicians involved is not always strong. Part of the reason is that people may hold varying perceptions regarding the nature, factuality, and importance of the scandals. According to the theory of motivated reasoning, people develop varying perceptions by processing information in ways that reconfirm their existing views. This study applies su…
Understanding investment culture: Ideologies of financialization and Hong Kong young people's lay theories of investment
Echoing calls for research on the complex ways various factors intersect with the formation of financial subjectivities in specific places (Lai, K. P. Y. 2013. “The Lehman Minibonds Crisis and Financialisation of Investor Subjects in Singapore: The Lehman Minibonds Crisis.” Area 45 (3): 273–282), this study examines how young people in the highly financialized Hong Kong society negotiate with the ideologies of financialization and develop lay the…
The life cycle of iconic sound bites: Politicians’ transgressive utterances in media discourses
Politicians in contemporary societies constantly appear in and talk to the media. While media appearances constitute opportunities to communicate ideas and images, politicians can damage their own reputation through making statements that transgress political and/or cultural norms. Politicians’ transgressive utterances not only attract negative media coverage – they may also be recycled in media discourses. Drawing upon the theoretical concepts o…
Radio Phone-in Talk Shows as Politically Significant Infotainment in Hong Kong
Past research has generated two main characterizations of the radio phone-in talk show phenomenon. Some argue that talk shows can provide forums for public deliberation, while others regard talk shows as a form of infotainment that displaces serious political journalism. This study argues that public forum and infotainment are not necessarily incompatible with each other, and it tests this possibility by a case study of talk radio in Hong Kong. A…
Constructing Perfect Women: The Portrayal of Female Officials in Hong Kong Newspapers
In recent years, top-level women officials have become increasingly prominent in Hong Kong. Media discourses are also largely positive towards them. This study thus analyses how women officials are constructed as ‘perfect women’ in two Hong Kong newspapers. It shows that the newspapers affirm women officials as having both masculine and feminine characteristics, and as having both a successful career and a harmonious family. Yet the potential ide…
Hong Kong Citizens' Beliefs in Media Neutrality and Perceptions of Press Freedom: Objectivity as Self-Censorship?
Premised upon the argument that the professional norm of objectivity is intricately related to the strategic struggle for press freedom in post-handover Hong Kong, this article examines how citizens' beliefs in media neutrality—a central manifestation of objectivity—relate to their perceptions of media self-censorship and press freedom.
Les médias et la politique dix ans après la rétrocession
The Attitudes of Urban Chinese Towards Globalization: A Survey Study of Media Influence
Since Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992 to reenergize the marketization drive in China, the Chinese government's policy towards has been one of active engagement. His successor Jiang Zemin, and current President Hujintao, with their respective proclamations of Three Represents and Harmonious World,1 have continued the push to embrace global capitalism. Opening the country to global capital is seen by Chinese national leaders as a way to furth…
Media, Social Mobilisation and Mass Protests in Post-colonial Hong Kong: The Power of a Critical Event
Since 2003, Hong Kong has witnessed a series of large-scale protests which have constituted the core of a reinvigorated pro-democracy movement. What drove tens of thousands of citizens to the street on a yearly basis to protest? What were the social and organizational bases of the protest movement? How did media and public discourses affect the protests’ formation and mobilization? How did the protesters understand their own actions and the polit…
Becoming Extra-Ordinary: Negotiation of Media Power in the Case of Super Girls’ Voice in China
This article aims at understanding the popularity and cultural and social significance of the highly prominent Chinese television show Super Girls' Voice (the 2005 season), a talent contest largely modeled upon “reality shows” such as American Idol in the United States and Pop Idol in the United Kingdom. We focus particularly on whether the show, as some critics have claimed, has altered the power relationship between the media and the audience. …
Symbolic Use of Decisive Events: Tiananmen as a News Icon in the editorials of the elite U.S. press
The Tiananmen crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in 1989 was a decisive event that has provided an enduring prism for the world media to interpret China. This article examines how two of the most preeminent U.S. newspapers— New York Times and Washington Post —editorially invoked Tiananmen as a “news icon” in the past twenty years. We contend that the meanings of Tiananmen were reconstructed over twenty years partly but not completely in line…
National lenses on a global news event: Determinants of the politicization and domestication of the prelude to the Beijing Olympics
This article utilizes a 14-country comparative data set and analyzes how different countries' television news has covered the events and controversies surrounding the Beijing Olympics in the months before the Summer Games. Conceptually, the focus is on the notions of domestication and politicization. However, rather than simply illustrating the presence of these phenomena, the analytical interest resides mainly in uncovering their "determinants".…
The life cycle of iconic sound bites: Politicians’ transgressive utterances in media discourses
Politicians in contemporary societies constantly appear in and talk to the media. While media appearances constitute opportunities to communicate ideas and images, politicians can damage their own reputation through making statements that transgress political and/or cultural norms. Politicians’ transgressive utterances not only attract negative media coverage – they may also be recycled in media discourses. Drawing upon the theoretical concepts o…
Media and Politics in Post-Handover Hong Kong
Country, National, and Pan-national Identification in Taiwan and Hong Kong
This study, based on analysis of survey data collected in 2011 in Taiwan and Hong Kong, shows that cultural identification explains the choice of country and national identities and that Chinese nationalism emerges as an important factor connecting the minds of people in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong
Journalist–Source Relations: The case of Taiwan correspondents in China
This article examines the news work of Taiwan correspondents in mainland China, focusing particularly on the issue of journalist–source relations. Drawing upon the concepts of tie strength and homophily from social network analysis, this article argues that strong and heterophilous ties play a crucial role for foreign correspondents working within a context where news information does not always flow freely. Data from in-depth interviews and a su…
How Journalists value Positive News: The influence of professional beliefs, market considerations, and political attitudes
Although the negative bias of the news media is generally recognized in many countries, the media also regularly feature various types of positive news, ranging from touching human interest stories to news about national or community achievement. However, few scholarly analyses have examined whether and how professional journalists value positive news. This article examines Hong Kong journalists' perceptions of the values of five types of positiv…
Tolerated One Way but Not the Other: Levels and Determinants of Social and Political Tolerance in Hong Kong
Internet Alternative Media Use and Oppositional Knowledge
Journal Article Internet Alternative Media Use and Oppositional Knowledge Get access Francis L. F. Lee Francis L. F. Lee School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong Francis L. F. Lee is Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the lead author of Media, Social Mobilization and Mass Protests in Post-colonial Hong Kong (Routledge, 2011) and auth…
How Citizens React to Political Scandals Surrounding Government Leaders: A Survey Study in Hong Kong
Public opinion research has suggested that the negative impact of scandals on public evaluation of the politicians involved is not always strong. Part of the reason is that people may hold varying perceptions regarding the nature, factuality, and importance of the scandals. According to the theory of motivated reasoning, people develop varying perceptions by processing information in ways that reconfirm their existing views. This study applies su…
Internet, citizen self-mobilisation, and social movement organisations in environmental collective action campaigns: Two Hong Kong cases
Much research on online activism has shown that the Internet enhances social mobilisation by lowering the costs of information, mobilisation, and participation. The Internet thus facilitates the rise of citizen self-mobilisation (CSM) – organisation of and mobilisation for collective actions by ordinary citizens unaffiliated with social and political groups. However, the rise of CSM does not render social movement organisations (SMOs) irrelevant …
Economic Conditions, the Policy Cycle, and Media Visibility of Environmental Organizations
The extent to which social movements have access to the news media has important implications on the capability of social movements to communicate with and garner support from the public. Factors that shape movement organizations' media visibility thus deserve scholarly attention. This article deals with news coverage of environmental movement organizations (EMOs) in Hong Kong and focuses on the impact of economic conditions, the policy cycle, an…
Digital media activities and mode of participation in a protest campaign: A study of the Umbrella Movement
Although digital media are widely recognized as a predictor of protest participation and a platform for the coordination of connective actions, few studies have examined how digital media activities systematically relate to protesters’ mode of participation in protest campaigns. This study aims at filling the research gap through analyzing the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. It identifies time spent in the occupied areas, participation leadership…
Media, Mobilization and the Umbrella Movement
Opinion polling and construction of public opinion in newspaper discourses during the Umbrella Movement
Public opinion not only influences the likelihood of success for a protest movement; images of public opinion can also be used to legitimize or delegitimize a protest. In contemporary societies, opinion polling is the most authoritative way to “measure” public opinion. Yet the meanings of poll findings need to be interpreted and are often contested. Following these premises, this article analyzes the construction of images of public opinion throu…
Advancing Comparative Media and Communication Research
Contesting the Idea of Civil Disobedience
This chapter discusses the pressure toward radicalization in the social movement sector in Hong Kong in the immediate years before the Umbrella Movement. The proposal of Occupy Central in early 2013 was understood against this background, and the chapter analyzes the discursive contestations surrounding the notions of Occupy Central and civil disobedience in the 20-month period between January 2013 and August 2014. The analysis shows that the Occ…
Social Transformation and the Rise of Protests, 2003–2014
This chapter places the Umbrella Movement against the background of the rise of social protests in Hong Kong in the previous 15 years. The development of Hong Kong as a social movement society was traced by the rising number of protests, the diversity of issues addressed and organizers, the increasing level of acceptance of protests by the general public, and the rising levels of generalized protest potential and collective efficacy. The chapter …
Political science (36 works) · Sociology (32 works) · Politics (28 works) · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics (23 works) · Law (22 works) · Media studies (19 works) · Law (17 works) · Media Studies and Communication (12 works) · Social Media and Politics (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works)