For next week’s lecture, we will have as our guests a panel of four of the most accomplished journalists in Hong Kong. They are:
Zoher Abdoolcarim, Asia Editor, Time
Liu Kin-ming, Director of Special Projects, Hong Kong Economic Journal
Steve Vines, veteran journalist, TV host and entrepreneur
Chris Yeung, Editor-at-Large, South China Morning Post
We will discuss the role of the media in Hong Kong and how it has changed since the handover. We will also look at the freedom of the press in Hong Kong since 1997. Key question: How critical is the media for Hong Kong to secure its status as a global city?
Hong Kong and the World 
The importance of the media for Hong Kong in today’s world is evident from the fact that it has the authority to influence the lives of ordinary people in every way. The media’s influence in the modern world is so powerful that it is also called the fourth estate.
“An analysis of the world media cities enables those locations to be identified, from which globalization in the spheres of culture and the media proceeds and is ‘produced’ in practical terms. The contents and designs produced here have a world-wide impact on consumption patterns and lifestyles” (Krätke, 2003, p.625).
The media distributes the information to the people. Furthermore, the right to information is the first and the foremost condition for citizens to do their democratic duties, which is especially a topic of concern within Hong Kong’s policy towards China.
In a city like Hong Kong the media carries the responsibility in generating the public opinion of the masses. In order to be a global city, the population has to have more than a multicultural background and English speaking skills, it must also have its own perspective and access to the outside world. A global city should not only be open to the world but also absorb and re- export the world’s impact. But I am not only talking about the printing and broadcasting media within Hong Kong. The same importance have international media headquarters or stations within Hong Kong, and as Steve Vines pointed out, most correspondents of Western media left Hong Kong and the interest in Hong Kong as a ‘news’ itself is declining.
“[F]or the process of globalization the globally operating media firms are at least as influential as the global providers of corporate services, because they create a cultural market space of global dimensions, on the basis of which the specialized global service providers can ensure the practical management of global production and market networks” (Krätke, 2003, p.625).
In order to be part of the global system and to be recognised as a global city Hong Kong has to provide local media with an international neutral perspective as well as being centre of international media broadcasting cooperations.