Leung Chi Mei Christine (梁子微), PhD candidate, Hong Kong Baptist University.

Seminar topic: The 5 “P”s Influences on News Content: Looking Beyond the Disability News Press coverage in Beijing and Hong Kong in 1981-2005

Abstract

Media representation of people with disabilities (PWD) can be disabling and the portrayal of PWD in the media is criticized to be generally othering and negative. This mainstream line of critical thinking incurs a certain degree of reductionism and essentialism. Much sociological analysis of media production and influences of news content fail to consider how political and social contexts shape media content.
This study explores the power relationships involved between various political and social forces outside of the news organizations that influence news content (on disability) in the two Chinese communities of Beijing and Hong Kong. Through content analysis research method, this research looks at how and in what ways disability is presented in the newspapers in Beijing (Beijing Wan Bao) and Hong Kong (Oriental Daily) between the periods of 1981-2005.  Shifts in themes and frames in their coverage are also investigated. Face to face in-depth interviews are conducted with journalists, policymakers, pressure groups, PWD and the (non-disabled) public in these two communities to identify what factors may have affected news representation of disability and to seek explanation for any differences in their coverage. This preliminary report adopts a sociological approach and contends that news content developed primary from the integrated interests and the uneven distribution of power of five players: press, policymakers, pressure groups, PWD and the (non-disabled) public at large – the 5 ‘P’s. News content is itself an effect (a ‘product mix’) that serves the interests of these players. Research on the role of the media in the process of news content production and media representation of special groups, i.e., people with disabilities, can be enriched by examining them within the contexts of the power distribution of the 5 Ps.