Broadcasting policy in the age of convergence: A comparative study of Hong Kong and Singapore

Traditionally, the boundaries between computer, telecommunications and broadcasting sectors were clear-cut. With the advent of digital technology in recent years, it became possible to deliver same media content through a variety of media forms. As a result, traditional boundaries dividing these sectors were blurred and the 'convergence' phenomenon started to emerge. Some scholars argue that technological convergence will first lead to industry and service integration, which will be followed by regulatory convergence. This technological development inevitably poses new problems and challenges for regulators of media industries worldwide.;This thesis attempts to use a neo-institutionalist approach to compare and contrast the different policy responses that the governments of the Singapore and Hong Kong adopt in dealing with technological convergence and related regulatory issues in the broadcasting sector. The central hypothesis is that national broadcasting policy decisions reflect each country's political, economic and social interests. Thus, the imperative of technological convergence will not necessarily lead to media and regulatory convergence, i.e., identical regulatory mode and paradigms, as evidenced by the regulatory experience of Singapore and Hong Kong. The interactions of technology and policy change can have multiple configurations, depending on the balance between the market and the governments and the roles of industrial players, and so on. During this process, nations-states can, to a certain extent, preserve autonomy in formulating their own media policies without giving up their abilities to compete in the global information economy.;This study is divided into seven chapters. The first is an introductory chapter setting out the research questions. It introduces the technical background for the emerging issue of technological convergence, and its perceived impact on the national regulatory policy. The second chapter is devoted to theoretical discussion and literature review on the relationship between technology and government actors. Their relationship is analyzed at three different levels, i.e., technological, national and global, and synthesized by the neo-institutionalist approach. The third chapter focuses on methodological issues and research design of this study. The fourth and fifth chapters deal with details of the selected cases, i.e., regulatory experience of Singapore and Hong Kong in response to the convergence issues. The sixth chapter integrates previous two chapters by theorizing and analyzing the different policy responses of the two cities from a comparative perspective. The final chapter sets out the conclusion of this study. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...