Case 6: The Vicissitudes of Star Identity: Lingering between the Domestic and Public Spheres - Interview with Hilary Tsui (Hong Kong actress/fashion blogger/entrepreneur)

This TDG project enhances the active learning, critical thinking and sociocultural relevance of the course through discussion of recent and real cases of celebrity creation and endorsement of fashion, luxury and lifestyle brands in various media industries across Asia, particularly in Greater China, Hong Kong and South Korea. Students will read a selected case study of various interviews with communication or entertainment industry practitioners. All case studies are developed based on real examples of celebrity participation in both traditional or new communication campaigns. After reading each case study, the students will discuss its implications and evaluate the social, cultural and economic dynamics of celebrity cultures. These untold inside stories of celebrity endorsement or celebrity advocacy will stimulate students’ interest in rethinking the economic and cultural implications of the phenomenon of stardom and facilitate classroom interaction. This project will improve the pedagogical approach by providing a common experience for active learning, thus facilitating a higher level of sociocultural relevance and more engaging discussion and participation in class. GDBU1855/GDSS1855 Celebrity and Entertainment Business is a GE course open to students from the School of Business or the School of Communication. In this course, students will learn about the use of celebrity in marketing and creative industries (e.g., film, advertising or digital entertainment) as well as its impact, including the construction of self-identity, celebrity-driven consumer behavior, gender and race, stereotypes, and idol worship. Figures of interest to be studied include film figures; music, sports, cultural and political celebrities; and online bloggers. This is fundamentally a preliminary course designed to help students think more critically about the intersection of entertainment and civic engagement in the new media era. It also aims to strengthen students’ understanding of the culture of celebrity on the societal values and choices in a Chinese culture. Culturally relevant case studies are currently unavailable in the market but are instrumental for this course. Real-life examples will enhance students’ understanding of communication and marketing theories in specific cultural contexts. It is expected that this pedagogical approach will stimulate active classroom discussion and thus critical reasoning of the topics. A well-coordinated and type-setted e-book will be produced and reserved in the COMS departmental office and HKBU Library and shared by other HKBU students who are interested in exploring the topic from interdisciplinary perspectives. This project is granted by the Centre for Holistic Teaching and Learning (Teaching Development Grant) at Hong Kong Baptist University (Ref No: TDG/1314/11).published_or_final_versio

Consistent Inconsistency In Fashion Magazines: The Socialization Of Fashionability In Hong Kong

Fashion plays a significant role in the global creative industries and in urban social space, and has recently evolved from a peripheral topic to a valued interdisciplinary subject coined as “fashion-ology,” investigating how fashion as an intangible and changeable meaning is systematically produced by and amongst different cultural intermediaries, and how it is cyclically diffused in society. As an exercise in understanding the conflictual notions of fashion in operation under the rubric of production inside a local fashion media organization, this study emphasizes how text and image in fashion representation can be multifarious and are intertwined with the commercial and capitalist logic of the fashion industry. This research supplements related ethnographic studies and discerns how industry practitioners actually negotiate fashion meanings and are constantly torn between encoding desirable (luxury) fashionability, while at the same time anticipating and serving different advertisers’ interests. Fieldwork data portray partly conflicting, partly consistent notions of fashion among different workers in the fashion media. The focus was: What shapes the collective interpretation and production of fashionability within a media organizational setting? The responses demonstrate the effect of advertising on fashion editorial pages and its major role in shaping fashionability, in addition to the contradictory rules guiding how media people strive to present a preferred face of luxury fashion in the magazine and why such an attempt was unsuccessful in this case.published_or_final_versio

Case 7: Social and political Influences of Celebrity - Interview with Denise Ho (Cantopop singer/actress/social activist) and Pakho Chau (Cantopop singer-songwriter/actor)

This TDG project enhances the active learning, critical thinking and sociocultural relevance of the course through discussion of recent and real cases of celebrity creation and endorsement of fashion, luxury and lifestyle brands in various media industries across Asia, particularly in Greater China, Hong Kong and South Korea. Students will read a selected case study of various interviews with communication or entertainment industry practitioners. All case studies are developed based on real examples of celebrity participation in both traditional or new communication campaigns. After reading each case study, the students will discuss its implications and evaluate the social, cultural and economic dynamics of celebrity cultures. These untold inside stories of celebrity endorsement or celebrity advocacy will stimulate students’ interest in rethinking the economic and cultural implications of the phenomenon of stardom and facilitate classroom interaction. This project will improve the pedagogical approach by providing a common experience for active learning, thus facilitating a higher level of sociocultural relevance and more engaging discussion and participation in class. GDBU1855/GDSS1855 Celebrity and Entertainment Business is a GE course open to students from the School of Business or the School of Communication. In this course, students will learn about the use of celebrity in marketing and creative industries (e.g., film, advertising or digital entertainment) as well as its impact, including the construction of self- identity, celebrity-driven consumer behavior, gender and race, stereotypes, and idol worship. Figures of interest to be studied include film figures; music, sports, cultural and political celebrities; and online bloggers. This is fundamentally a preliminary course designed to help students think more critically about the intersection of entertainment and civic engagement in the new media era. It also aims to strengthen students’ understanding of the culture of celebrity on the societal values and choices in a Chinese culture. Culturally relevant case studies are currently unavailable in the market but are instrumental for this course. Real-life examples will enhance students’ understanding of communication and marketing theories in specific cultural contexts. It is expected that this pedagogical approach will stimulate active classroom discussion and thus critical reasoning of the topics. A well- coordinated and type-setted e-book will be produced and reserved in the COMS departmental office and HKBU Library and shared by other HKBU students who are interested in exploring the topic from interdisciplinary perspectives. This project is granted by the Centre for Holistic Teaching and Learning (Teaching Development Grant) at Hong Kong Baptist University (Ref No: TDG/1314/11).published_or_final_versio

A myth of fashion media: a rising country makes a dwindling city?

Session 4 - C: Fashion systemsIn this paper, participant observation was used to investigate how global fashion and luxury firms and Hong Kong’s print media present fashion meanings in the local context. The editorial team of a Hong Kong fashion magazine was observed. That fieldwork created chances for interviews and conversations with thirty-six fashion media insiders in Hong Kong and mainland China from 2011 to 2013, which helped open new windows on the paradoxical yet valid logic of fashion industry. By revisiting the literature and case studies on various sociohistorical, economic and cultural influences on Asian fashion industry, a fuller picture of the social dynamics of the mainland Chinese and Hong Kong fashion media is first exhibited. The self-perceptions and career aspirations of industry participants are then discussed and …postprin

Four Myths of Fashion: An Ethnographic Research on the Fashion Media Industry in Hong Kong and Mainland China

Fashion meanings are constantly shifting as they interact with the specific sociohistorical, economic and cultural situations, and its specific manifestations in Asia deserves further scholarly exploration. This ethnographic research aimed at explaining how today’s fashion media represent fashion in synchrony with the cycles of ever-changing Western and global fashion. The author took the readers on a journey of remapping the conflicting notions of fashion. In the course of participant observation at a Chinese fashion magazine and interviews with thirty-plus fashion industry personnel in Hong Kong and mainland China, four myths of fashion were gradually discerned on the personal, organizational, industry and national levels. Sequentially, each level corresponded to each myth, and each myth involved two specific pairs of conflicting or even paradoxical imaginaries of fashion. They became the readers’ critical spectacles to look through the constraining and enabling nature of fashion in a real social setting in the Asian context.published_or_final_versio

Case 5: Rethinking the Symbiotic Relationships between Celebrity and the Media in the Era of the Korean Wave - Interview with Patrick Suen (seasoned media worker/Korean celebrity agent)

This TDG project enhances the active learning, critical thinking and sociocultural relevance of the course through discussion of recent and real cases of celebrity creation and endorsement of fashion, luxury and lifestyle brands in various media industries across Asia, particularly in Greater China, Hong Kong and South Korea. Students will read a selected case study of various interviews with communication or entertainment industry practitioners. All case studies are developed based on real examples of celebrity participation in both traditional or new communication campaigns. After reading each case study, the students will discuss its implications and evaluate the social, cultural and economic dynamics of celebrity cultures. These untold inside stories of celebrity endorsement or celebrity advocacy will stimulate students’ interest in rethinking the economic and cultural implications of the phenomenon of stardom and facilitate classroom interaction. This project will improve the pedagogical approach by providing a common experience for active learning, thus facilitating a higher level of sociocultural relevance and more engaging discussion and participation in class. GDBU1855/GDSS1855 Celebrity and Entertainment Business is a GE course open to students from the School of Business or the School of Communication. In this course, students will learn about the use of celebrity in marketing and creative industries (e.g., film, advertising or digital entertainment) as well as its impact, including the construction of self-identity, celebrity-driven consumer behavior, gender and race, stereotypes, and idol worship. Figures of interest to be studied include film figures; music, sports, cultural and political celebrities; and online bloggers. This is fundamentally a preliminary course designed to help students think more critically about the intersection of entertainment and civic engagement in the new media era. It also aims to strengthen students’ understanding of the culture of celebrity on the societal values and choices in a Chinese culture. Culturally relevant case studies are currently unavailable in the market but are instrumental for this course. Real-life examples will enhance students’ understanding of communication and marketing theories in specific cultural contexts. It is expected that this pedagogical approach will stimulate active classroom discussion and thus critical reasoning of the topics. A well-coordinated and type-setted e-book will be produced and reserved in the COMS departmental office and HKBU Library and shared by other HKBU students who are interested in exploring the topic from interdisciplinary perspectives. This project is granted by the Centre for Holistic Teaching and Learning (Teaching Development Grant) at Hong Kong Baptist University (Ref No: TDG/1314/11).published_or_final_versio

Concept de Modèle Ecologique pour la Zone Humide Alaotra

The wet zone Alaotra consists of the largest lake of Madagascar with about 20,000 ha of open - water and up to 23,000 ha of marshes. This wet zone is unique by the presence of an endemic fauna, and its marshes consist of a monospecific vegetation. The local communities directly depend on this wet zone with fishing and agriculture being an integral part of the region’s economy. Consequently, various anthropological pressures such as burning of the vegetation, over - fishing, pollution of the lake by the use of weed - killers, and sedimentation of the watersheds due to heavy erosions of the surrounding hills, negatively impact on this ecosystem. The wet zone Alaotra has been classified as an official Ramsar wetland site since 2003 and also as a SAPM protected area in January 2007 because of its ecological importance and its various threats to this ecosystem. The objective of this article is to present and describe the ecological model, which consists of the identification of the various ecological entities as well as their interdependence, in order to justify the wetlands classification as both a Ramsar and a New Protected Area site. The model has been adopted from Ogden (2005), and its ecological entities integrated in the conceptual model are derived from various research works conducted on the wet zone Alaotra. The model will be critically important in convincing the local authorities as well as the local communities to work together with the researchers, in order to implement the best conservation practices and ensure the sustainable management of the wet zone Alaotra

Challenging Digital Capitalism: SACOM’s Campaigns against Apple and Foxconn as Monopoly Capital

“Utopia or dystopia—to where will the ‘digital revolution’ lead human society?” is a question that remains unanswered. Negotiating between two opposing standpoints, this article, looking at a form of trans-border activism originally driven by suicides and protests of Foxconn workers who produce iPhones, iPads and many other i-gadgets for the world’s consumers, is an attempt to explore a politics of online/offline resistance against anti-digital capitalism. Based in Hong Kong (HK), SACOM is a leftist student group which works to support Chinese workers in campaigning against corporate power and generating trans-border networks through media exposure, international activism, and localized organization. Combining online and offline activism, SACOM strives to extend the reach of their worker-consumer campaign to the worldwide audience by transgressing the Chinese state’s dominance of capital and political control. The most intriguing question to us is could this proactive activism be possible and, if so, how could it act at the grid of China’s transformation and incorporation into global capitalism

Two Different Tales Of Fashion Media Industry Development In Mainland China And Hong Kong

Special Issue: Transglobal Fashion Narratives & Style CulturesBy revisiting relevant literature and case studies, this article first outlines the Euro-American fashion media’s influence to and the development of Chinese fashion media industry. The participant field research created chances for interviews with sixteen Chinese fashion media insiders from 2011 to 2013. Apparently, Hong Kong journalists take a pessimistic view of the local fashion industry. Mainland fashion media personnel, by contrast, take an optimistic view of the industry’s potential in China. The interview data suggest that such contradictory visions may arise from differing political changes and cultural biases. It is argued that the fashion media industry has never reached a cultural renaissance in either Hong Kong or China proper, despite their respective economic boom over the past decades. Fashion was a taboo, a sign of bourgeois taste, and considered as morally inferior in the Communist ideology. Against this backdrop, the colonial Hong Kong, where fashion was adopted to manifest a modern Chinese identity, did not share this ideological change. With the arrival of 1997, the situation had changed under the fast growing Chinese economy and information flow. The shifting fashion industries and cultural politics in the two regions construct new relations between the post-socialist country and its post-colonial city.postprin

Perception of healthy and unhealthy food among Chinese adolescents

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore snacking behavior and perspectives on healthy and unhealthy food choices among adolescents in Mainland China. Design/methodology/approach Four focus-group interviews were conducted. Altogether 24 participants were recruited in Changsha, a second-tier city in China, through a convenience sampling process. They were asked to report their snacking behaviors, identify whether certain snacks are healthy or unhealthy and elaborate on factors affecting food choices. Findings Snacking was prevalent among the participants. The most frequently consumed snacks included fruit, milk and instant noodles. Participants’ evaluations for the healthiness of foods were based on the actual nutritional values of those foods, the effects on growth and body weight and word-of-mouth. Choice of snack was driven mainly by taste, image, convenience and health consciousness. Research limitations/implications The finding was based on a non-probability sample. The paper also did not explore the contexts where snacks were consumed. Practical implications Parents can make healthy snacks more accessible at home and at schools. Educators can teach adolescents how to read food labels. Schools can increase the availability of healthy snacks on campus. Social marketers can promote healthy snacks by associating them with fun and high taste. Originality/value This is the first paper on snacking behaviors among adolescents conducted in a second-tier city in China using focus-group methodology. Keywords: Qualitative methods, Adolescence, Obesity, Consumer socialization, Children and foodpostprin