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Article published In:
Occupy Hong Kong: Historicizing Protest
Edited by John Flowerdew and Rodney H. Jones
[Journal of Language and Politics 15:5] 2016
► pp. 589–608

Opinion polling and construction of public opinion in newspaper discourses during the Umbrella Movement

| Chinese University of Hong Kong

Public opinion not only influences the likelihood of success for a protest movement; images of public opinion can also be used to legitimize or delegitimize a protest. In contemporary societies, opinion polling is the most authoritative way to “measure” public opinion. Yet the meanings of poll findings need to be interpreted and are often contested. Following these premises, this article analyzes the construction of images of public opinion through polling during the Umbrella Movement. The analysis illustrates the discursive strategies involved in selective reporting of opinion polls by newspapers with different political stances. It also demonstrates how poll results were articulated with other assumptions, principles, and discourses to generate claims about the legitimacy or proper strategies of the movement. On the whole, the analysis shows how public opinion, as a discursive category, was brought to bear on the dynamics of the Umbrella Movement through polling and its communication.

Keywords: Public opinion, opinion polling, newspaper discourses, selectivity, Umbrella Movement
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Social movements, public opinion, and polling
  • 3.Polling in the Umbrella Movement
  • 4.Data and material collection
  • 5.On selectivity: Poll findings in news reports
  • 6.Convergence of poll findings and the “Mainstream Public”
  • 7.Reacting to the “Public Opinion Reversal” in the Pro-Movement Media
  • 8.Concluding Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.15.5.05lee
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