Study on the Effects of Commemorative Report on National Identity: The Discourse Construction and Identity Effect of Report on the Reunification of Hong Kong (1998-2022)

Abstract

This article analyzes 689 news reports published in Chinese local newspapers from 1998 to 2022 on the commemorative reports of Hong Kong's Reunification. The article explores how Chinese local newspapers in Hong Kong construct a unified collective memory through commemorative reports on reunification, thus influencing the national identity of Hong Kong society. The research finds that newspapers in Hong Kong with different political backgrounds have relatively fixed political stances. Therefore, the audience's political awareness are relatively stable.The Hong Kong public may consolidate their original stance on political identity under the influence of the commemorative report on the Reunification and the constructed collective memory constructed, such as nationalism, localism, and separatism. Compared with the relatively direct ideological tendency on the political identity, the framework selection and discourse expression of Hong Kong newspapers with different positions on the Reunification are more indirect and obscure on the cultural identity.