由啟動到結束,79天的香港占領中環運動把文化、政治、經濟和社會等各方面的矛盾,全搬到檯面。在整個過程中,從定調到解釋性包裝,新聞媒體的報導和評論,特別是商業報紙與獨立媒體,都扮演了舉足輕重的角色。根據田野記錄和實證分析比對,由客觀現實到媒介現實,因為運動本身被相關的主要概念定位在不相容的層面上,特別是民族主義與植根的世界主義之間的衝突,後續發展大多局限在解釋己方的立場,並打擊對方的說辭。一方面,商業報紙受到市場競爭或政治立場的影響,在話語上都極盡聳動,以操作民粹;另一方面,獨立媒體儘管提供了另類管道,視野與傳統報紙似乎差異不大,往往在夾縫中,為公民社會的理性對話與傳播,發出一點來自邊緣的吶喊。
From its launch on September 28 until the movement ended on December 16, the 79-day Occupy Central movement of 2014 was the epitome of the profound cultural, political, economic, and social conflicts in Hong Kong, and thrust the city onto the world stage. From keying to interpretative packaging, the news and views of mass media, especially commercial newspapers and independent media, were important in the process of the movement. Based on field observation and empirical analysis of news discourses, this study contends that the movement had been keyed one way or the other from the beginning that delimited the boundaries of various interpretative packages articulated by both the commercial and independent media for the duration of the movement. From objective to mediated reality, the discursive boundaries in the news media oscillated between nationalism and rooted cosmopolitanism. The common thread is their populist approach to catering to the sentiments of Hong Kong citizens via discursive practices that created a dichotomous or us-versus-them configuration to woo the citizens at large. Although somewhat competitive, independent media provided an alternative, albeit feeble, voice that had yet to challenge the dominant discourse articulated by the commercial newspapers.