Global Media Spectacle

Focusing on the global media coverage of Hong Kong’s transfer from Britain to China, Global Media Spectacle explores how the world media plan, operate, compete, and produce a historical record during significant global events. The authors interviewed seventy-six print and television reporters from the United States, Britain, the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, Canada, and Japan to delve into the revealing world of writing first drafts of history from reporters’ vantage points. Punctuated with witty and incisive examples, the book provides a useful description of contestation and alliance, themes and variations, and convergence and divergence between and within various blocs of nations.

Chin-Chuan Lee is Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota and Director of the China Times Center for Media and Social Studies. In the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Joseph Man Chan is Professor and Clement Y. K. So is Associate Professor. Zhongdang Pan is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

“This exciting and innovative study of a major media event shows that media elites reproduce the assumptions and interests dominant in their country and in international global events take the position of constructing discursive contestations of other countries, while promoting their own country’s interests and agendas.” —Douglas Kellner, author of Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics Between the Modern and the postmodern

“Global Media Spectacle is an absorbing book about news stories, beautifully written and packed with fascination details and rich insights. The authors sift through a mountain of media texts and weave a diverse body of material into an engaging narrative. The quotes from the news media are both colorful and illustrative.” —Yuezhi Zhao, Simon Fraser University