This study addresses three research questions that aim to describe the media use patterns of young people in Hong Kong. In particular, four dimensions of media use are taken as preliminary indicators to determine whether young people fit the popular stereotype of active Internet users. The dimensions include their reasons for going online, their initiative for information management, their production of content, and their collaboration and sharing activities on the Internet. A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was distributed to 649 sixth formers in 11 secondary schools in Hong Kong between December 2008 and February 2009. The survey found little support for popular claims that celebrate the active roles of participants in the new media culture. Despite growing up “digitally,” the young people in this study did not demonstrate markedly different characteristics in their media use. Indeed, instead of making the most out of the new media environment as “prosumers,” they remained passive consumers in most cases. These findings call for a more critical evaluation of terms such as “prosumption,” and of assumptions about generational differences in media use.

The study reported herein aimed to identify and discuss the nature and pattern of the uses of new media through a notable YouTube phenomenon. It analyzed 132 online videos centered on 'Bus Uncle,' a YouTube celebrity who rose into fame in Hong Kong during April 2006. Most of the videos drew references from local popular culture texts. They were mostly playful and sarcastic in their undertones. The collective behaviors in YouTube suggest that this hugely popular videosharing site takes on the roles as public space, a playground and a cultural public sphere.

This study aimed to investigate the extent to which Hong Kong primary students have access to various media, how they evaluate the credibility of the media, what they know about the media, and how they choose among different media, as well as teachers’ expectations towards their students’ views and consumption of media. Since little is known about young children in the context of media education, this paper fills a research gap by studying the media awareness and use of upper primary students. A questionnaire on media awareness and media use patterns was given to the teachers, who were asked to answer the questions from the perspective of their students. The same questionnaire was administered to students during class time. The descriptive statistics of the data were analyzed and compared. Students believed that the most reliable media for providing news was the television, followed by the radio, the newspaper, and the Internet; about half of the students believed that they were capable of distinguishing true from false news; students were more proactive media users than the teachers thought. The findings of this study suggest that more contextual and in-depth approaches to research would be beneficial to assess the media use patterns of students, from which relevant media education models can be derived.

This study aims to examine the roles of social media in protest mobilization through the case of Umbrella Movement. Instead of focusing in the occupied sites, the study chose to look at mobilization efforts and confrontations within Hong Kong secondary schools. In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 students, teachers and principals from four schools, with an aim to identify how members in schools used different media for information sharing, opinion expression and mobilization. It also reconstructed what actually occurred in the tactful negotiations between school authorities and student leaders during the movement. The findings of this study suggest that how different communication practices are mediated in particular social and cultural contexts remain to be relevant and important, as the stress on "harmony" in local education settings illustrate in this case study. The strong adherence to political neutrality and professionalism suggest that schools could hardly provide the kind of idealistic civic education stated in curriculum documents. The findings prompted for a critical reading of how apolitical civic education in Hong Kong schools constrained a social movement that was supposedly led by the youth.

This study aims to arrive at a contextualized understanding of the perspectives of a small group of Hong Kong journalist bloggers regarding a wide range of media issues. In addition to analyzing how they interpret news values in post-1997 Hong Kong, it also discusses how j-blogs can facilitate a new form of ‘interpretive community’. Together with in-depth interviews with eight journalist bloggers, this study analyzes 1044 blog posts written by them over a period of two years. Findings show how journalist bloggers narrated their personal and work lives, and identified recurring themes from these j-blogs. It argues that journalist bloggers have used blogs to make sense of their journalistic lives and professional ideology. Despite a lack of active interactions, j-blogs have cultivated a space for journalists to share narratives that are deemed to be important to their personal and professional lives. In this regard, journalist blogs are facilitating a new form of interpretive community. Within this community, journalists are able to deliberate core news values in the Hong Kong context.