THESIS
2013
Abstract
Freedom of speech, often defended as a core value in Hong Kong, has been an
object of intense struggle through contested and multiple articulations of right
and interests at different times. This thesis presents a case study of Citizens’
Radio as a campaign to defend the freedom of speech in the context of increased
social activism after 2003. It is argued that the campaign not only embodied
acts of civil disobedience that challenged the boundary of legality vs. illegality
and legitimacy vs. illegitimacy in defending freedom. In the process, it also
developed into an emergent public space that sought to realize the civic values
of “equality”, “openness” and “diversity” through autonomous engagement
with subaltern groups, which advocated the democratization of values, norms
and...[
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Freedom of speech, often defended as a core value in Hong Kong, has been an
object of intense struggle through contested and multiple articulations of right
and interests at different times. This thesis presents a case study of Citizens’
Radio as a campaign to defend the freedom of speech in the context of increased
social activism after 2003. It is argued that the campaign not only embodied
acts of civil disobedience that challenged the boundary of legality vs. illegality
and legitimacy vs. illegitimacy in defending freedom. In the process, it also
developed into an emergent public space that sought to realize the civic values
of “equality”, “openness” and “diversity” through autonomous engagement
with subaltern groups, which advocated the democratization of values, norms
and institutions in civil society. Drawing on the literature on the Habermas’s
and Fraser’s account on public sphere(s) and Melucci’s idea of everyday life
democracy, this thesis examines the ways the two dimensions of the struggle
developed and interacted in the process and also the outcomes of the struggle.
It concludes by assessing the possibility and limits of an emergent subaltern
public sphere arising from the campaign.
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