A small media observation of a Hong Kong resident

It turns out that I haven't written a text for a month. Omicron's trip to Hong Kong is not over yet. In the face of the fifth wave of the epidemic, totalitarian and Zhongnanhai, all kinds of broken "epidemic prevention measures" and various calculations behind it, I have no idea how to comment and respond. In addition, because of these absurd arrangements, some colleagues in the company need to temporarily isolate themselves in their own way, burdened with more workload, and they also have less time to receive information and do extended thinking.

Last year, the outspoken media disappeared one after another from the land of Hong Kong. Although there are some non-mainstream media (such as "Dou Media", "Zhi", etc.) and independent reporters are still supporting, but I also clearly feel , the trends and voices in civil society, and the in-depth discussion and criticism of social issues are becoming more and more difficult to see.

A few weeks ago, I read an article on Sunday Life in Ming Pao. The author, who has been a reporter for many years, pointed out that if the media still willing to report the truth still exist, with stronger monitoring and balance, Hong Kong people will be able to grasp it. The information on the epidemic should not be so lacking. But when a reporter from NOW News asked a normal question on the note, it would also be labeled as inciting hatred among the people, and the head of the news department of the CCP hurriedly issued an apology. rights", and was taken away again.

The absurd strategic policy of "dynamic clearing" exposes the weaknesses of various social policy areas. The tragic situation of sleeping with the corpse, the "Fanggun Hospital" facility is like a concentration camp, the pop-up and pop-in forced inspection and banning arrangements, the isolation of people who are forgotten due to database loopholes, and so on. People's grievances are boiling, and in this situation, it is absolutely normal (do not feel angry, it is even more strange to be able to obey). After many media were killed, the forums changed. In the past, the mainstream media, which were regarded as pro-establishment, and CCTVB's "personal opinion programs" and "Looking Around", which were not positioned as "personal opinion programs", have all packaged themselves as platforms to "appeal for the people's life", and Claims that they have successfully escalated complaints from citizens and forced those in power to improve. These are definitely not what the public is happy to see. There is an alternative agenda setting behind these media. Citizens’ resentment has not been spun into further criticism of social policies, or harvested into a bargaining chip for individual political camps to attack their opponents.

Under the red line of the evil law, in Hong Kong in 2021, many civic groups have been dissolved one after another, but there are still many people who are still willing to do more things and guard some bottom lines. Media reports or exclusive interviews in the past can still make the initiatives of these groups and networks more recognized. If you lose these channels to "promote", if you hadn't deliberately clicked into the websites or social media accounts of these groups, or knew people around you who were connected to these networks, you would have missed a lot of information, and you wouldn't have known that it was still there. There are people who are persistently working hard in a number of areas. Coupled with the fact that more and more people are turning to underground ways to maintain their old connections, people with less social capital are faced with an even bigger information gap.

One of the main axes of the recent wave of web3 that is popular in the world is "decentralization". In Hong Kong, the concept of "decentralization" is more or less forced by forces. When confronting the discourses of many oligarchs with critical thinking, it also prays to reduce the harm caused by the slaughter of large institutions by totalitarianism. Although everyone is also responsible for sorting out their own media recipes, in the case of information flooding and limited time, some credible information aggregation and sorting will always have its role and value. For example, ten media/reporters send out The e-newsletter, the division of material selection, is enough for you to quickly understand the pulse of society and the focal events that need attention from several different entry points. However, when many publicists either closed their pens or stayed in Patreon, the intensity of public discussion and dissemination was greatly reduced due to the existence of paywalls.

In the era of focus, there are really many channels for receiving information. When I say that I'm "off the ground", I feel that the source of information that I spend more time using brings me more information from other parties. Although this is a personal choice of my own, I have heard that many groups in Hong Kong that are still operating still use FB as their main information release channel. To escape the clutches of technology giants, I believe it is not a short-term goal that can be achieved.