Public opinion not only influences the likelihood of success for a protest movement; images of public opinion can also be used to legitimize or delegitimize a protest. In contemporary societies, opinion polling is the most authoritative way to “measure” public opinion. Yet the meanings of poll findings need to be interpreted and are often contested. Following these premises, this article analyzes the construction of images of public opinion through polling during the Umbrella Movement. The analysis illustrates the discursive strategies involved in selective reporting of opinion polls by newspapers with different political stances. It also demonstrates how poll results were articulated with other assumptions, principles, and discourses to generate claims about the legitimacy or proper strategies of the movement. On the whole, the analysis shows how public opinion, as a discursive category, was brought to bear on the dynamics of the Umbrella Movement through polling and its communication.
Aalberg, Toril, Jesper Strömbäck, and Claes H. de Vreese
2012 “The Framing of Politics as Strategy and Game: A Review of Concepts, Operationalizations and Key Findings.” Journalism 13 (2): 162–178.
Beniger, James
1986The Control Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Boykoff, Jules
2006The Suppression of Dissent: How the State and Mass Media Squelch USAmerican Social Movements. NY: Routledge.
Brookes, Rod, Justin Lewis, and Karin Wahl-Jorgensen
2004 “The Media Representation of Public Opinion: British Television News Coverage of the 2001 General Election.” Media, Culture and Society 26 (1): 63–80.
Cappella, Joseph N., and Kathleen H. Jamieson
1997Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good. New York: Oxford University Press.
Chan, Joseph M., and Chin-Chuan Lee
1984 “Journalistic Paradigms on Civil Protests: A Case Study of Hong Kong.” In The News Media in National and International Conflict, ed. by Andrew Arno and Wimal Dissanayake, 183–202. Boulder, Colorado: Westview.
Chan, Chainsaw, and King-Wa Fu
2015 “Bu Cunzai de ‘Zhuliu Minyi’ – Yi Zui Yanjin de Tonghe Fenxi Liaojie ‘Daizhuxian’ Minyi Diaocha [The Non-existent ‘Mainstream Public Opinion’: Rigorous Integrated Analysis of Opinion Survey Findings].” Ming Pao, April 26, 2015, P02.
Erni, John N.
2015 “A Legal Realist View on Citizen Actions in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement.” Chinese Journal of Communication 8 (4): 412–419.
Gallup, George, and Saul Forbes Rae
1940The Pulse of Democracy: The Public Opinion Poll and How It Works. New York: Simon and Shuster.
Gamson, William A.
1992Talking Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gamson, William A., and Gadi Wolfsfeld
1993 “Movements and Media as Interacting Systems.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 5281: 114–125.
Gitlin, Todd
1980The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left, With a New Preface. CA: University of California Press.
Giugni, Marco
2004Social Protest and Policy Change: Ecology, Antinuclear, and Peace Movements in Comparative Perspective. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Habermas, Jürgen
1989The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Herbst, Susan
1993Numbered Voices: How Opinion Polling Has Shaped American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Herbst, Susan
1995 “On Electronic Public Space: Talk Shows in Theoretical Perspective.” Political Communication 12 (3): 263–274.
Hong Kong Journalists Association
2014 “Press Freedom under Siege: 2014 Annual Report of the Hong Kong Journalists Association.” July 2014 [URL]
Kolb, Felix
2007Protest and Opportunities. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag.
Kwiatkowski, Piotr
1992 “Opinion Research and the Fall of Communism: Poland, 1981-1990.” International Journal of Public Opinion Research 4 (4): 358–374.
Lang, Gladys E., and Kurt Lang
1983The Battle for Public Opinion: The President, the Press, and the Polls during Watergate. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lee, Francis L. F.
2006 “Poll Reporting and Journalistic Paradigm: A Study of Popularity Poll Coverage in Newspaper.” Asian Journal of Communication 16 (2): 132–151.
Lee, Francis L. F.
2012 “Remediating Prior Talk and Constructing Public Dialogue: Newspaper Coverage of Political Talk Radio Discussions in Hong Kong.” Journalism Studies 13 (4): 583–599.
Lee, Francis L. F.
2014 “Triggering the Protest Paradigm: Examining Factors Affecting News Coverage of Protests.” International Journal of Communication 8 (2014), 2725–2746.
Lee, Francis L. F.
2015 “Press Freedom in Hong Kong: Interactions between State, Media and Society.” In The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media, ed. by Gary D. Rawnsley, and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley, 131–144. London: Routledge.
Lee, Francis L. F., and Joseph M. Chan
2009 “The Political Consequences of Ambivalence: The Case of Democratic Reform in Hong Kong.” International Journal of Public Opinion Research 21 (1): 47–64.
Lee, Francis L. F., and Joseph M. Chan
2011Media, Social Mobilization and Mass Protests in Post-Colonial Hong Kong. London: Routledge.
Lee, Pui Leung, and Yee Kong Leung
2001 “Xianggang Shehui Diaocha Huigu [Review of Social Surveys in Hong Kong].” In Survey Research in Chinese Societies, ed. by Yan Jie Bian, Jow Ching Tu, and Alvin So, 13–42. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, Justin
2001Constructing Public Opinion. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ma, Ngok
2011 “Value Changes and Legitimacy Crisis in Post-industrial Hong Kong.” Asian Survey 51 (4): 683–712.
McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly
2001Dynamics of Contention. New York: Cambridge University Press.
McLeod, Douglas M., and James K. Hertog
1998 “Social Control and the Mass Media’s Role in the Regulation of Protest Groups: The Communicative Acts Perspective.” In Mass Media, Social Control and Social Change, ed. by David Demers and K. Viswanath, 305–330. IA: Iowa State University Press.
Stephens, Niall
2012 “Tyranny of the Perceived Majority: Polling in the U.S. News Media before the Invasion of Iraq.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 29 (3): 220–237.
Tang, Gary
2015 “Mobilization of Images: Effects of TV Screen and Mediated Instant Grievances in the Umbrella Movement.” Chinese Journal of Communication 8 (4): 338–355.
2020. Capturing Hearts: The Coverage of Iran's Charm Offensive during the 2015 Nuclear Deal Negotiations in the American and Israeli Press. Journalism Studies 21:11 ► pp. 1551 ff.
Tay, Dennis
2021. Automated lexical and time series modelling for critical discourse research: A case study of Hong Kong protest editorials. Lingua 255 ► pp. 103056 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.