Public Interest vs. Interest of the Public

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Public Interest vs. Interest of the Public

• Anthony Fung
• School of Journalism and Communication, CUHK

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Objectives

• Examining the condition of the press in Hong Kong
• Do they perform with social responsibility?
• Do they act unethical?
• Ultimately, examining the role of press in Hong
  Kong in relations to governance, press freedom
  and democracy

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Four Theories of the Press

• Siebert, Peterson and Schramm
• 1. Authoritarian
• 2. Soviet Communist
• 3. Libertarian
• 4. Social Responsibility

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Liberalism basic assumption

• Natural right/ unalienable rights
• Freedom of speech and of the press
• Desire for truth
• Free competition of opinion
• Allowance of differences
• Mutual tolerance and comparison of diverse
  opinion

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Four Functions of the press

• 1. To monitor the government or surveillance
• 2. To correlate to others
• 3. To pass heritage from one generation to
  generation
• 4. To entertain
• Main point the government should not intervene

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Question how about excessive uses?

• The public can judge and are rational
• Huge amount of information available
• All have opportunities to decide
• Self-righting process
• Free marketplace of ideas

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Problems nowadays

• Rationalism under fire
• Economic interests
• Rights of individuals jeopardizing the welfare of
  the majority (public interest)
• interest of the public
• Power without Responsibility (Curran and Seaton)

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What is the condition?

• Media concentration
• Commercial and advertising interests
• monopoly
• Media sensationalism
• Media Self-censorship

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media sensationalism, says media critics

• media lost its balance?
• tilting toward putting heavy dosage of human
  interests, gossip, vivid stories of crime scene,
  tragedies, anecdote of public figures, pictures
  of sexy stripper and naked victims of various
  crimes
• Sensationalism a media hype to trigger
  curiosity, empathy, emotions, or pejoratively
  sensual pleasures of the readers.
• Common perception unethical and unprofessional
  practices of the commercial media

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Real Public reaction to sensationalism

• Popular press
• High circulation
• criticizing the inappropriateness of
  sensationalism
• still buying the newspapers as if they stand
  aloof from the immortality

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As an educator.

• sensationalism is unethical and thus it should be
  criticized
• But its consequence may not be totally bad.
  Reasons
• Sensationalism enhancing survival among the keen
  competition (better than closure of papers)
• financial resources an effective way to resist
  against the political control of the authorities
• Dilemma of the process commodification of media
  independence and autonomy vs. sensationalization

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Whats so special about the HK popular press?

• Sensational, provocative, morally wrong
• Large pics, USA-style
• But critical toward government

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Tight politics and loose morals

• a business, commercial and market-oriented logic
• succumbs to business and advertisers' control
• panders to the taste of mass audiences
• Political logic
• sarcastic political cartoons and ruthless
  political commentaries are also common
• ranges of tolerance of that political content and
  other non-political news

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One country Two systems

• HK unique case demonstrating the high tolerance
  on non-political content and low tolerance on
  political content before and after handover
• Public fear
• Self censorship
• Media acquisition
• How media can survive? Two ways
• Critical news for reputation and hence
  circulation
• Sensationalizing news for circulation

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Dialectics between state and media

• Press always maneuvers within the limits of the
  governance
• Sensationalizing is one way
• But also commodifying politics in order to
  satisfy the tastes of consumers

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Commodification for what?

• strengthens the media with a huge market support
  and hence monetary rewards
• Able to ignore authorities sanctions when the
  political news reported confronts the authorities

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Civil society arguments

• Civil society
• Connection to state and governance
• Connection to market economy

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Can we have ethical press?

• whether the press can sustain its financial
  viability and maintain its critical edge and its
  wide scope of criticism on politics, and at the
  same time tune down their sensational coverage?
• It requires a market support, a demand, not for
  the sensationalized gossip and stories, but
  morally acceptable entertainment information

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Public opinion

• People are not always rational
• Opinion is not static
• Peoples fear of isolation
• afraid of being the minority and tend to follow
  the perceived majority

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Articulation function of media

• Setting the trend and reversing the sensational
  culture
• What audiences can do?
• collectively upholding ethical reportage to form
  sufficient level of consensus
• audience equally will perceive that this is a
  dominant trend of the public and the society
• Requiring a social responsible press

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An ideal balance

• maintaining a sizable market to sustain media
  economy
• And with that public opinion or market in hand,
  media continue to exercise its surveillance role
  to monitor the governance
• Fear control the media in the name of combating
  sensationalism

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What is the appropriate content?

• enough information for readers to make judgments
  and decide
• More relevant information, forms of programs, and
  channels for our judgments e.g. documentary

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Social Responsibility of the press

• 1. a truthful, comprehensive and intelligent
  account of the days event
• 2. a forum for the exchange of comment and
  criticism
• 3. a representative picture of the constituent
  groups in society
• 4. the presentation and clarification of the
  goals and values of the society
• 5. full access to the days information/ wide
  range of opinions

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Positive vs. negative freedom

• Freedom from external restraint
• Freedom for achieving certain goals defined by
  its ethical sense and by societys real needs