The charts below display the quantified results of the different categories of human rights covered, different sources of reflected perspectives and the reflected news reporting styles from SCMP. The matrixes of human rights (see Chapter 6, section 6.2.1), perspectives (see Chapter 6, section 6.2.2), and framing styles (see Chapter 6, section 6.2.3) displayed in the previous chapter are also applied here for SCMP.
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Chart 9 Human rights represented in SCMP
Table 20 Human rights represented in SCMP
First Generation of Rights Second Generation of Rights Mere
Mention of Human
Rights Civil Rights Political Rights Social Rights Economic Rights Cultural Rights
45
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Chart 10 Dominant and less dominant perspectives in SCMP
Diagram 5 Framing styles in SCMP
As the findings displayed in tables/charts show, firstly, similar to the results of the four selected Western newspapers, human rights coverage in SCMP focus heavily on the First Generation Rights of civil and political with a relatively large portion of ‘mere mention of human rights’ in the news data. Among the First Generation Rights, the top covered rights categories in SCMP are related to areas of media, information and the public (34), social,
165 political activities (16), and political security (14). This result of rights coverage in SCMP is generally consistent with the four Western newspapers in terms of the top 3 covered rights categories, as displayed in table 20 above. These top 3 covered rights categories are: ‘media, information and the public’, ‘social and political activities’, and ‘political security’.
Therefore, the quantified result with SCMP surely does not reflect what HRJ emphasises as the balanced coverage of both the First and the Second Generation of Rights. Examples of common framings are below (key words or phrases are highlighted in bold):
‘The IOC is at grave risk of discrediting the Olympics movement if it fails to hold the Chinese government to its promises for a free media and access to the Internet and undercuts them with secret deals’
(Simpson, August 1, 2008, SCMP)
‘But the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said in April that reporting conditions had deteriorated following restrictions on reporting about protests in Tibetan-populated areas’
(Savadove, June 25, 2008, SCMP)
‘The people's estimation of their leaders has never been higher since the crackdown. History is littered with incidents of government atrocities towards certain groups of people’
(Chugani, May 27, 2008, SCMP) The ‘mere mention of human rights’ is commonly counted in covering the Tibet concerns.
See the example below:
‘Last night, a group of activists led by University of Hong Kong student Christina Chan Hau-man staged a protest in Kowloon Park, raising concerns over huHau-man rights in Tibet’
(Chan, April 30, 2008, SCMP) In terms of the reflected perspectives in SCMP, as Chart 10 showed, it largely comes from the elites and the advocacy groups instead of the ordinary people. Consequently, as having discussed in the previous Chapter 6 with the similar results of the reflected perspectives in the
166 four Western newspapers, the SCMP neither inform the practice of HRJ in terms of an
advocated notion of a type of journalism with a ‘human face’. Nor, it cares for and empowers all but ‘biased in favour of vulnerable people’ (Shaw 2012a, p. 47). An example of the reflected elite’s perspectives in SCMP is shown below:
‘Among them was US President George W. Bush, who delivered a speech in Thailand critical of China's human rights. Mr Bush will officiate at the opening of the new US embassy in Beijing this morning. He is also expected to visit a church on Sunday’
(Kwok, August 8, 2008, SCMP)
Last, in terms of the result of reflected news reporting style, it is also similar to the four Western newspapers. The determining variables for each style have not shown a stable tendency, as the diagram 5 demonstrates. D787, E388, D689 and E1190 weigh nil in the result.
In other words, like the analysis of the four Western newspapers in Chapter 6, SCMP does not reflect a strong and stable news reporting style, which could be confirmed as diagnostic nor evocative. The framing reflected on D791 and E392 can be seen in the news excerpts of SMCP (Kwok, August 8, 2008) displayed above. In this example, human rights issues are further dramatized, which reflect the variable of E393. Arguably, the reference of President Bush creates this dramatizing effect on one hand, and the lack of specifications or
explanations or contexts on what exactly Bush criticised about China’s human rights issues further intensify such dramatizing effect on the other.
On the other hand, below is the example that reflects the variable of D794.
‘Dr Rogge also recalled how more than seven years ago Beijing officials had promised to
87See footnote 57.
88 See footnote 82.
89 See footnote 73.
90 See footnote 76.
91 See footnote 57.
92 See footnote 82.
93 See footnote 82.
94 See footnote 57.
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‘advance the social agenda of China, including human rights’ if it was awarded the 2008 Olympics. ‘This is what I would call a moral engagement rather than a juridical one…we definitely ask China to respect this moral engagement’
(Simpson, April 11, 2008, SCMP)
The news content above also contains the reference of the elites’ perspective of Dr. Rogge (like the previous one with President Bush), however, it explains human rights in terms of
“the social agenda of China” on one hand and clarifies it as a moral engagement rather than a juridical one. In this context, this example reflects the variable of D7 in terms of promoting understanding of human rights instead of dramatizing or stereotyping it from a third party.
Overall, based on the results of the covered rights categories, reflected perspectives, and reflected framing styles above, this research argues that SCMP, like the Western newspapers, also failed to inform the practice of HRJ.