Will Media and Creative Industries Have a Bleak Future in Hong Kong?

24 Sept 202111am—12.30pm

Politics and economic are two contributing factors that affect the development of media and creative industries but the proportion of them is dependent on the specific context. In the past, economic factor played the major role in shaping media and cultural environment in Hong Kong, given that it is rated as the freest economy by the Heritage Foundation for decades. However, political factor gained the upper hand recently when China refused to stay at the back seat in controlling Hong Kong’s political system, after the outburst of a series of social movement in 2019. Furthermore, the enactment of the National Security Law (NSL) since July 2020 has led to a profound and fundamental change to Hong Kong’s media ecology because its operational paradigm must now shift from a market-led liberalism to an ambiguous legalism under the shadow of the NSL. Censorship has gradually become a new norm under this political culture. Meanwhile, the amendment of the US-Hong Kong Policy Act by the US government in July 2020 also affected Hong Kong’s political status as an autonomous economic area. In this presentation, the speaker will address the following questions: 1) What have been changed after the enactment of the NSL? 2) Which prospective areas in the media industries would expect to change in such a deteriorating political environment? 3) What kind of relevant experience Hong Kong can borrow from other countries which faced similar legal restrictions? 4) Any rooms for prosperous development in the media industries under the present situation?