Mainstream or Alternative? The RTHK Coverage of the 2004 Legislative Council Election Compared with the Commercial Broadcaster so Ming Hang A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in Government and Public Administration © The Chinese University of Hong Kong June 2005 The Chinese University of Hong Kong holds the copyright of this thesis. Any person(s) intending to use a part or whole of the materials in the thesis in a proposed publication must seek copyright release from the Dean of the Graduate School. 卜二,A館書圆^^ m 18 1 KK j|| Abstract Theoretically, public broadcaster and commercial broadcaster are set up and run by two different mechanisms. Commercial broadcaster, as a proprietary organization, is believed to emphasize on maximizing the profit while the public broadcaster, without commercial considerations, is usually expected to achieve some objectives or goals instead of making profits. Therefore, the contribution by public broadcaster to the society is usually expected to be different from those by commercial broadcaster. However, the public broadcasters are in crisis around the world because of their unclear role in actual practice. Many politicians claim that they cannot find any difference between the public broadcasters and the commercial broadcasters and thus they asserted to cut the budget of public broadcasters or even privatize all public broadcasters. Having this unstable situation of the public broadcasting, the role or performance of the public broadcasters in actual practice has drawn much attention from both policy-makers and scholars. Empirical studies are divergent on whether there is difference between public and commercial broadcaster in actual practice. Some researchers found that they are quite similar in their contents. Using the political economy approach, some believes that it is because the public broadcasters rely more and more on the advertising as the revenue. Some also suggests that similar professional background and cultural boundary make their contents similar. In contrast, some studies found that the public broadcaster still have unique contribution to the society. In Hong Kong, RTHK, as a public broadcaster, also usually claim that they are, and should be, different from the commercial broadcaster because it is "free from any commercial considerations of profits that members of the public should rightly and reasonably have higher expectations concerning the quality and quantity of its i programmes." (Hong Kong Legislative Council, 1998) However, the performance of RTHK is also heavily criticized by different parties. Many people, especially the Chinese officials, usually criticize the content of the RTHK programs hostiles towards the government and "pro-China" camp, similar to the commercial broadcasters. Some listeners have also complained that they have not enough choice in the radio broadcasting because the content of the program were very similar on different programs broadcasting at the same time. However, those criticisms are mostly based on superficial observation of the critics and not much academic study have so far been pay attention to the role of public broadcaster in Hong Kong. Through content analysis of news bulletins and phone-in current affairs programme during the Legislative Council election 2004, this thesis found that RTHK did not have much difference in covering the election compared with the commercial broadcasters in the sense that the stories and discussion are dominated by the campaign activities and scandal while the substantive issue and political platform discussion are marginalized. All the programmes are peopled by the officials or politicians while the public interest group representative received little attention. However, this study also noticed that the phone-in programme of RTHK successfully provide alternative election coverage by having more discussion related to voter education and available election-related information database than the commercial broadcasters. Also, the study does not find any support for the criticism that RTHK is hostile towards the pro-China camp. Moreover, it is observed that RTHK avoid interviewing or even naming any candidates during the election to make the coverage "objective", though this approach may reduce the chance for the candidates to spread their message and minimize the diversity of points of views on some issues. The findings may imply that a better mechanism is necessary for protecting RTHK from huge political pressure. ii 論文撮要 理論上，公營廣播機構和商營廣播機構是根據兩種不同的機制來運作的。一直以 來，大眾相信商營廣播機構作爲一個牟利機構的角色會傾向強調將利潤極大化， 而公營廣播機構在於沒有商業考慮下，大眾會期望設立公營廣播機構的目標在於 實踐某種任務或願景，而並非賺取利潤。因此，大眾期望公營廣播機構對社會作 出的貢獻會有別於商營廣播機構。 不過，由於在實際運作上的角色變得模糊，全世界的公營廣播機構都正處於危機 之中。很多從政者都認爲公營廣播機構和商營的分別不大，所以它們主張要減少 公營廣播機構的開支預算，甚至建議把它們全面私營化。由於公營廣播正處於這 種不穩的處境中，公營廣播機構實際上在社會扮演的角色和表現就越來越弓丨起政 策制定者和學者的關注。 目前爲止，實證硏究對於公營和商營廣播機構實際上是否有所不同眾說紛耘。有 硏究者發現兩者在實際內容上並無大分別。有學者透過政治經濟學的觀點分析， 相信公營和商營機構變得相同是因爲前者越來越依賴商業廣告作爲收入。部份學 者亦提出內容相同可能是與新聞工作者相同的專業背景和文化界限有關。不過， 亦有硏究發現公營廣播機構在實際上仍對社會有獨特的貢獻。 在香港，香港電台作爲一個公營廣播機構亦經常強調自己是（及應該是）跟商營 媒體有所不同，因爲它「無須顧及商業和盈利的考慮，市民大眾對港台的節目在 質和量方面有高的期望和要求，是絕對應該和合理的°」（Hong Kong Legislative Council, 1998)不過，香港電台的實際表現卻遭到不同人仕的批評。很多主要來 自親中陣營的人士都批評港台的節目內容有所偏頗，並不持平，跟香港大部份商 營媒體一樣敵視特區政府及親中陣營。部份聽眾亦投訴在聲音廣播上他們缺乏選 擇，因爲他們發現同一時間不同的電台都播放相似的節目內容。可是，以上的批 評大都是建基於批評者的主觀和表面觀察，目前爲止香港有關公營廣播機構的角 iii 色的硏究並不多見。 本論文透過進行內容分析，硏究在二零零四年立法會選舉期間的新聞報道和時事 「烽煙」節目，發現香港電台對這次選舉的報道和討論跟商營媒體並非有很大的 差異，它們的報道和討論都相當集中於選舉活動、選情及醜聞，而有關政綱討論、 政策問題的範疇卻處於邊緣位置。不論公營商營傳播機構的節目都充斥著官員和 政客的聲音，而絕少有來自民間利益團體的代表。 不過，本硏究亦發現香港電台的「烽煙」節目提供更多有關選民教育及選舉資料 庫的討論，成功令它的節目與商營電台的「烽煙」節目有所不同。同時，本硏究 亦發現沒有任何跡象證明香港電台對親中陣營持敵視的態度。另外，本硏究亦發 現香港電台在選舉期間避免訪問候選人，甚至提起他們的名字。這種報道方式可 以令港台的報道保持「客觀」，但相信會減少了候選人向選民傳達信息的機會， 並可能在某些議題上縮減了觀點的多元性。硏究結果反映香港可能需要一個更好 的機制來隔絕政治壓力。 iv Acknowledgement First of all, I am most grateful to my supervisor Professor Wilson Wong Wai Ho. My special thank is not only due to his valuable comments and criticisms for helping me to revise my thesis, but also for his practical suggestion and plan for me to ensure my thesis on the right track. He is very willing to share his observation about the common problem of the master student to remind me pay attention to those issues. As an open-minded and easy-going supervisor, he always makes me feel fruitful and comfortable when discussing my thesis, which is important for a student to cope with the challenging postgraduate study. The last but not the least, I also have to thank Professor Wong for helping me find financial assistance for recruiting student helpers to carry out content analysis. I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr Joseph Chan Man and Dr. Kenneth Leung W. Y., who encouraged and nominated me for studying M. Phil in the Department of the Government and Public administration. During my undergraduate study in the Department of Journalism and Communication, I benefited a lot from them for building up my knowledge in social science as well as the art of life. I must say thanks to them for their teaching and support. I also wish to express my gratitude to Prof. Kuan Hsin Chi for his advice given during the Graduate Seminars, Professor Eliza Lee Wing Yee for her lecture, Mr. Chow Po Chung for leading me into the world of political philosophy and Dr. Lam Wai Man for her helpful suggestions in finding research questions. I would also like to say thank you to Elton Ma Chun Yin, my student helper and close friend, for his assistance in collecting the material and coding the radio programming for nearly a year. I also want to thank Vincent Lee Nim Yan and Jim Chow Chun Lam for coding the radio programming and discussing the thesis with me; V Boris Cheng Kwok Kin and Iris Leung Wan Ting for helping and reminding me to record the news bulletins during the study period; Kevis Wong Ching Pong and Karen Yeung Lai King for helping me to proof-read the thesis. I am indebted to my M. Phil, classmates for their opinion and intellectual stimulation in seminars and other courses, especially Lee Chun Wing, for providing opinion on my thesis and chitchatting with me to reduce my pressure. As writing a thesis is a slow and challenging task for a postgraduate student, it seems that I often feel lonely and unconfident in the process. I am deeply grateful to my brothers living in second floor of Daisy Li Hostel of New Asia College for their emotional support, steadfast encouragement and free "night snack", especially to Kenny Li Chung Ki, who provided me free "data-entry and data-checking service." Finally, I cannot forget the consideration and tolerance of my family, especially my sister, who always support me and share her own experience in handling different problems faced by a master student. The expressions of thanks in the above acknowledgments can never reflect the depth of my gratitude. vi Content Abstract / i Acknowledgements / v Content / vii List of Table and figures / xi Chapter 1 Introduction: the dilemma of RTHK and research questions / 1 1.1 Introduction / 1 1.2 Significance of the study: importance of the mass media and RTHK in the political process in Hong Kong / 4 1.3 Significance of the study: practical policy concerns for RTHK / 6 1.3.1 The unstable financial situation of the public broadcasters around the world / 6 1.3.2 The political context of Hong Kong, which RTHK is situated / 12 1.4 Research questions / 22 Chapter 2 Literature Review: The normative role of public broadcaster and their performance in actual practice compared with commercial broadcaster /25 2.1 Introduction / 25 2.2 Public vs Private / 26 2.3 Theoretical defense