New Political Power: The Development of Hong Kong Independent Media

This article attempts to delineate the post-war development of the independent media in Hong Kong, with emphasis on the significant development over the past ten years. The independent media primarily emerged out of the youth movement and organizations in the 1970s. In the 1980s, more and more small publications were run by civic organizations. In the 1990s, the art and cultural magazines sponsored by Hong Kong government were on the rise. Yet independent media gradually became marginalized by the monopoly of capital-intensive media giants. The extensive use of information technologies and internet in the late 1990s did not contribute much to the development of independent media. The situation did not change until the year 2003 while a lot of citizens made use of information and internet technologies to participate in the movement against the National Security Act and other democratic movements. In recent years, the newly established independent media converge with the social democratic party and organizations to form a new media force.