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(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)1. IntroductionExisting literatures recognise that Chinese government has been attempting to control Hong Kong through inducing self-censorship since 1997 handover, which is seen as a threat to press freedom (Lee and Lin, 2006; Ma, 2007). A survey in 2014 showed that 49.1 per cent of citizens believed Hong Kong practised self-censorship (HKUPOP, 2014a) and 56.7 per cent believed had reservations about criticising Chinese government (HKUPOP, 2014b). The problem of self-censorship is especially evident in relation to politically sensitive news topics. These include Taiwan independence, commemoration of Tiananmen incident, and legal status of Falun Gong in Hong Kong, because they either directly or indirectly challenge legitimacy and authority of Beijing (Lee and Chan, 2009). Thus, treatments of these topics are also what most academics and commentators make reference to when evaluating self-censorship (Cheung, 2003; Fung, 2007). Given this situation, a series of academic works have found that most organisations tend to avoid these sensitive matters or use alternative means (inviting external commentaries or employing foreign reports) to handle these issues in order not to provoke Chinese leaders (Lee, 2000; 2007).Since September 2014, Umbrella Movement has become another politically sensitive topic. It used blocking of main roads as a protest strategy, urging Standing Committee of National People's Congress (NPCSC) to retract framework of Chief Executive Election method in 2017, and calling for more democracy in Hong In local eyes, movement was mainly led by university and secondary school students to fight for a Chief Executive Election without unreasonable political screening. However, in Beijing's assessment, this movement was a challenge to its authority. Some argued this campaign was a colour revolution, funded by Western governments, in an attempt to overthrow Chinese regime in Hong A number of pro-China even declared this movement is in fact fighting for the independence of Hong Kong. It is under this circumstance that news of Umbrella Movement was intentionally filtered or blocked on mainland. So, how have and alternative in Hong Kong responded to this politically sensitive topic?By examining case study of Umbrella Movement, this article argues that most organisations took an anti-movement stance and continuously practised self-censorship whereas an increasing number of Hong Kong people criticised their performance and paid more attention to alternative media, mostly offering pro-movement information. Thus, circulation of news expanded alarmingly during movement.2. Theoretical Review: The Dynamics of Mainstream and Alternative MediaIn field of studies, dynamic between and alternative has developed into an important theoretical perspective. By definition, Internet alternative media refers to organisations with their own news reporting team (e.g. editors and journalists) and news reports which mainly rely on (e.g. Facebook or webpage, etc.) for message delivery (Morone, 2013) while mainstream media refers to traditional organisations (e.g. TV, newspaper and radio, etc.) that capture attention of majority of society and hold symbolic power to present and define social reality (Couldry, 2000). With having become popular in recent decades, production and distribution cost for operating alternative organisations has decreased, thus facilitating people's participation in coproduction of alternative content and reaching a wide audience. More importantly, alternative provide more options to audience instead of only relying on traditional (Bennett and Iyengar, 2008). …
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