Foreign news, regime type, and framing of China: comparing the world’s media interpretations of the Hong Kong National Security Law

Abstract

The existing literature has recognized that democratic regimes tend to allow pluralistic media content, whereas authoritarian regimes mostly permit pro-regime media content. This discussion has long focused on domestic news at the national level. However, the implications of foreign news have seldom been explored. By examining the Hong Kong National Security Law, this article compares the world’s media interpretations of China. The findings show that (1) democratic regimes mainly reported negatively, but authoritarian regimes reported pluralistically, (2) democratic regimes largely framed the Security Law as China’s intervention and the justification of foreign assistance, but authoritarian regimes framed it as a matter of China’s internal affairs and countersanctions against foreign intervention in Hong Kong, and (3) both democratic and authoritarian regimes covered Western sanctions on China more than Chinese countersanctions on the West. The conclusion strongly supports the thesis that regime type is the most significant determiner of the reporting style adopted by foreign news organizations. This article focuses on an internationally controversial case study to understand the literature on perceptions of China and regime type.

Keywords:

• Regime type
• foreign news
• perceptions of China
• National Security Law
• Hong Kong

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the academic editing support for this paper from the College of Professional and Continuing Education.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Reports on China’s countersanction can be a response to sanctions from Western countries; thus, it seems to be a judgment on news value instead of framing. We acknowledge this comment as possible and not surprising. We admit that the news value of sanctions and countersanctions depends on the foreign media themselves. Framing theory is adopted in this study, which assumes that foreign media, aside from the regime type, select a specific aspect of a news story, either sanctions on or countersanctions by China, for readers. We thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ying-ho Kwong

Ying-ho Kwong is Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Science, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on social movements, e-governance and the politics of Asia. He has published in China Perspectives, Critical Asian Studies and Island Studies Journal.

Mathew Y. H. Wong

Mathew Y. H. Wong is Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Polytechnic University of Hong Kong. His research interests lie in income inequality, democracy, and the politics of East Asia. He has published in World Development, Democratization, Asian Survey, among other journals.