Discourse practices of the media and the "sex industry"

ENANGEL who-is-at cityu.edu.hk
Sun, 25 Aug 1996 17:43:31 +0800

Thanks very much for your many helpful responses to my

request for refs. on beauty contest studies. Perhaps I

could describe a bit more of my data and analysis here and I

would very much welcome your feedback, comments, suggestions

and insights on similar issues:

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THE MEDIA DISCOURSE PRACTICES AND THE "SEX INDUSTRY" IN HONG KONG

Beauty contest events are frequent in the TV media in Hong

Kong; for example, every year there are at least 4 beauty

contests hosted by the 2 competing TV networks in Hong Kong,

which is a small British colony of about 6 million people,

mainly ethnic Chinese (Cantonese speaking). The beauty

contests that have been hosted in the past 7 months include:

Miss International Chinese 1996, Miss Hong Kong 1996, Miss

Air Hostess 1996, Miss Asia 1996 (Simi-Final), and upcoming

in the next month: Miss Asia (Final).

The contest events seem to constitute an anchor on which a

lot of media, both print and non-print, do their sensational

stories. They are one major source of popular media /

entertainment topics. Newspapers / entertainment magazines

/TV /Grade 3 movies are major forms of popular culture,

entertainment in Hong Kong. (Grade 3 movies are classified

as adult movies). There is a strong media industry here.

There is also a strong sex service industry here (though

illicit on paper). This seems to have continued from an

ancient Chinese tradition (described as part of the "Market

culture" or "low culture" in ancient Chinse historic

accounts) in which mainly women and girls (but sometimes,

men and boys, too) have served as sex workers / slaves /

commodities / properties in the military, in the emperors'

and officials' establishments, in private businesses, and in

rich people's (e.g., merchants, landlords) households, and

in the market.

You might recall the plight of the so-called "comfort women"

recruited/kidnapped into the Japanese army to provide sex

service to soldiers during the 2nd World War (Unfortunately,

to this date, they still haven't got an official "apology"

from the Japanese government; see recent news reports about

ex-"comfort women"'s protests against the Japanese official

stance on this historical issue). This practice, however,

has had a long history in ancient China, too (recorded in

ancient Chinese historic accounts) (There's "nothing new

under the sun", is there?!)

In my data collected from the newspapers, magazinese and TV

tapes in Hong Kong, there is a lot of evidence pointing to a

collusion between the media, the beauty contest events and

the "sex industry".

I would like to do a study grounded in fine-grained analyses

of discourse data (from both print and non-print) with a

view to analysing our popular cultural practices that have

both constituted and legitimized the collusion and the "sex

industry" in the society.

As I'm not familiar with the feminist literature (with my

training mainly in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and

education), I would welcome your insights and comments from

feminist /critical cultural studies and/or other

perspectives. And I would very much like to learn about

studies on similar issues elsewhere.

Thanks very much in advance!

Angel

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Angel Lin, Ph.D.

Dept of English

City University

Hong Kong

E-Mail: enangel who-is-at cityu.edu.hk