Bloomberg looks at how the Hong Kong government rolls out the welcome mat for online influencers who promote the city and counter Western media’s perceived bias…
“Influencers, from Hong Kong’s perspective, allow [officials] to circumvent traditional media gatekeepers,” said Arun Sudhaman, a PR industry analyst and founding editor at Earned First. “There is weariness in Hong Kong government circles about international media, and this gives them a way to try and get their message out.”
(Weariness or wariness? Both, probably.)
Despite the positive publicity generated by [comedian Jimmy O] Yang’s tours of Hong Kong, it was the government’s unprecedented use of national security laws to ban a mobile game earlier this month that generated headlines across global media. From the government’s perspective, the game was a seditious attempt by its Taiwan-based developers to promote secessionism. Yet others might see the intervention as further evidence of shrinking civil freedoms amid national security concerns. Just this week, Hong Kong’s education chief warned of the risks of “soft resistance” infiltrating schools through book fairs.
Either way, these aren’t subjects co-opted influencers are likely to delve into on their social media platforms. And this means they are lower risk from a public relations perspective, said Sudhaman, who previously spent more than four decades in Hong Kong.
To him, the government’s increasing use of influencers is more tactical than strategic.
“This approach, once again, demonstrates that Hong Kong is treating its reputation issues as a communications problem rather than addressing whatever the broader policy concerns or broader reputation concerns might be,” Sudhaman said.
As its press statements make clear, the Hong Kong authorities see PR in terms of shrilly insisting it is right and critics are wrong (despicable, etc). There’s probably little else they can do, assuming patriotism and NatSec – and anti-Westernism – are non-negotiable. But while ‘influencers’ might sell a positive view of the city, their millions of teenage viewers are probably not the international political and business leaders who our officials would most like to convince. They’re targetting an easy but not very fruitful audience.
Some audiences closer to home aren’t getting the message: anti-government vandalism breaks out in the New Territories.
Joel Chan follows up on his chart on changes in employment by age group by looking at the stats since 2018 and comparing the change in the size of the age groups, both in employment and overall. This is quite extreme…
The number of over-65s has risen by 38.5% overall, while those in work have gone up an incredible 64.3%. The number of 20-24-year-olds fell a whopping 45.3%, while those in work declined 27.1%; 25-29s fell 25.7% and 19.5% respectively. The elderly are booming and working like never before, while the young are vanishing.
That heinous monkey will be charged under the National Security Law. If you think that’s a joke: PK Tang does not do jokes.
When you’ve lost even the monkeys, you need to take a long, hard look into the mirror and wonder how you became such a loathsome sack of shit.
The edlerly have been shafted for years now with zero or near interest rates that deprive them of income from their savings so staying on the job is often a necessity not a choice.
Their plight has provided the cheap money that has minted all those new millionaires while they face diminishing returns that are well below the inceases ini nflation, prices of goods and services.
Unfortunately no Greta Thunberg has emerged to ignite a united action whereby pissed off elderly worldwide withdraw their funds from the system until a fair return is guaranteed.
Re monkey feeding and the associated penalties. I have developed an internal trouser-sleeve system based on the one in the “Great Escape” film (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zugv1NdMj4). A gentle tug on the string allows me to disburse a dozen or so nuts at a time. It’s a marvelously effective way of feeding the cheeky critters, with next to zero chance of getting caught by the AFCD officials.
@Mary Melville: At least the elderly have savings and, in many cases, their own apartment or public housing. The young are locked out of all of this, knowing nothing but recession, stagnant wages, Covid restrictions and inflation in their working lives. Is it any wonder they choose to leave, lie flat, or opt out of starting families?
The elderly can mean a lot of things in economic terms. While there are too many suffering and I feel their plight, every one I know is sitting pretty in paid for homes bought decades ago for pence on the pound. Boomers are the same all over. These elderly stay in their jobs out of habit (and maybe lack of imagination). They’re also a bottleneck, leading people below them on the totem pole to see less potential career advancement. The demographics of HK’s private club speak to this group.
Every generation faces issues. Aids for example. 60 years ago folk moving to London on average salaries could only afford small rooms with shared facilities. Here in HK millions arrived in the 50’s with only the clothes on their backs.
The young should be looking for solutions. Lying flat and spending hours on infantile online content like Tik Tok is certainly not going to improve their prospects.
@Mary Melville
What an uplifting final sentence. It’s the sort of thing that Mrs T would have uttered. I think I’m in love.
https://twitter.com/hkfp/status/1936763682903466005
And the data backs it up:
https://twitter.com/webbhk/status/1933498964420276643