Protesters or Extremists?

What do you call the people who take to the streets?

Think about “extremism.” What comes to mind when you hear the term?After all, mainstream and social media use it all the time.

Now think about “extremists.” What do media — across platforms — mean when they say someone is an “extremist”? And do different media apply the term to the same people?

Extremism is most often associated with violent, political, right-wing, Islamic and terrorism according to an ongoing study on word-mapping using publication titles from Google Scholar by communications researcher Clement So. The frequency of the various terms are graphed in the Wordle above — the size of words indicates the frequency of use.

First… an observation about ‘extremism’ by scholars

An ongoing study on word-mapping using publication titles from Google Scholar shows that extremism is most often associated with terms such as violent, political, right-wing, Islamic and terrorism (see the wordcloud above).

What does that mean? It suggests that when ‘extremism’ is used in a headline, for example, the news story is framing the events — either explicitly or implicitly—as perpetrated by those on the margins of society: people who are at the extremes of the political spectrum, people whose beliefs don’t share the majority’s values, people who use violence and terrorism to destroy the nation state.

Take the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, for example. Media coverage of the tens of thousands of citizens out in the streets sparked a discussion on the use of the term ‘extremism’ by journalists when they are reporting on citizen protests.

The Umbrella Movement

The Occupy Central Movement in 2014 — later dubbed the ‘Umbrella Movement’ — was the largest democratic movement in Hong Kong since its return to China. After receiving China’s decision to impose a highly selective mechanism for the Hong Kong Chief Executive Election, which essentially bars non-Beijing-affiliated persons from gaining candidacy, a class boycott led by the Hong Kong Federation of Students ensued.

The class boycott culminated in the regaining of Civic Square, an area outside the Government Central Office where many protests took place. The Square had been barricaded since a previous protest when protesting students marched into the Civic Square. The event evolved into a city-wide protest (i.e. the Umbrella Movement) demanding more democracy and denouncing the unjustified police violence.

Image 2 (left): Police attacked demonstrators with tear gas; Image 3 (right): Chalk drawing on the road

Image 4 (left): Umbrella Man Statue; Image 5 (right): Installation on the Tim Mei Avenue roundabout

So how did media cover the Umbrella Movement?

During the course of the protests and in the aftermath of the event, the Umbrella Movement attracted a wide spectrum of stakeholders, many addressing different agendas.

Some mainland Chinese media outlets such as the Global Times, for example, labelled the protest leaders as “extremists” or referred to their agendas as “extreme”, while local and overseas newspapers tended to be more sympathetic and used more moderate labels such as “protest leaders” or “activists”. The following quotes are from the Global Times (Chinese Edition):

Image 6: News headings from Global Times (Chinese Edition)

“…… this is more conducive to their political career than opposing the Central Government with extremist agendas.” (29 Aug 2014, Global Times)

“In recent years, Hong Kong society is tainted by extremist agendas ……” (28 Mar 2017, Global Times)

Meanwhile, the narrative of Umbrella Movement was relatively neutral among international newspapers or western media outlets as shown by the headings of related articles. Below is a compilation of news headings about the Umbrella Movement:

Image 7: News headings from international news outlets online

Reflection

Different media outlets, in China and in the world, spread different narratives about the Umbrella Movement. Consider the headlines above and the questions below:

• Do you think the label of ‘extremism’ used by some media outlets in the case of "Umbrella Movement” is justified?
• Was the Movement in any way violent, political, or right-wing?
• Media outlets’ political standpoints may have affected their coverage on controversial events. Do you think media outlets provide enough evidence for their claims?
• Do you think news media’s coverage on controversial events is fair? If not, what can the readers do about it?

Sources:

1. Image 1: Results from an ongoing study by Professor Clement So, School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong
2. Image 2: By Pasu Au Yeung, Flicker https://www.flickr.com/photos/studiokanu/15468365175
3. Image 3: By Ohconfucius, Wikipedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37008668
4. Image 4: By Citobun, Wikipedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36382502
5. Image 5: By Wing1990hk, Wikipedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35867369
6. Image 6: Collated by Chan Heung Wai with information from the Global Times (Chinese Edition) http://china.huanqiu.com/article/2017-03/10380494.html; http://china.huanqiu.com/article/2017-03/10380494.html; http://china.huanqiu.com/gangao/2017-03/10386900.html
7. Image 7: Collated by Chan Heung Wai with information from Slate http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/09/occupy_central_with_love_and_peace_and_the_umbrella_revolution_pro_democracy.html; Economist https://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2014/09/hong-kongs-protests; Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/hongkong/11291772/Hong-Kongs-Umbrella-Movement-spawns-new-generation-of-protester-but-can-they-ever-win.html; The News Lens https://international.thenewslens.com/article/72257; Aljazeera http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/11/how-hong-kong-umbrella-movemen-2014113085355521781.html; Quartz https://qz.com/310223/the-umbrella-movement-makes-a-last-ditch-stand-and-prepares-to-regroup/; CNN http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/02/opinions/hong-kong-protest-rally-dapiran/index.html