Creative Labor and Digitally Networked Resistance: Notes From the Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong

• In Event: Media, Activism and the New Political: Inter-Asian Perspectives

Abstract

The Umbrella Movement is among the most stunning campaigns of media activism that the world has ever seen. Unprecedented in Hong Kong history, it is known globally for its outburst of creative energy, much of it expressed using digital tools, online and off, from the city’s creative labor forces of various social strata. What are the historical circumstances for this outburst of creative resistance against the powers that be? How does the role of digital networking among creative labor, broadly defined, vary across social strata and other dimensions of demography? In what ways is it affecting not only people’s “eye and ear” but also “heart and brain”, as Lawrence Liang put it at the TVRI Istanbul conversations? Using interviews and participant observation data, these questions shall be addressed, leading to a further inquiry: Does it mark the beginning of the end for the life span of a larger imperial system?

Author

• Linchuan Jack Qiu, The Chinese U of Hong Kong