Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-495rp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-12T21:46:28.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Visual Framing: The Use of COVID-19 in the Mobilization of Hong Kong Protest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2022

Katherine Whitworth  and
Yao-Tai Li Open the ORCID record for Yao-Tai Li [Opens in a new window]
Katherine Whitworth
Affiliation:
Political Economy, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Email: whitworth.katherine@gmail.com,
Yao-Tai Li*
Affiliation:
Sociology and Social Policy, School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
*
Corresponding author: Yao-Tai Li, email: yaotai.li@unsw.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study focuses on the Hong Kong Lennon Walls and the communications posted there. We assert that the physical placement of COVID-19 related images on the Lennon Walls of Hong Kong and the replication of symbols and iconography from the Umbrella Movement and the Anti-ELAB Movement situated COVID-19 discourse not only physically within but also symbolically within the contentious politics of Hong Kong. We conclude that the messages and images posted on Lennon Walls between January and April 2020 have used COVID-19 to extend public expression of sentiment on the debates around the Hong Kong government and to further mobilize a sense of Hong Kong identity against China. The findings contribute to the understandings of how the cultural politics surrounding the pandemic became a collective action frame in the mobilization of a localized Hong Kong political identity against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments.

摘要

摘要

本文探讨香港连侬牆以及透过连侬牆所传播的讯息。我们分析了连侬牆上与新冠肺炎有关的符号和图像,认为其与 2014 年香港雨伞运动以及 2019 年反修例运动的图像有相当程度的一致性。在具体空间以及象徵意义上,我们发现新冠肺炎的相关论述被连结到香港抗争政治的脉络上。在新冠肺炎爆发后 (2020 年一月到四月),连侬牆上的讯息和图像透过肺炎作为构框 (frame), 延伸对于香港政府的公众论述和情绪表达,并动员香港认同以对抗中国。本文的研究贡献在于指出对于全球疫情的文化政治如何转化成为一种集体行动的论述框架,用来动员在地化的香港政治认同以对抗香港和中国政府。

Keywords

Lennon WallCOVID-19visual framingcultural politicsHong Kong identityChina连侬牆新冠肺炎影像构框文化政治香港认同中国
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 253 , March 2023 , pp. 19 - 34
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aiello, Giorgia. 2006. “Theoretical advances in critical visual analysis: perception, ideology, mythologies and social semiotics.” Journal of Visual Literacy 26(2), 89–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Almeida, Paul. 2019. Social Movements: The Structure of Collective Mobilization. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Barthes, Ronald. 1977. Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana.Google Scholar
Benford, Robert D., and Snow, David A.. 2000. “Framing processes and social movements: an overview and assessment.” Annual Review of Sociology 26, 611–639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, W. Lance, and Segerberg, Alexandra. 2012. “The logic of connective action.” Information, Communication and Society 15(5), 739–768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bing, J. Daniel. 1998. “Datames and Mazaeus: the iconography of revolt and restoration in Cilicia.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 47(1), 41–76.Google Scholar
Bren, Paulina. 2008. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall … is the West the fairest of them all? Czechoslovak normalization and its (dis)contents.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 9(4), 831–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheng, Edmund W., and Yuen, Samson. 2019. “Memory in movement: collective identity and memory contestation in Hong Kong's Tiananmen vigils.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 24(4), 419–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohn, William A. 2009. “How free is free speech?” The New Presence 3, 23–27.Google Scholar
Condren, Conal, Davis, Jessica M., McCausland, Sally and Phiddian, Robert. 2008. “Defining parody and satire: Australian copyright law and its new exception part 2: advancing ordinary definitions.” Media and Arts Law Review 13(4), 401–421.Google Scholar
Davis, Jessica M. 2013. “Pictorial irony, parody, and pastiche: comic interpictoriality in the arts of the 19th and 20th centuries.” British Journal of Aesthetics 53(3), 365–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D'Errico, Francesca, and Poggi, Isabella. 2016. “‘The bitter laughter’: when parody is a moral and affective priming in political persuasion.” Frontiers in Psychology 7, 1–14.Google Scholar
Doerr, Nicole, Mattoni, Alice and Teune, Simon (eds.). 2013. Advances in the Visual Analysis of Social Movements. Bingley: Emerald Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doerr, Nicole, and Teune, Simon. 2012. “The imagery of power facing the power of imagery: towards a visual analysis of social movements.” In Klimke, Martin, Fahlenbrach, Kathrin, Scharloth, Joachim and Wong, Laura (eds.), The Establishment Responds: Power, Politics and Protest since 1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 43–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evanson, Robert K. 1986. “Political repression in Czechoslovakia, 1948–1984.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 28(1), 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gahan, Peter, and Pekarek, Andreas. 2013. “Social movement theory, collective action frames and union theory: a critique and extension.” British Journal of Industrial Relations 51(4), 754–776.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Halfmann, Drew, and Young, Michael P.. 2010. “War pictures: the grotesque as a mobilizing tactic.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 15(1), 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halliday, Michael. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Hardin, Marie, Lynn, Susan, Walsdorf, Kristie and Hardin, Brent. 2002. “The framing of sexual difference in SI for kids’ editorial photos.” Mass Communication and Society 5(3), 341–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodge, Robert, and Kress, Gunther. 1988. Social Semiotics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Jewitt, Carey, and Oyama, Rumiko. 2001. “A social semiotic approach: handbook of visual analysis.” In van Leeuwen, Theo and Jewitt, Carey (eds.), Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage, 134–156.Google Scholar
Kerr, John, Panagopoulos, Costas and Linden, Sandervan der. 2021. “Political polarization on the COVID-19 pandemic response in the United States.” Personality and Individual Differences 179, 110892.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Khatib, Lina. 2012. Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle. London: IB Tauris.Google Scholar
Kohns, Oliver. 2013. “Guy Fawkes in the 21st century: a contribution to the political iconography of revolt.” Image and Narrative 14(1), 89–103.Google Scholar
Lahusen, Christian. 1996. The Rhetoric of Moral Protest: Public Campaigns, Celebrity Endorsement, and Political Mobilization. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lam, Jeffie, Sum, Lok-kei, Ng, Kang-chung and Cheung, Tony. 2019. “After protests, sticky notes take over Hong Kong streets.” inkstonenews.com, 10 July, https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/after-protests-sticky-notes-take-over-hong-kong-streets/article/3017996.Google Scholar
Lee, Doreen. 2011. “Images of youth: on the iconography of history and protest in Indonesia.” History and Anthropology 22(3), 307–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Francis L.F., Yuen, Samson, Tang, Gary and Cheng, Edmund W.. 2019. “Hong Kong's summer of uprising: from anti-extradition to anti-authoritarian protests.” The China Review 19(4), 1–32.Google Scholar
Li, Yao-Tai, and Ng, Jenna. 2021. “‘Moral dilemma of striking’: a medical worker's response to job duty, public health protection, and the politicization of strikes.” Work, Employment and Society, https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017020981554.Google Scholar
Li, Yao-Tai, and Whitworth, Katherine. 2022a. “Reclaiming Hong Kong through neighbourhood-making: a study of the 2019 Anti-ELAB Movement.” Urban Studies 59(7), 1372–1388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Yao-Tai, and Whitworth, Katherine. 2022b. “Contentious repertoires: examining Lennon Walls in Hong Kong's social unrest of 2019.” Journal of Contemporary Asia, https://doi.org/10.1080/00472336.2022.2032277.Google Scholar
Liang, Hai, and Lee, Francis L.F.. 2021. “Opinion leadership in a leaderless movement: discussion of the anti-extradition bill movement in the ‘LIHKG’ web forum.” Social Movement Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2021.1989294.Google Scholar
Liao, Sara. 2022. “Feeling the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-ELAB Movement: emotion and affect on the Lennon Walls.” Chinese Journal of Communication 15(3), 355–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieblich, Amia, Tuval-Mashiach, Rivka and Zilber, Tamar. 1998. Narrative Research: Reading, Analysis, and Interpretation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ma, Ngok, and Cheng, Edmund W.. 2021. “Professionals in revolt: specialized networks and sectoral mobilization in Hong Kong.” Social Movement Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2021.1988914.Google Scholar
Moore-Gilbert, Kylie. 2019. “A visual uprising: framing the online activism of Bahrain's Shiʿi opposition.” Media, War and Conflict 12(3), 225–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moragues-Faus, Ana. 2017. “Emancipatory or neoliberal food politics? Exploring the ‘politics of collectivity’ of buying groups in the search for egalitarian food democracies.” Antipode 49(2), 455–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholls, Walter, Miller, Byron and Beaumont, Justin (eds.). 2013. Spaces of Contention: Spatialities and Social Movements. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Palmer, David A. 2020. “Black bloc against red China: tears and revenge in the trenches of the new Cold War.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 10(2), 325–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patsiaouras, Georgios, Veneti, Anastasia and Green, William. 2018. “Marketing, art and voices of dissent: promotional methods of protest art by the 2014 Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement.” Marketing Theory 18(1), 75–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pavli, Androula, and Maltezou, Helena C.. 2021. “COVID-19 vaccine passport for a safe resumption of travel.” Journal of Travel Medicine 28(4), taab079.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perlin, Ross. 2015. “Two occupys: the new global language of protest.” Dissent 63(3), 92–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philipps, Axel. 2012. “Visual protest material as empirical data.” Visual Communication 11(1), 3–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scollon, Ron, and Scollon, Suzie Wong. 2003. Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seo, Hyunjin, and Ebrahim, Husain. 2016. “Visual propaganda on Facebook: a comparative analysis of Syrian conflicts.” Media, War and Conflict 9(3), 227–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Šmidrkal, Václav. 2016. “Abolish the army? The ideal of democracy and the transformation of the Czechoslovak military after 1918 and 1989.” European Review of History 23(4), 623–642.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stempack, Matt, and Teng, Fiona. 2019. “The civic stack: Hong Kong protest movement tech.” Civic Hall, 10 December, https://civichall.org/civicist/the-civic-stack-hong-kong-protest-movement-tech/.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney. 2013. The Language of Contention: Revolutions in Words, 1688–2012. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney, and Tilly, Charles. 2007. “Contentious politics and social movements.” In Boix, Carles and Stokes, Susan C. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 435–460.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 2008. Contentious Performances. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ulc, Otto. 1971. “Political participation in Czechoslovakia.” Journal of Politics 33(2), 422–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valjakka, Minna. 2020. “Co-authoring the space: the initial Lennon Wall Hong Kong in 2014 as socially engaged creativity.” Cultural Studies 34(6), 979–1006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valocchi, Steve. 1999. “Riding the crest of a protest wave? Collective action frames in the gay liberation movement, 1969–1973.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 4(1), 59–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A. 2005. “Opinions and ideologies in the press.” In Bell, Allan and Garret, Peter (eds.), Approaches to Media Discourse. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 21–63.Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A. 2006. “Discourse and manipulation.” Discourse and Society 17(3), 359–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veg, Sebastian. 2016. “Creating a textual public space: slogans and texts from Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement.” The Journal of Asian Studies 75(3), 673–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veg, Sebastian. 2017. “The rise of ‘localism’ and civic identity in post-handover Hong Kong: questioning the Chinese nation-state.” The China Quarterly 230, 323–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vicari, Stefania. 2010. “Measuring collective action frames: a linguistic approach to frame analysis.” Poetics 38(5), 504–525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Xu, Ye, Yu and Chan, Chris King-chi. 2019. “Space in a social movement: a case study of Occupy Central in Hong Kong in 2014.” Space and Culture 22(4), 434–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Kieran. 1997. The Prague Spring and its Aftermath: Czechoslovak Politics, 1968–1970. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yuen, Samson, Cheng, Edmund W., Or, Nick H.K., Grépin, Karen A., Fu, King-Wa, Yung, Ka-Chun and Yue, Ricci P.H.. 2021. “A tale of two city-states: a comparison of the state-led vs civil society-led responses to COVID-19 in Singapore and Hong Kong.” Global Public Health 16(8–9), 1283–1303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed