A Personal Vision of the Hong Kong Cityscape in Anson Mak’s Essayistic Documentary Films One Way Street on a Turntable and On the Edge of a Floating City, We Sing

Author(s):  
Mike Ingham

This chapter explores Anson Hoi Shan Mak's essayistic documentaries and her personal vision of the Hong Kong cityscape. Like the traditional mainstream documentary, the essay film often focuses on specific issue(s), rather than a fictional plot. However, while straight documentary makers concentrate on the ‘subject’, which is more ‘passive’ than the ‘active subject’ of the fiction film, film essayists opt to treat the subject as a theme ‘in which the subject is a particular development or an interpretation of that theme, and one that has a determining influence upon the form of the film’. The chapter argues that the radicality of Mak's film essays manifests itself both in a highly original aesthetics and in a critical perspective on Hong Kong. The independent filmmaker's discourse is articulated in a subtle way, but her political stance is, however, expressed firmly, especially in the more recent On the Edge of a Floating City, We Sing (2012).

Author(s):  
Valeriy P. Ljubin ◽  

In German and Russian historiography, the tragic fate of the Soviet prisoners of war in Germany during the Second World War has not been suffi- ciently explored. Very few researchers have addressed this topic in recent times. In the contemporary German society, the subject remains obscured. There are attempts to reflect this tragedy in documentary films. The author analyses the destiny of the documentary film “Keine Kameraden”, which was shot in 2011 and has not yet been shown on the German television. It tells the story of the Soviet prisoners of war, most of whom died in the Nazi concentration camps in 1941– 1945. The personal history of some of the Soviet soldiers who died in the German captivity is reflected, their lives before the war are described, and the relatives of the deceased and the surviving prisoners of war are interviewed. The film features the German historians who have written books about the Soviet prisoners. All the attempts taken by the civil society organizations and the historians to influence the German public opinion so that the film could be shown on German television to a wider audience were unsuccessful. The film was seen by the viewers in Italy on the state channel RAI 3. Even earlier, in 2013, the film was shown in Russia on the channel “Kultura” and received the Pushkin Prize.


2020 ◽  
pp. 097215092097511
Author(s):  
Asifa Ali ◽  
Irfan Ahmad Hakak ◽  
Faseeh Amin

The aim of this article is to examine the bibliometric analysis of global publication output on coronavirus, as covered in Web of Science during the period from 2000 to 2019. A total of 10,861 documents were found during a 20-year period spanning from 2000 to 2019 published in the ISI Web of Science. The study analyses annual productivity, most productive source titles, prolific countries, eminent institutions, linguistic analysis and productivity of authors and their contribution in the subject area. The findings reveal that the most productive year of publication was 2004 that included 782 publications with the majority published in the Journal of Virology. The result further indicates that the USA, China and Germany are the most productive countries in the field of Coronavirus research output. In terms of institutional output, University of Hong Kong emerged as the most productive institution; Yuen KY from Hong Kong is the most prolific author. In the subject category type, the most prominent subject field is Virology, Infectious Disease and Veterinary Science. The findings of the study are limited to the data harvested from ‘Web of Science’. This study is of immense relevance to researchers and academicians who are searching for answers to this pandemic. This will provide insights to academicians to collaborate with other researchers based on the quality of the research produced by other countries and institutes. The study is useful for researchers, immunologists and epidemiologists who are interested in the field of Coronavirus and serves as a base for future research.


Author(s):  
John Mraz

Photography, film, and other forms of technical imagery were incorporated quickly into Mexican society upon their respective arrivals, joining other visual expressions such as murals and folk art, demonstrating the primacy of the ocular in this culture. Photojournalism began around 1900, and has formed a pillar of Mexican photography, appearing in illustrated magazines and the numerous picture histories that have been produced. A central bifurcation in the photography of Mexico (by both Mexicans and foreigners) has been that of the picturesque and the anti-picturesque. Followers of the former tendency, such as Hugo Brehme, depict Mexicans as a product of nature, an expression of the vestiges left by pre-Columbian civilizations, the colony, and underdevelopment; for them, Mexico is an essence that has been made once and for all time. Those that are opposed to such essentialism, such as Manuel Álvarez Bravo, choose instead to posit that Mexicans are a product of historical experiences. The Mexican Revolution has been a central figure in both photography and cinema. The revolution was much photographed and filmed when it occurred, and that material has formed the base of many picture histories, often formed with the archive of Agustín Víctor Casasola, as well as with documentary films. Moreover, the revolution has been the subject of feature films. With the institutionalization of the revolution, governments became increasingly conservative, and the celebrity stars of “Golden Age” cinema provided models for citizenship; these films circulated widely throughout the Spanish speaking world. Although the great majority of photojournalists followed the line of the party dictatorship, there were several critical photographers who questioned the government, among them Nacho López, Héctor García, and the Hermanos Mayo. The Tlaltelolco massacre of 1968 was a watershed, from which was born a different journalism that offered space for the critical imagery of daily life by the New Photojounalists. Moreover, the representation of the massacre in cinema offered sharply contrasting viewpoints. Mexican cineastes have received much recognition in recent years, although they do not appear to be making Mexican films. Television in Mexico is controlled by a duopoly, but some programs have reached an international audience comparable to that of the Golden Age cinema.


2019 ◽  
pp. 107769901985898
Author(s):  
Francis L. F. Lee ◽  
Zhang Yin

Recent research has adopted the network analytic approach to examine issues of audience fragmentation and selective exposure. This article extends this line of study by analyzing how newspapers’ political stance, market position, and technological platform predict readership overlap. Analyzing readership survey data in Hong Kong, the results show that market position—in terms of elite versus mass orientation and language of the newspapers—consistently predicts readership overlap. In comparison, political distance between two newspapers predicts readership overlap mainly when online readership is concerned. Different from the United States, predictors of readership overlap do not vary for news consumers of different partisanship.


Author(s):  
Daniel T.L. Shek ◽  
Moon Y.M. Law ◽  
Ting T. Liu

AbstractTwo focus groups with six randomly selected students were conducted to understand the views and experiences of students taking a subject entitled “Service Leadership” at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Several observations were highlighted from the findings. First, students generally had positive views of the subject. Second, students felt that they had positive experience in the subject. Third, the instructors were seen in a positive light by the students. Fourth, the students perceived the subject to be beneficial to their development. Fifth, students had positive impression about the subject. Finally, recommendations regarding time allocation, teaching style, and classroom environment were expressed by the students.


China Report ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-136
Author(s):  
Chih-Yu Shih

This article divides China watching by the two dimensions of position and purpose. By position, the article asks if a narrator looks at China from an external or an internal perspective. By purpose, it asks if the narrative is to critically provide an evaluative perspective, to objectively represent an authentic China, or to practically discuss a life and identity strategy of Chinese people. Specifically, the complex sensibilities towards China among Taiwanese migrant scholars reify the genuine and yet often-unnoticed agency required to proceed with writing on China. With initially both the Chinese Civil War and later pro-independence politics in Taiwan poisoning relationships with China, the politically divided Taiwanese scholars enter a different environment in Hong Kong, which urges neither total confrontation nor complete loyalty in approaching China. How the Hong Kong circumstances have impacted upon the choices of these Taiwanese intellectuals in their presentation of the subject matter of China, in comparison with their other colleagues in Hong Kong, is the primary goal of the following discussion.


Author(s):  
Daniel T.L. Shek ◽  
Li Lin ◽  
Ting Ting Liu ◽  
Moon Y.M. Law

AbstractThis study examined the perceptions of students taking a subject entitled “Service Leadership” at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University which was developed using the model proposed by the Hong Kong Institute of Service Leadership and Management (HKI-SLAM). After taking this subject, students were invited to participate in a qualitative study where they used three descriptors and a metaphor to describe their experiences about the subject. Based on the reflections of 50 students, results showed that 96.1% of the descriptors and 90% of the metaphors used by the students were positive. In conjunction with the objective outcome evaluation, subjective outcome evaluation and process evaluation findings, the present study suggests that “Service Leadership” is a subject that can promote holistic development in Chinese university students in Hong Kong.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel T. L. Shek

The purpose of this study was to examine the postlecture evaluation by the students taking a course (Tomorrow's Leaders) that attempted to promote their leadership qualities and intrapersonal competencies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong. Except for the last lecture, students were invited to respond to a 12-item postlecture questionnaire after each lecture. Results showed that the students had positive perceptions of the subject, class, and teacher attributes, and they had positive global evaluation of the teacher and the subject. The postlecture evaluation questionnaire was found to possess good psychometric properties. Multiple regression analyses showed that subject, class, and teacher attributes were predictive of global evaluation of the lecture and the teacher. In conjunction with other evaluation findings, the present findings strongly suggest that students had positive perceptions of the attributes and benefits of “Tomorrow's Leaders.”


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