CITY CLASS Issue 13 | JUN 2022

ISSUE 13 | JUN 2022

How Misinformation Affects our Lives Discovering a Passion for Literature

Partisanship and Intergroup Competitions among Asian Americans

Changing the World for the Better

Making Social Impact in Healthcare and Secondary Education

Linguistics Social Policy & Administration Communication & Media Studies

QS WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS BY SUBJECT 2022

ISSUE 13 | JUN 2022 Department of Asian and International Studies

Department of Media and Communication

Department of Chinese and History

Department of Public Policy

Department of English

Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Department of Linguistics and Translation Chan Feng Men-ling Chan Shuk-lin Language Centre Centre for Public Affairs and Law Centre for Communication Research Centre for East Asian and Comparative Philosophy Southeast Asia Research Centre The Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies

FEATURE

04

The Age of Health Misinformation: From Pandemic to Infodemic

PEOPLE

12

Passing on Lessons from the Field

16

Discovering a Passion for Literature

20

Immigration: the Dream vs the Facts

21

Following Friends in Fitness Apps is Associated with Higher Levels of Physical Activity

22

Hardening National Boundaries in a Globally-connected World

RESEARCH

23 Why do Some Minorities Support the US Republican Party?

EVENTS

24 Into the World of Eileen Chang 26

Exploring Global Connectivity and Opportunities along Belt and Road

TEACHING & LEARNING

28

Changing the World for the Better

SOCIAL IMPACT

32

EMI Research Generates Social Impacts in Healthcare and Secondary Education

STUDENTS & ALUMNI

36

Social Worker’s Passion Wins her Top Industry Award

NEWS

39

International Linguistic Symposium on PhD Research Training

40

Global Discussions on Sustainable Solutions for the Future of Food

41

CityU and Yonsei University Offer New Joint PhD Programme

42

Mentoring Secondary School Students in Buddy Programme

43

CityU Research Cited in US Budget FY2023

FEATURE

The Age of Health Misinformation: From Pandemic to Infodemic COVID-19 has sadly fuelled a torrent of false or misleading information that has complicated efforts to limit the spread of the virus

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FEATURE

T

he world has been taken hostage by the coronavirus pandemic since late December 2019. In the years since, it did not only infect and kill but was also an unwitting accomplice to another relentless foe that entered our homes and lives as easily as the virus itself: misinformation.

Dr Chris SHEN, Associate Professor and Associate Head at City University of Hong Kong’s Department of Media and Communication says, “Misinformation is basically false or misleading information that is presented in news format. There are two key words here, one is ‘false’, describing the inaccuracy of the information; the second is ‘misleading’. Not all misinformation is intentionally trying to mislead— sometimes it’s a mistake that is avoidable. Disinformation, though, is clearly designed to sway people’s opinion in a certain direction.”

Shen explains that the contributing factors that help spread misinformation can be examined from two sides: the production side and the consumption side.

At the production side we ask ourselves the question: who is responsible for the emergence of misinformation?

“Both political and economic motivations can contribute to the production of misinformation,” says Shen. “There have been cases where countries can use social media to influence the politics of other countries.” In this he has alleged Russian interference in US elections in mind, for example. “A bigger contributing factor could be economic motivations, because misleading information really has a market out there.”

There is an attractiveness to misinformation, especially on social media where it can drive a lot of attention. “In an era of social media, attention means profits,” Shen says matter-of-factly.

Dr HUANG Guanxiong, an Assistant Professor (will be promoted to Associate Professor in July 2022) in the same department at CityU, says, “The spread of misinformation via both interpersonal and mass communication channels is not new. Nevertheless, the affordances of

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FEATURE

Social media has made misinformation about the pandemic both more accessible and far easier to spread.

social media have accelerated the rampant spread of misinformation in several ways. First, social media enables users to publish unverified information and reach mass audience in real time. Second, social media enables users to actively engage with unverified information, thus triggering rapid spread through networks aimed specifically at increasing engagement. As a result, information that involves high public concern, regardless of whether it has been authenticated, tends to spread very quickly on social media.”

According to Shen, “There are many organisations and individuals who try to produce misinformation intentionally for the sole benefit of economic gains.”

But production without consumption is not a feasible business model. “There must be a reason that consumers are after these pieces of misinformation,” says Shen. Which means that the spread of misinformation has a psychological angle too.

“A lack of trustworthy information could sometimes drive people to misinformation and fake news,” Shen says. “A good example was during the early stage of the outbreak of COVID-19. In China a really large amount of health-related misinformation was shared on social media, which misled people into the wrong preventative behaviours.”

One of the studies conducted by Shen’s students found that people who have negative feelings during the pandemic are more

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susceptible to misinformation, as a result of a higher belief in that information.

He cites two examples, that drinking alcohol will stop people from getting ill, or keeping a piece of ginger in one’s mouth makes one invincible. “Along that line of reasoning, crisis and negative emotions could lead to people believing in misinformation.”

Various myths and misconceptions arose at the beginning of the pandemic outbreak.

FEATURE

Falling into Bias Traps This trend has been referred to as an “infodemic”, which the World Health Organisation defines as “too much information including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak”.

“Confirmation bias also plays a role,” Shen explains. “We are more inclined to believe information that fits our value system and which is consistent with our existing views.”

Huang concurs and puts contributing variables down to both individual factors and information factors. “For example, a piece of fake news that is highly relevant to the audience is more likely to be widely shared, like [that concerning] the COVID-19 vaccines. People who have insufficient knowledge on relevant topics may be more vulnerable to the influence of fake health news.”

A lack of trustworthy information could sometimes drive people to misinformation and fake news Dr Chris Shen

Shen believes that both political and economic factors are driving the growth in misinformation.

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FEATURE

Dr Nancy DAI is CityU’s Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communication, with a focus on personal perception and social influence processes in mediated environments and use of communication technology. According to her, “People don’t really like to spend that much time to process information, and they prefer what we call ‘positive heuristic’. For example, if they know the message comes from the [US] Centres for Disease Control, let’s say they think it’s a credible source—they just want to believe it. Because that gives them a conclusion that they need at that moment. That’s another reason people tend to carry a very strong confirmation bias when they process information.”

Simply labelling a piece of information as unverified significantly stops it from being spread to more individuals Dr Nancy Dai

Dai notes how more voices in media are beginning to realise the importance of fact-checking in the fight against misinformation.

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The role of the media in this context is a crucial one. “Journalists and fact-checking websites serve as gate-keepers whose duties include providing authenticated information, verifying information and correcting misinformation,” Huang says.

The Echo Chamber Effect Before social media, all information went through a gatekeeper process controlled by traditional forms of media. Those were seen as an elite whose role was to keep track of information flow. But social media is more grassroots driven. Seemingly everyone can be a content creator these days but, crucially, without being subjected

FEATURE

Like-minded people connect together to share similar views as information input for each other.

to any, or few, forms of verification and accountability. Dai has noted now that more and more of those new voices in media are starting to realise the importance of fact-checking and more researchers are entering the battle against misinformation by advocating media or news literacy. “I personally also teach about this in my class, so I guess these are positive sides to the battle. There are also many large social media service companies that are also devoting a lot of resources to developing courses to educate the general public about identifying misinformation.”

Facebook, for instance, has implemented a practice of labelling information as either verified or false. “That turned out to be one of the most effective strategies in terms of preventing misinformation from further spreading,” says Dai, though she notes that it can be very difficult to put a number on how people receive a correction message once exposed to false content.

The echo chamber effect is linked to the sentiment behind information bias. “We prefer information from people we trust, and through the pattern of social media connection it provides a natural setting for amplifying misinformation.” Shen reminds us that these

networks are connected because they share similar views to begin with or are friends who use each other as input. “The pattern does not follow a random process. Like-minded people connect together and amplify this information.”

The consequences of the echo chamber effect are evident. Dai adds, “One of the negative consequences to that is it makes it less likely for someone to be exposed to messages that would challenge their existing beliefs. In the end, what they see reinforces what they believe. It becomes a vicious circle and information seekers become more and more narrow-minded in terms of consistently reinforcing what they believe.”

Fact-checking through Trusted Voices One effective way to implement strategic communications lies in using and citing credible sources.

“This is a critical factor for people to evaluate the trustworthiness of the message,” Huang says. “It is important to adopt the view from authoritative sources and highlight the sources in the messages, which increases the believability of the messages.”

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FEATURE

She adds, “Another way is to provide scientific evidence to support the view conveyed in the message. As COVID-19 related issues are highly relevant to people, they tend to process the relevant messages more thoroughly. The argument quality and the evidence are normally taken into consideration when they evaluate the believability of the messages. I suggest scientific evidence should be provided in an easyto-digest, mobile-friendly way like infographics and short text.”

It is also important to improve tech literacy. Advances in technology have brought new ways to create misinformation. “Deep fakes are one of them,” says Dai. “They are much easier to spread because we are now in the era of Web 3.0. Nowadays, there is far more audience-generated information on the internet than information generated by professional content creators.”

This development makes it easier to spread information on social media platforms. Combined with the echo chamber effect, it makes for the potential for a perfect storm of misinformation. However, Dai also believes that new developments in technology could also lead to exciting opportunities for a return to greater credibility.

It is recommended to carry out large-scale literacy education programmes to help the public increase their ability to discern misinformation

Ways to Combat Misinformation What would that look like? From Dai’s perspective, there is no single solution, but research has revealed several helpful practices. One is

In social media, it is important to get into the habit of fact-checking before we share, like or comment on a news item.

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Dr Huang Guanxiong

FEATURE

Scholars must remain vigilant and treat the new wealth of information, and its sources, with scepticism if they are to maintain academic standards.

Huang believes tackling misinformation will require government regulation, use of professional fact-checkers and AI, and widespread education programmes.

to employ an empathetic stance even if there are opposing schools of thought. “If I confront somebody about his opposition’s position, that is likely to be met with something we call a psychological reactance.

Essentially, people like to hold on to their existing beliefs; they don’t want to change, and they are not motivated to do so. One way to help mitigate the reactance is to construct your message in a nondemanding tone,” Dai shares.

Another is simply labelling information. “This practice is more relevant to social media platform companies,” Dai says. “Simply labelling a piece of information as unverified significantly stops it from being spread to more individuals.”

Huang is also optimistic: “There are several possible solutions to this issue. First, governments can impose regulations to penalise people who deliberately create and spread fake news with malicious intent.”

“Second, professional fact-checking services can be provided to the general public to correct fake news in a timely manner,” she says.

This is a point Shen reinforces, “There is a large amount of research

out there demonstrating the effectiveness of fact-checking in terms of reducing the negative effects of misinformation.”

Huang’s third potential solution involves artificial intelligence.

“Social media platforms have utilised AI-driven technologies to identify suspicious posts and take proper actions such as removing or tagging the posts that may contain misinformation.

“Last but not least, it is recommended to carry out large-scale literacy education programmes to help the public increase their ability to discern misinformation.”

Clearly the issue of misinformation is complex and only more fraught when it involves a topic like healthcare, so a multi-pronged approach is necessary. As Shen says: “A divided society will foster misinformation, so it is very important to build trust in society, in health authorities and scientists. In an information-rich environment, it is very easy for people to receive different information from diverse sources. And we need to build trust in the public, especially toward authorities in the scientific research communities. That is important.”

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PEOPLE

Chan hopes his research and surveys can compel the government to implement evidencebased measures to solve social problems.

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PEOPLE

Passing on Lessons from the Field Dr CHAN Siu-ming spent eight years working in the community but is now back at the campus as a member of faculty and will help shape the University’s social work programme

D

r CHAN Siu-ming admits that his story is a rather long one.

Chan joined the social work profession after completing study in social work at university to serve the community in which he himself grew up. After eight years in the field, the now Assistant Professor at CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences has decided to embark on an academic career and share his expertise with a new generation of frontline social workers.

Chan’s professional history includes serving the underprivileged, such as the homeless and low-income families living in subdivided flats or cubicles, the elderly and financially disadvantaged children. All these he did through direct service, group work and community organisations. His research interests include poverty, housing, and social work. His vision is to enhance the well-being of vulnerable groups.

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PEOPLE

Whenever there are needy and poor in society, we need to do something about that.

From that starting point, we can think of different ways to help them Dr Chan Siu-ming

His primary inspiration for going into research and teaching he says was the church. “Church activities left a large impact on me because I gained self-confidence and bravery while helping others in my church.” He was also heavily influenced by his childhood background. “I come from a low-income family, and in my childhood my family received welfare, but then the church really changed my personal life. It was quite simple. I just wanted to help people at that moment.”

During the three years he was an undergraduate, starting in 2005, he was influenced by a placement at the Society for Community Organisation. His main work there targeted cage home residents— those who lived in tiny cage-like cubicles. “Nowadays we call these subdivided units,” he says. “At that time, I was quite shocked by the different environment. I thought, why is this happening in Hong Kong?

It is a financial centre, an international city. And yet, many people are living in such poor conditions. I decided to work as a social worker and did so for eight years.”

Embarking on a Journey of Teaching and Research One could argue that Chan’s academic career started with those eight years. He began studying for a Master’s degree, and later in 2014, one of his teachers invited him to teach social work courses at local tertiary institutions. Doing this part time alongside his social work inspired Chan to embark on an academic career full-time.

“The experience inspired me to gain more knowledge and also equip myself to further teach in university,” he says. “There were two main reasons or goals for me to continue; one is for teaching itself, I want to teach social work students. The second goal is doing research as my career because my work will be more evidence-based and also gain some macro understanding of the essential problems, and the underlying factors of so-called social problems.”

Chan has since conducted policy research and surveys regarding vulnerable groups facing poverty and housing problems. In 2021 he joined CityU, aiming to explore new initiatives and devise intervention strategies based on analysis of social problems and human behaviour.

Chan did a debriefing with students after leading them to visit homeless people in Sham Shui Po.

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PEOPLE

Chan worked with other volunteers on a cold winter night to deliver clothes to the homeless in Yau Tsim Mong District.

Chan believes large-scale surveys and analytics will compel the government to take evidence-based actions.

“Evidence provided by NGOs can be used by the government for setting policy,” he adds. “For example, when we say we want to deal with homeless people, at least we should know: who they are, where they live, and what the major problems are. From a survey, we understand that the mental health situation of homeless people is getting more serious. This informs the government that they should provide more outreach and mental health services to homeless people.”

Another example Chan points out is that the number of homeless people is increasing but the resources from the government are not increasing proportionately.

In his teaching, Chan mainly covers social policy, social welfare and community work. “In social policy, I teach students how to understand the situation of disadvantaged groups in Hong Kong, from some macro perspectives and theoretical approaches. I also teach community work that we need to work with residents and intervene in community problems with different approaches.”

Sowing Seeds of Hope Asked about Hong Kong’s young population who are entering university, the assistant professor is hopeful. Young people these days, he explains, still have the willingness to help people, “they want to do something for the community in Hong Kong or other places”. Extensive

training through placements and other work experiences remain crucial. But with students he has taught in mind, Chan feels optimistic, as many have developed their own distinct fields of interest within the social welfare discipline.

He adds, “It’s a joy to see the changes they undergo from Year One to Year Four. Their values remain the same—wanting to help the disadvantaged and tackle social inequality, but by the end, they are more equipped with knowledge and skills after social work training.”

It is a bittersweet experience for Chan when his students reach the end of the programme. “Sometimes I gain energy from the feedback of the students. Especially, at the end of the course, we talk about what they have learnt from the courses and I focus on simple questions from them, which always remind me to keep on teaching because it serves our society, the poor and needy.”

He admits the last two to three years have put a slight damper on university life across the globe due to the pandemic. “They have fewer opportunities to get in touch with disadvantaged groups. After the pandemic, I would encourage students to do more volunteering work to get in touch with the disadvantaged groups face to face.”

Nevertheless, social work is special, Chan reminds us. It requires a lot of creativity and one must be capable of facing different challenges.

“Whenever there are needy and poor in society, we need to do something about that. From that starting point, we can think of different ways to help them.”

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PEOPLE

Discovering a Passion for Literature One of the Department of English’s most recent hires, Dr Jerrine TAN talks about how she switched away from her early interest in medicine to pursue her studies in the arts

A

literary career was not always what Singapore-born Dr Jerrine TAN, Assistant Professor at CityU’s Department of English, imagined for herself. One of the university’s newest faculty members, she joined in the summer of 2021. She was previously bound for medical school. But at the age of 18, she realised, “How can I know what I want to do with the rest of my life?”

As an act of self-discovery, Tan opted to abandon her spot in medical school and to go to the US to pursue a liberal arts education.

“I convinced my parents and they generously let me go. So, my

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trade-off with my parents was I would study economics—to be very practical—but generally, I was not good at it. I didn’t take to it.”

But when the friends she made at Berkeley spoke about their own subjects with considerable passion, it stirred Tan’s curiosity.

“I’m like, wait, you enjoy what you are studying?” She realised that could be her, too.

And it was the liberal arts stream that stoked the same passion in her that she witnessed in others. “I took classes in philosophy and I really enjoyed my English and Literature classes.”

“Being in that liberal arts environment really changed the way

PEOPLE

Tan finally found her interest in English and Literature after studying a number of liberal arts subjects such as philosophy at Berkeley.

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PEOPLE

I think a lot of my research and the writing that comes from it was enabled and inflected by my travels. You need to find a way in order to continue doing the work, and I had to look outside all the time Dr Jerrine Tan

Tan has toured the world, from the US to Europe, Hong Kong to Shanghai to Tokyo – journeys that have shaped her and her work.

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I thought about approaching education and the things I was studying.”

“But the truth is, I actually came to English as a major quite late, and so by the time I graduated, I felt like I hadn’t had enough time to explore. I wanted to take more classes,” Tan says. Her journey into applying for a PhD in the subject was nevertheless a pragmatic one. “I didn’t want to pay for a Master’s degree,” she laughs. “And in the US if you get into a PhD programme, it’s included, so I decided to go all in and applied for a PhD. I felt I’d be a better student than a worker, so I decided to study for a bit longer.”

Tan’s current research interests lie at the intersection of global anglophone literature, transnational literature and film, gender and sexuality studies, and critical race theory.

The assistant professor received her MA and PhD in English from Brown University, after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA double majoring in Economics and English.

PEOPLE

Female Figure and Eco-feminism

Tan often teaches A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki in class as an example of the climate fiction genre.

Adventurer Seeking New Research Ideas Tan’s fascination with Hong Kong would eventually lead her to taking up an academic position in the city last summer. “I grew up in Singapore on a diet of Hong Kong movies,” she says. “It was quite unexpected, but when the opportunity arose, it was very exciting for me to be able to come to Hong Kong.”

Living in different cities all over the world is not a strange concept to Tan. She was based in the US for a long time, but during that period, she also spent summers in Germany and Shanghai, and lived in Tokyo on two separate occasions. “Part of that is also… being moved by certain practicalities of graduate school. As an international student in the US, it can be quite difficult to get funding; a lot of the fellowships and grants are only eligible for American citizens. As an international student, I became very adept at seeking out alternative sources that would allow me to do my research.”

This would lead Tan to sometimes unexpected places. “I think that’s also part of my personality. I tend to approach these opportunities with more curiosity than fear. I think some people may feel more hesitant about moving to a new place, for good reason. But my approach was always like, ‘Oh, that’s a new adventure, right? That’s something exciting.’ So when Hong Kong became an option, I was excited about it and I’m very happy to be here.”

These days, the English Assistant Professor is working on two separate projects alongside teaching her classes. One is a continuation of her PhD research regarding global Anglophone literature. She has a keen interest in transnational literature, novels by immigrants or people with hybrid identities, who are not typically part of the Western canon so to speak. In particular, she is increasingly interested in the figure of the suffering woman in these transnational novels and how they are alternatingly silenced or given voice.

“Many of the texts or novels that I read include a sort of central figure, a female figure of suffering, and oftentimes that suffering female is a metaphor… for war or an assault on national sovereignty,” she furthers. “The body politic is often imagined as a feminine one.

When it is invaded, for example, we map that on to violence against women and things like that. So that is very interesting to me.”

The road to research funding has always been competitive and while motivated by her research questions, Tan’s work, has, in turn, also undeniably been influenced by the availability of funding. “I think a lot of my research and the writing that comes from it was enabled and inflected by my travels, done on the auspices of the various grants I was able to get. You need to find a way in order to continue doing the work, and I had to look outside all the time.”

“That’s how I ended up in Tokyo and Shanghai,” she explains. “In going there, I was able to see these novels or these historical moments in a different light, or understand them in a way that I might not have otherwise understood.”

Tan is also committed to research on climate fiction with a focus on ecocriticism. “This is a field in which people engage with the climate or what is happening at the planetary and ecological levels. Ecofeminism is part of this as well, how the feminist project can and should be integrated with the enterprise of addressing our relationship with the planet.”

For those who envision a career in literature, Tan advises, “Work on things that you are interested in. Be generous with yourself and your friends and be open to learning from others and also not to rush.”

The idea of a PhD is an attractive one to many students but if you get a choice between taking a gap year or going straight on with a doctorate degree, she leans toward the former. “Nobody regrets taking a gap year, they only ever regret not taking one.”

“A PhD is about passion, but it is also more of a marathon that requires a lot of stamina. Many of the people who finish the programme aren’t necessarily the most brilliant but those who can stick it out.”

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RESEARCH

Immigration: the Dream vs the Facts W

aves of immigration have been seen again recently from politically and economically less stable and prosperous regions to those so-called Western democratised and industrialised countries. Rapid changes in the geopolitical terrain, along with a drastic transformation in the appeal of the defining elements of democracy and prosperity in the past decade, has made immigration to Western countries less attractive nowadays, but some still hold a perception of Western liberalism as the ultimate goal of immigration.

Regardless of what reasons a person has for deciding to immigrate, some basic challenges presented by the process of immigration and integration into Western host societies include barriers of language, culture, ethnicity, education, recognition of credentials and professional experience, and employment. This does not mean the development and upward mobility of immigrants and their offspring are hamstrung for good, but empirical research has generally shown that different life trajectories for immigrants and their offspring in Western host societies emerge in the process of assimilation. Some immigrants successfully move to a better-off class—termed the white Protestant middle-class in America by scholars—while many remain in the labouring classes or even urban underclasses, leading a life of poverty and marginalisation.

The picture will be more complicated for the offspring of immigrants. This is because immigrant parents need to overcome the invisible obstacles of intricate educational and social systems to help their children succeed academically and obtain a prestigious college degree as a credential for upward mobility, consonant with what Portes, Fernandez-Kelly, and Haller (2009) mentioned: “(w)ithout the costly and time-consuming achievement of a university degree, such dreams are likely to remain beyond reach” (p. 1081). Specifically, recent research on immigration authored by Dr Jerf YEUNG Waikeung, Associate Professor of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, using a large set of data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) in America supports the empirical arguments mentioned above and aligns with the findings of Western immigration researchers (Feliciano 2020, Greenman 2011,

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Haller, Portes, and Lynch 2011, Yeung 2022, Portes, Fernandez-Kelly, and Haller 2009).

The main purpose of his research is to investigate the educational success of immigrant youths in young adulthood, e.g. achieving college graduation, using the structural predictors of immigrant generations, length of residence, English use, and interaction with native friends suggested by the conventional assimilation perspective, and family composition, parental socioeconomic status (SES), and incorporation mode suggested by segmented assimilation theory. The academic aspirations of immigrant children in adolescence at individual and school levels are also examined (Yeung 2022). This is important as obtaining a fouryear undergraduate degree in the US signifies a milestone in upward mobility (Rumbaut 2005).

The data are based on a representative sample of 3,344 immigrant youths from the CILS. Results of the study found that both the academic aspiration of immigrant youths and the structural variables of family composition, family SES and incorporation mode significantly predicted the likelihood of the youth’s successful college graduation, and furthermore that their academic aspiration was a function of the structural variables of family composition, family SES, and incorporation mode. These findings show that although an individual’s motivation for upward mobility is important for change of life trajectories in Western capitalist societies, family background, and parental capital and resources still play a fundamental role in determining one’s future life, corresponding to a recent study by Feliciano and Lanuza (2017).

Publication and achievements Yeung, JWK (2022), The academic aspiration of immigrant youths and their college graduation in young adulthood: A multilevel analysis of individual and contextual carry-over effects, International Journal of Educational Research , vol. 111, 101888.

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijer.2021.101888

RESEARCH

Following Friends in Fitness Apps is Associated with Higher Levels of Physical Activity T

he past few years have seen huge growth in mobile fitness apps globally. Expecting increased revenue to be generated from this category, app designers strive to add features to enhance the user experience and motivate better performance.

Dr HUANG Guanxiong, Dr Crystal JIANG Li, and doctoral student SUN Mengru from CityU’s Department of Media and Communication surveyed 643 WeRun users to examine the effects of social networking functions of fitness apps on users’ participation in physical activity. WeRun is a fitness plugin embedded in the most widely used mobile social networking app WeChat in China and has accumulated more than 100 million active users. Similar to other fitness apps, WeRun tracks users’ daily step counts and ranks them among WeRun friends. Users can also “like” their friends’ step counts, and the app will notify the users about the “likes” received.

The study focused on the ranking and “liking” functions and linked them to social comparison and social support mechanisms.

The survey found that checking WeRun rankings and following more friends on WeRun were positively correlated with participation in physical activity. The social comparison mechanism appeared more dominant than the social support mechanism. Specifically, upward comparison (comparing oneself with those who are more competent in a particular task) was positively associated, and downward comparison (comparing oneself to those who are less competent) was negatively related to physical activity participation.

The more frequently users checked the rankings, the more friends they followed on WeRun and the more upward comparison, leading to more participation in physical activity.

The study has several implications for motivating physical activity and promoting fitness apps. Fitness app design can benefit from sending more notifications to encourage users to compare their behaviour more often. The design can leverage the positive effects of upward comparison by sending messages like “You are currently ranked fifth, please try hard to make the top three!” However, messages should avoid activating downward comparison as it does not sustain exercise behaviour. Furthermore, as following more friends can motivate participation in physical activity, fitness app design should encourage users to invite more friends to build strong ties with their fitness app activities.

Publication and achievements Huang, G, Sun, M & Jiang, LC (2022), Core social network size is associated with physical activity participation for fitness app users: The role of social comparison and social support, Computers in Human Behavior , vol. 129, 107169.

DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2021.107169

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RESEARCH

Hardening National Boundaries in a Globallyconnected World I

nformation and communication technologies (ICTs) such as the internet are often thought to have removed the boundaries among countries and brought us to a boundless world. But is that really the case? To investigate this question, research authored by Dr Jun ZHANG, Assistant Professor of CityU’s Department of Asian and International Studies, takes as entry point technological nationalism among middle-class professionals in urban China in the context of the Sino-American trade war of recent years.

Nationalism is a form of identity that is built on—as Benedict Anderson famously argues—an imagined community within a bounded territory. Unlike much existing research, this work does not see ICTs as merely the medium through which nationalism is expressed.

Instead, it looks into how ICTs are entangled in people’s everyday lives and how such entanglement shapes “socio-technical imaginaries” of their relationship with their country. Experts may understand ICTs through theories, algorithms and experiments. But when many

ordinary people talk about ICTs, they are actually talking about things such as smartphones, and daily practices such as ordering food and hailing a car through online platforms—a way of life that can be called a “platformised lifestyle”.

This research draws on over a decade’s conversations with middle-class professionals and observation of their lifestyles in the urban areas of the Pearl River Delta. It is found that these middleclass professionals are proud of their platformised lifestyle with its unique socio-technological features, high-end smartphones made by Chinese companies, and development in ICTs by tech companies such as Huawei—seemingly advanced enough to alert the American government and thereby leading to Huawei being sanctioned. For many professionals, these achievements suggest that China is moving beyond its sweatshop factory reputation and becoming a rising power in technology. This matters a lot to these professionals. While they have benefited greatly from China’s economic growth because of those sweatshops, their contribution to it is largely overshadowed by the cheap labour that attracted capital investment in the first place.

With the projected rise of China as a technological power, the role of professionals is now finally getting more recognition, and they are leading a lifestyle that is—in their eyes—more technologically advanced than those in other parts of the world.

ICTs or technology in general has become the key link between their professional identity and national identity. In other words, ICTs, embodied as smartphones and platformised lifestyles, reinforce a territorially bounded identity rather than breaking down boundaries.

Publication and achievements Zhang, J (2022). Hardening National Boundaries in a Globally-Connected World: Technology, Development, and Nationalism in China, Journal of Contemporary Asia.

DOI: 10.1080/00472336.2021.2001841

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RESEARCH

Why do Some Minorities Support the US Republican Party?

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n contemporary US politics, the Democratic Party is often regarded as the most welcoming to racial minority groups. Even so, each election cycle sees many members of these groups cast their vote for the Republican Party. In 2016, for example, Chinese Americans from the East Coast to Silicon Valley organised rallies for Republican candidates. Even though former President of the US, Donald Trump consistently used anti-Asian rhetoric throughout the pandemic, he received an even higher share of votes from Asian Americans in 2020 than in 2016. Why do some Asian Americans support a seemingly anti-minority party?

Although existing research underscores the importance of majority-minority relations to voting behaviour, work done by Dr LIU Dongshu, Assistant Professor of CityU’s Department of Public Policy, and other researchers, proposes a new “minority-minority” perspective. He argues that some Asian Americans feel victimised by pro-minority policies promoted by the Democratic Party as they perceive those policies to only help African Americans and Latino Americans at the expense of Asian Americans. This perceived competition results in Asian Americans supporting the Republican Party, whose policies they perceive to, at least, undermine their competitors from other minority groups. In short, we argue that Asian Americans support the seemingly anti-minority Republicans because they feel more threat from other minority groups.

To assess this, the research team relied on two representative surveys of Asian Americans from 2012 and 2016, along with an experiment Liu and his team conducted in 2018. The surveys find

that Asian Americans who perceive themselves to have less in common politically with African and Latino Americans are more likely to support the Republican Party. Experimentally, the team uses affirmative action in university admissions, which many Asian Americans believe to disproportionately favour African and Latino Americans at the expense of Asian Americans, to show that Asian Americans reminded of “unfair” university admissions are more supportive of the Republican Party. The research concludes that Asian Americans become supportive of the Republican Party, despite its anti-minority position, when they perceive stronger competition from other minority groups.

Taken together, the findings are insightful to people who are interested in the role that Asian Americans play as the fastest-growing ethnic group in US politics. These findings suggest that those involved in American politics should stop referring to “minority groups” as monolithic and, instead, recognise that each group is unique. As it turns out, some minorities vote for a political party because of, not in spite of, the fact that it is problematic for members of minority groups.

Publication and achievements Liu, D & Carrington, N (2022), Minority versus Minority: Partisanship and Inter-Group Competitions among Asian Americans, American Politics Research, vol 50, no 2, pp 265-276.

DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211053218

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EVENTS

Into the World of Eileen Chang CityU’s Department of Chinese and History and the then Chinese Civilisation Centre co-organised a series of events for secondary school students in March and April 2022, aiming to improve their Chinese creative writing and their appreciation of literature through reading and studying the work of renowned Chinese novelist Eileen CHANG

A

s one of the most perceptive authors of Chinese contemporary literature, Eileen Chang’s fictional writings are best known for her acute observation of all walks of life and the rich tapestry of human relationships in Hong Kong and Shanghai in the 1940s and 50s. Although it has already been 27 years since Chang’s death, her works are still loved by readers of different generations, and provide evergreen inspiration for numerous screen adaptations, such as Ang LEE’s Lust, Caution and Ann HUI’s latest film Love After Love.

To give secondary school students multiple perspectives to understand Chang’s work and her writing style, CityU’s Department

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of Chinese and History (CAH) organised three events based on her literary works for secondary school students and teachers, to enhance students’ writing skills, and share relevant teaching techniques with other Chinese subject teachers.

Eileen Chang’s Literary Work in Film Several of Chang’s novels have been made into plays and films in recent decades. The latest adaptation was Love After Love, a movie adapted from Chang’s Agarwood Incense: The First Censer, which was also award-winning director Ann Hui’s third adaptation of Chang’s

EVENTS

work. The first event of the series, held on 5 March 2022, originally planned to show Love after Love to students on a large screen in the assembly hall of a secondary school. However, this had to be taken online due to the outbreak of the pandemic’s fifth wave. In spite of that, the event still attracted 256 participants from over 30 secondary schools. Secondary school teacher and juvenile fiction series writer YAN Pui-kei hosted the event and guided students to compare the text with the adaptation. Two teachers from local secondary schools were also invited to discuss Chang’s works in greater depth with students.

example, one speaker, LEUNG She-kwan, shared an introduction to landscape writing by using the Repulse Bay setting in Chang’s novels Love in a Fallen City and Little Reunions. Other speakers also shared suggestions for interdisciplinary activities, including setting up a thematic mini book fair, exhibitions in the library, reading clubs, love poetry competitions and association with other media / genres (pop songs, movies, micro-novels, etc.) About 160 participants attended the event, mainly secondary school teachers.

Mastering Techniques of Novel-writing The characters in Chang’s works have well-defined personalities. The change of psychology in the protagonists was vividly captured using trivial moments involving the characters. The second event focused on analysing Chang’s storytelling techniques and guided secondary school students to enhance their creative writing skills by making reference to her works. CHAN Chi-kian, vice principal and Chinese Language panel head of a secondary school hosted the event while Dr MA Ka-fai, Hong Kong writer and Assistant Professor of CAH, was invited to guide the audience in their appreciation of Chang’s works.

Selected lines from representative works such as The Golden Cangue, Love in a Fallen City and Half a Lifelong Romance were discussed and analysed. The event was well received by 326 participants from nearly 60 secondary schools.

Teaching Chang’s Works at Secondary Schools The last event of the series was designed for frontline Chinese subject teachers. This time, Dr Ma Ka-fai took the role of host to lead a forum joined by five secondary school teachers who are also Hong Kong writers themselves. The speakers shared their experiences of designing learning activities for students based on Chang’s works. For

Chang’s novella Huadiao was used as an example by Dr Yuen Man-leuk, a Hong Kong writer and secondary school teacher, to showcase a wide range of extended activities to inspire students’ creativity and writing skills.

To explore Chang’s literary world in different formats, arts and cultural performances were arranged after the forum discussion. The Hong Kong Tertiary Putonghua Recitation Society performed a recital of Chang’s works in Mandarin. Drama societies of three secondary schools and Master of Arts students of CAH performed excerpts of Chinese Opera adapted from Chang’s works. The performances showcased new interpretations of the works, bringing vitality and new meaning.

The series has built a platform for both secondary school students and teachers to exchange teaching and learning ideas around Chinese creative writing. By gathering frontline teachers, local writers and students together, it is expected that further practical information and relevant experiences on reading, creative writing and education can be shared in more effective ways.

Repulse Bay is an important and recurrent setting in Chang’s novels, including Love in a Fallen City. Schools may organise outings for students to explore the southern part of Hong Kong Island, following in the footsteps of famous Chinese writers such as Xiao Hung and Chan Koon-chung.

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EVENTS

Exploring Global Connectivity and Opportunities along Belt and Road Scholars and industry experts around the globe shed light on the city’s competitive edge in relation to the Belt and Road Initiative by looking at the current development situation of seven B&R countries

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he Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative is a global initiative which puts a major focus on countries in Asia, Eastern Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, where emerging markets are found in the Economic and Trade Cooperation Zones (ETCZs) in these countries. To deepen the understanding of key stakeholders of ETCZs on the competitive edges of Hong Kong professional services and business sectors, as well as to explore potential development opportunities via an exchange of ideas and sharing of analyses, the Research Centre for Sustainable Hong Kong (CSHK), a cross-disciplinary University Applied Strategic Development Centre based at CityU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, organised a workshop series entitled “Advancing Professional Development on Economic and Trade Cooperation Zones Along Belt and Road” spanning 2021 to 2022.

The series kicked off with a symposium in webinar mode entitled “Global Connectivity, Opportunities and Challenges: Hong Kong and ETCZs along the Belt and Road” held on 7 January 2021. Following the opening symposium were country-specific discussions in six subsequent professional training workshops held throughout 2021. Zone operators, local enterprises, professional service leaders, expert scholars and government officials were invited to conduct comprehensive and indepth sharing on opportunities, challenges and experiences of overseas development in seven countries (Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Djibouti and Belarus) and their respective ETCZs. Almost 100 speakers, panel discussants and guests were involved to share their insights and interact with the participants, and a total of 1,476 online participants (85 per cent from Hong Kong, the rest from 30 countries) attended the activities via Zoom. Various brochures and other materials were published during the workshop series, which received positive feedback from participants.

Insightful Exchange to Conclude the Year-long Series The workshop series drew to an end with a Closing Forum on 12 March 2022, entitled “Meeting Points for Boundless Insights: The

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Ways Forward for Hong Kong Professional Services and Overseas Investments” which reviewed the main insights discussed at the Opening Symposium and six workshops, and presented analysis of workshop observations and surveys. Professor Linda LI Chelan, director of CSHK, gave a welcome speech at the opening of the forum to review experiences and insights shared by speakers in the previous workshops and the Opening Symposium, all valuable information for Hong Kong professionals’, corporations’ and investors’ future reference. Professor Phyllis MO Lai-lan, Associate Director of CSHK, gave thanks for the publicity efforts made by the collaborating and supporting organisations, and shared a summary of workshop outcomes and survey results. Dr Linda TJIA Yin-nor, member of CSHK, discussed the insights generated in the workshops, especially the importance of understanding the public policy and governance contexts, and managing related risks.

Following the presentations were four roundtable sessions which saw some heated interactions. In the first session, scholars from Cambodia

Professor Linda LI Che-lan, director of CSHK, said the experience shared on the conference is very useful for professionals, corporations and investors who want to explore international business opportunities.

EVENTS

Belarus

HONG KONG Myanmar

Djibouti Sri Lanka

and Sri Lanka presented the current development situations, needs and opportunities in their respective countries, and what developing countries can expect from Hong Kong’s professional services (e.g. financial services and legal services for anti-corruption) and long-term investment such as infrastructure. The second session invited four Hong Kong business representatives to share their experience of local engagement strategies and CSR practices for enhancing project performance overseas. The discussants identified the importance of respecting local cultures, languages and law, and building mutual trust when working with local officials and staff.

The third roundtable discussion focused on the needs of projects led by state-owned enterprises and how Hong Kong professionals can benefit project planning, implementation and management (such as research, local partners, 360-degree risk assessment and capacity building), and thus achieve mutual growth with local workers and clienteles. In the last session, representatives from Hong Kong Trade Development Council and Hong Kong Productivity Council were invited to share views on the bridging role of Hong Kong between mainland China and other countries, and discussed suggestions for future actions to further enhance the competitiveness and sustainable development of Hong Kong professional services and business in exploring overseas markets and related areas.

Vietnam Cambodia Malaysia

This project is funded by the Professional Services Advancement Support Scheme (PASS) of the HKSAR Government’s Commerce and Economic Development Bureau.

It is supported and collaborated by a number of professional bodies and business chambers in Hong Kong.

Visit the CSHK’s website to learn more about the project details.

Knowledge Hub for Future Development Nearly 200 participants from around the world attended the Closing Forum. The workshop series has created a platform for knowledge transfer between overseas and local experts to collate, consolidate and exchange experience in building connections and generating new insights for the future direction of ETCZs along the B&R. The key stakeholders of ETCZs have gained deeper understanding on the competitive edge offered by Hong Kong professional services and business sectors. On the other hand, Hong Kong professional service providers such as accounting-related services, legal services and business consultancy services (human resource, management and financial consultancy services, etc) now also possess fuller knowledge of the latest developments, needs and opportunities of B&R countries, marking a fruitful completion to the workshop series.

Zone operators, local enterprises, professional service leaders, expert scholars and government officials were invited to share on opportunities, challenges and experiences of overseas development in seven countries (Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Djibouti and Belarus) and their respective ETCZs in the countryspecific discussions.

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TEACHING & LEARNING

Kwok regards “self-cultivation” as her primary goal in teaching.

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TEACHING & LEARNING

Changing the World for the Better A passionate educator in social work with profound experience in the field, there are few who are as dedicated to teaching the next generations of students in social welfare in Hong Kong as Dr Sylvia KWOK LAI Yuk-ching

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s the Associate Professor of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences (who will be promoted to Professor with effect from July 2022), Dr Sylvia KWOK LAI Yuk-ching was originally a secondary school social worker and a youth worker. Her transition from instructor to lecturer and associate professor came about deliberately. “The reason why I want to change my job was because I wanted to transfer my knowledge to the students,” she says. In doing so, Kwok hopes to create a “ripple effect”. “That means if I can teach one student to become a social worker, he or she can go out there and affect many clients. That becomes a hundred students, a thousand… They can have great impact as social workers in the social welfare field.”

Kwok is an advocate for positive education. For almost three decades, she has taught about 200 students per academic year— that is about 6,000 students she has sent out into the world with the knowledge to navigate themselves as well as their clients in the social welfare sphere.

After becoming an assistant professor, she devoted much effort on positive education. This means applying concepts of positive psychology to the way she educates. It also brought about her setting up a positive education laboratory in her department.

Her ripples of positive education cascade outwards and have a huge impact on her students. Many of her former students have won the Outstanding Social Worker Award in Hong Kong.

This year, one graduate from her class were presented with this accolade by the Hong Kong Social Workers Association.

UGC Honours Teaching Excellence Kwok isn’t without honours herself (beside her teaching qualifications and ability to empower generations of students).

She received the prestigious University Grants Committee (UGC) Teaching Award in 2021 for a CityU-led inter-institutional project called JUMP, which stands for Joint University Mental-wellness Project.

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TEACHING & LEARNING

JUMP is a programme aimed to enhance students’ wellbeing and their exposure to university life by way of fostering positive learning experiences and developing a keen sense of social responsibility across five local university institutions. It involves a variety of activities such as student and staff development workshops, camps, a study tour, international conference, mental wellness festival and community projects.

About this recognition, Kwok says, “It shows that what I teach my students, or what I taught them, can really affect their attitudes, knowledge and skills. In fact, my mission in teaching is first of all, selfcultivation. That means to cultivate the character, the wellbeing of the students. And second, we will find some focus, that is to develop their professionalism, social work profession, change their attitudes, knowledge and skills. Then the third is community contribution. That means I want them to contribute to the community, to society, and want them to have an impact on that very fabric of society.” Ultimately, Kwok believes this is the reason why she and her project received the award, “because of the impact brought to the university students and society”.

If I can teach one student to become a social worker, he or she can go out there and affect many clients.

That becomes a hundred students, a thousand...

Dr Sylvia Kwok

Kwok has received numerous awards and honours over the past 30 years, which are symbols of commendation for her outstanding achievements in education and social work.

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TEACHING & LEARNING

JUMP, led by Kwok, was established to address the deteriorating mental wellness of university students. Other team members are Dr Pan Jiayan (1st from left, from HKU), Dr To Siu-ming (2nd from left, from CUHK), Loretta Leung (2nd from right, from EduHK) and Professor Daniel Wong (1st from right, from HKBU).

The project is said to have benefitted over 1,100 staff and professionals as well as around 4,000 university students. On top of that, there are 1,500 members in the wider community who realised the advantages of the programme by engaging university students in initiating their own community projects.

Key criteria for winning the award are the recipient’s abilities to inspire students and demonstrate superior teaching acumen.

Teaching a course in social welfare is not to be taken lightly, and it takes a certain calibre of student to successfully complete the degree and make what they have learnt work in the real world.

“They need to have a warm heart,” says Kwok. “They need to have empathy for their clients, and of course, they need a lot of specific characteristics.” Being sensitive seems like a given. But those who dream of a career in social work will also need to have an aptitude for leadership and creativity. Social skills are indispensable. From having good judgement to critical thinking and analytic skills—these are all traits they should be able to demonstrate in their work. “They need to have positive regard for their clients,” Kwok emphasises. “Also an unconditional acceptance of their clients.”

Far-reaching Ripple Effects The very ripple effect that Kwok would like to see has been decades in the making. It can now be seen in her inter-institutional projects, like JUMP—of which a 2.0 version is taking place from 2022 to 2025. Her positive education programme has been extended to the training of Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) staff in how they operate on a daily basis—indirectly affecting a large number of the general public.

As in May 2022, MTR domestic service passengers averaged about 4.175 million every weekday.

Though the world—and the teaching—of social welfare is not an easy path to walk, Kwok remains steadfast and undeterred. “I want to train professionals, social workers. I want to transfer knowledge to my students and I also want to cultivate the correct skills and knowledge in them so they can become professional social workers and they can experience self-development. They can increase their wellbeing, promote societal wellbeing, and provide professional services. If they become social workers and they can help their clients and build a better society, I think this is the most rewarding aspect of my job.”

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SOCIAL IMPACT

Pun went through the entire education system in Hong Kong. His experience of overcoming language barriers motivated him to enter the research field of English as a medium of instruction (EMI).

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SOCIAL IMPACT

EMI Research Generates Social Impacts in Healthcare and Secondary Education As CityU’s Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Dr Jack Pun’s research into English as the medium of instruction has implications for fields such as healthcare as well as for academics

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orn and raised in Hong Kong, Dr Jack PUN completed his schooling and ordinary degree in the city before he went on to do a PhD in Education at the University of Oxford, UK, specifically in Applied Linguistics and Science Education.

Today, Pun is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. His work within the field of Applied Linguistics has led to his primary interests in English as medium of instruction (EMI), English language education, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics and Systemic Functional Linguistics. Pun is particularly interested in studying classroom interactions regarding EMI, and the academic literacy and language challenges exposed to the students by use of varying EMI instructions.

“I went through the entire education system in Hong Kong, learning from Chinese medium instruction to English medium instruction,” he says. “When I moved to university, I encountered such a language challenge when switching from Chinese platforms to English. Imagine that—all of a sudden everything turned into English.”

Majoring in Chemical Technology with a minor in English at his undergraduate years, he encountered enormous challenges when it came to the use of a language (English) that was not his mother tongue, especially on the science subjects. Although he was suddenly faced with this difficult barrier, Pun says it also served as his motivation.

The experience became the catalyst for Pun to enter the research field of language education and health communication. His interest was borne out of a sense of empathy as Pun questioned whether there was anything within the realm of education that could help students like him, living in Hong Kong with limited English proficiency.

“That’s why when I graduated from my chemistry degree, I moved to the English department to sort of apply what I learnt from various scientific approaches in order to understand language,” Pun says. He moved on to study a Master’s degree in English Language Studies, before eventually enrolling in his doctorate at University of Oxford.

Learning in a Linguistic Melting Pot As part of his PhD, Pun visited around 30 secondary schools in Hong Kong—all provided access to their science classrooms. “Thanks to those local schools, I’m particularly fortunate to have this opportunity to learn how science is being taught. During my visit, I’m interested in looking at how some teachers teach science with the medium of instruction being English.” The scholar ended up interviewing science teachers and students on their language challenges. Interestingly, he found that the secondary schools all claim they use EMI, but in fact have different ways of implementing EMI and use of the English language to cater diversified students’ English backgrounds. Some classes do “code-switching” between Cantonese and English.

This finding would shape Pun’s ongoing research, one of the projects he is undertaking with the Quality Education Fund (QEF).

“I am trying to develop some pedagogical tools—in particular looking at writing—to enhance the teaching methods of science teachers in terms of scientific writing.”

One such tool recommended by Pun is the process of “translanguaging” in teaching. This is to incorporate the students’ first language into the lessons for it to act as a bridge towards their English learning experience.

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SOCIAL IMPACT

In addition, Pun and his team has sought to apply a genre-based pedagogical approach to enhance local secondary school students’ English writing ability in science subjects. They conducted a 12-week writing workshop with nine local secondary schools where students were taught to write scientific reports based on common lexicogrammatical features. Which are often found in scientific writing.

This comes alongside learning activities designed to help them write effective and accurate scientific texts. A website with resources has been developed for promoting effective scientific writing (https:// www.teachingscienceenglish.com).

“By recording interactions between teachers and students, through this authentic data, I can come up with pedagogical solutions or suggestions of effective ways of implementing EMI instruction in science classrooms,” Pun explains. As the Assistant Professor points out, his research suggests that there is a lot of switching back and forth between Cantonese and English. “We need to prepare teachers and students with suitable pedagogy in order to maximise the learning outcomes of these EMI classrooms. It is a very challenging issue; that’s why in the current situation, a different school or even a different teacher, they have different interpretations of their preferred medium of instruction.”

Pun introduced the two communication protocols on nursing communication.

Pun collaborates with local secondary schools to sharpen students' writing skills in science subjects.

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Because we live in this multicultural society, with different languages, cultures and also different areas, our health is all tied together Dr Jack Pun

Building a Communication Framework for Doctors Pun’s research has benefitted not only teachers and students, but it has far-reaching impact on healthcare experts as well. As a bilingual speaker of Chinese and English, Pun is motivated to investigate health communication from a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary perspective.

This was evident in one of his research projects where he found discrepancies in efficiency between how two different shifts medical co-workers interacted, but also how these healthcare professionals interacted with their patients and vice versa.

“In this one research, we were looking at how clinicians interact with each other and with patients, and among other health professionals.”

Pun recounts a project of 10 years ago that he embarked on with Professor Diana SLADE from the Australian National University (ANU), Director of the ANU Institute for Communication in Health Care. The research looked at how doctors in an emergency room communicate with their patients. “We found that because of the nature of the emergency department, everything needed to be quick, to be focused on patient safety regarding medication—so there is a lot less focus on interpersonal aspects.”

“We came up with a communication framework trying to help junior doctors who are starting their journey in the emergency room on how to improve their communication with the patients including a balance between medical and interpersonal components.”

To-date, little work has been done to research the best communication models for healthcare providers in Hong Kong.

When medical doctors are trained in EMI environment, learning clinical communication skills who were developed from the Englishspeaking world, significant sociocultural differences may exist and lead to differences in healthcare delivery and communication. “We need to develop a specific culturally appropriate model of clinical communication which can provide better relationships between clinicians and patients,” Pun says. Pun has conducted various presentations on clinical communication for medical doctors in Hong Kong and worldwide, one of which was presented to 30 future

SOCIAL IMPACT

Forty local nurses participated in the nursing handover communication training.

oncologists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The emphasis was on clinician-patient communication in East Asia, followed by a discussion on the cultural aspect of implementing the well-known approach to teaching and training clinical communication skills in Asia—The Calgary-Cambridge Guide.

Besides, Pun has worked collaboratively with local public and private hospitals in promoting effective nursing handover training.

Recently he launched a simulation training for local nurses on how to effectively handover their nursing duties. Working with his collaborator from Australia and team in Hong Kong, he also presented two common protocols for effective nursing handovers— the ISBAR (Identify, Situation, Background, Assessment and Actions, and Recommendations and Readback) protocol and the CARE-Team (Connect, Ask, Readback, and Engage) framework. A website with resources has been built for promoting effective nursing handovers (https://www.nursinghandover.com).

Together with the Hospital Authority and local hospitals, Pun and his team have developed training materials to enhance local nurses’ clinical handover and communication skills, an ongoing project entitled “Building Effective Nursing Clinical Handover Communication: Improving Patient Safety”. It was open for participation for 600 nurses in Hong Kong in a four-hour training programme.

His research does not only benefit nurses, but also other healthcare workers. His qualitative research workshop conducted

with the Hospital Authority New Territories West Cluster aimed to train 23 healthcare staff to conduct qualitative research using a computer software called NVivo.

Such programmes have far-reaching impact on social changes not only for veteran healthcare workers but also for a new generation of medical students.

The Benefits of Inter-Departmental Connections At CityU, Pun gives credit to the university’s strategic plan which looks at the priorities of their research, one of which is a theme called: “One Health”.

The idea is about the interconnectedness of different disciplines or the various branches within the same discipline and how they all interact and affect one another. Pun’s research is reflective of CityU’s strategic research theme in which his findings and programmes that— seemingly—are geared to one, actually benefit all.

“We are seeing how the impact is not on an individual level but as a society on a community level. Because we live in this multicultural society, with different languages, cultures and also different areas, our health is all tied together.”

The impact of Pun’s pedagogical approach has already borne results in healthcare and educational institutions in Hong Kong, and will surely continue to affect the future of educators and healthcare workers in the city and beyond.

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STUDENTS & ALUMNI

Li has worked at HKSKH Welfare Council Neo-Horizon for 13 years. The carpentry workshop is one of the activities held for drug abusers and their families.

Social Worker’s Passion Wins her Top Industry Award Fion LI describes the role of CityU College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in preparing her for a life in community work and how she stays focused and humble

“I

grew up in a poor family that is why I have strong feelings about the notion of being deprived,” says Fion Li. Her saving grace was that she received charitable help during her secondary school years. “Whether it was through church or other organisations, the ability to help others continues to be a great influence on the choices I make for the future.”

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Fion Li received the prestigious Outstanding Social Worker Award in 2022 from the Hong Kong Social Workers Association.

An alumna of City University of Hong Kong’s (CityU’s) Social Work programme from diploma level through to her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, it is her selfless spirit of wanting to help those who have fallen on hard times that motivates her in her job.

STUDENTS & ALUMNI

...there are things in life that you can change.

Some things are in a certain way now, but that doesn’t mean they have to be the same in the future Fion Li

“I did a lot of research before I chose my course and what I appreciated about the programme at CityU is that the lecturers don’t go through the mechanical motion of teaching us,” Li says. “They truly looked at us as humans and what impressed me was that CityU and my home College, the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, put a lot of emphasis on community work, with a lot of research in the area.”

While studying for her diploma, her principal lecturer was a CityU veteran who had taught for 25 years at the University. “I can feel the care they put into their lessons,” she adds. “I could feel how they wanted to pass the mission and passion along to us.”

This sort of teaching method and the care given to the students planted a seed from which Li would grow her career. But at that

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STUDENTS & ALUMNI

Li found it miraculous to walk with young drug abusers and help them take a new path in life.

“Most of them started using drugs young and they managed to free themselves from it,” Li remembers. “I found it miraculous at the time.”

Around the same time, she also took courses such as criminology.

“All these elements combined, it really stirred my appetite in wanting to build on my knowledge in this area. I was hungry to learn more.”

“It taught me that there are things in life that you can change.

Some things are in a certain way now, but that doesn’t mean that they have to be the same in the future.”

A proud CityU alumna, Li has risen through CityU’s Social Work programme from diploma level through to her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

time, while only 17, the social worker-to-be encountered her own trials and tribulations, many of those which other teenagers undergo.

Her personal breakthrough came with the help she received from her teachers.

Upon earning her diploma, Li went on to work in the field but soon enough realised that perhaps the two years spent learning about social work may not have been enough.

“I realised early on that I didn’t have enough experience,” she reveals. Li says that the first people she assisted were those whose lives had spiralled out of control due to drug abuse and those with criminal records. “I faced very experienced clients and I told myself that I had to go back to studying more as the additional knowledge would serve as my back-up.”

Putting Knowledge into Practice Li’s decision to study part-time allowed her to bring the cases she was still working on throughout her academic years back to the classroom.

Using those as case studies to help her put theory into practice was how Li completed her Bachelor’s degree.

It was not long before her attention turned toward—what was at the time—CityU’s new counselling course offered by the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences. “What stood out to me was that the University often invites those who are still working in the field to come and lecture.”

After her initial experience with drug abusers and coming into contact with those who overcame their addictions through her church, she chose to dedicate her time to the study and research of rehabilitation.

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Making Self-care a Priority However, regardless of Li’s passion and dedication, there are times when her job can weigh her down. “I do come home tired sometimes but I learnt quickly that I have a responsibility to take care of myself. In my work of taking care of others, there are occasions where I do not have such good thoughts, that’s when I snap back and remind myself to self-care.”

This was part of the reason why Li studied up to Master’s degree level and for 10 years continued to accumulate knowledge on healthcare, addiction and more, “to keep myself healthy”, she says.

This includes learning about keeping a distance with her clients and creating boundaries.

She has now worked for more than 13 years at a centre, engaging with the kind of clients who can easily slip through the cracks of society —a constant reminder to Li that the way to overcome things she does not know about is to understand what it is that she needs to know first.

“I need to be able to do an assessment on myself to stay professional,” Li explains. “In addition, I must maintain my open-mindedness and keep having someone supervising me as well.”

Being recognised as an Outstanding Social Worker by Hong Kong Social Workers Association is a humbling and gratifying experience, even though Li is one to shy away from the spotlight. But it serves as a reminder, she says, to move away from her comfort zone.

“My job is to guide my clients away from their comfort zone, and I must be able to do the same for myself,” she says.

“I’m pleased that I am receiving this award during this pandemic, because it is an affirmation that being a social worker is truly a helping profession. Under the most difficult circumstances, we help people to solve their problems. So this recognition is a strong reminder that during this pandemic, I have to be more humble, work harder and continue braving the storms.”

NEWS

The symposium served as a platform for fruitful academic exchange in linguistics and other applicable disciplinary areas.

International Linguistic Symposium on PhD Research Training T

he Hongkong-Beijing-Lancaster Symposium on Research Methodologies for PhD Studies in Linguistics (REMLing) was held online on 17 and 18 March 2022.

REMLing 2022 was jointly organised by the Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications for Language Studies (HCLS) at City University of Hong Kong, the MIIT Centre of AI-based Linguistic Information Processing (CALIP) at Beihang University, Beijing, and the ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Sciences (CASS) at Lancaster University. The event is sponsored by the Beijing-HK University Alliance, Hong Kong.

The three research centres are themselves manifestations of differing perspectives on language. HCLS is fundamentally motivated by the Hallidayan notion of language as a social phenomenon, CALIP is affiliated to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, and CASS is hallmarked by the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK. All three have common grounding in corpus-based approaches to language.

The event represented a new initiative in internationally concerted PhD training in general and emphasised the importance of research methodologies. It tapped into the expertise of not only local

and regional linguistic scholars but also involved European academics from CityU, Beihang University, Lancaster University, University of Birmingham, Tilburg University and Vienna University.

Four keynote talks were delivered by internationally influential scholars from Lancaster University, CityU and Beihang University.

Dr Christoph A HAFNER from CityU’s Department of English, gave a keynote talk on qualitative approaches to genre analysis. PhD researchers from CityU, Beihang University, Lancaster University, University of Birmingham, Catholic University of Leuven, Fudan University, Nanyang University of Science and Technology, Xiamen University and Zhejiang Gongshang University, gave presentations at the event. Five of the PhD students from CityU presented their research and four were given Best Presentation Awards.

The symposium was envisaged as a platform for fruitful academic exchange, initially in linguistics studies but applicable to other disciplinary areas. It also drew the attention of a number of Master of Arts students who showed interest in pursuing PhD research in relevant linguistics fields. The event presented insights to corpusbased approaches to language, broadening and enriching the landscape of linguistic studies.

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NEWS

Food security and food sustainability have risen on the policy agenda in recent years as the globalisation of food deepened.

Global Discussions on Sustainable Solutions for the Future of Food T

he current food system relies heavily on intensive farming which is unsustainable and harmful to both our planet and our health. Although industrial farming provides us affordable food prices and high crop yield, it is also believed that factory-farmed animals are invariably stressed and riddled with disease from cramped and unhealthy living conditions, and that they are a breeding ground for new strains of dangerous bacteria and viruses.

In view of recent food security and sustainability crises, CityU’s Department of Asian and International Studies has launched “The Future of Food: Seeking Sustainable Solutions” series with the backing of Rabobank in spring 2022. The series exposes audiences to innovative thinking and offers information about future food scenarios and especially the potential to design a more sustainable food system.

The opening event profiled the views of four thought leaders in conversation with each other and the moderator, Sonalie FIGUEIRAS of Green Queen on 11 March 2022. Each panelist was asked to present one recommendation that they consider paramount in reorienting food systems. Mark BITTMAN, an award-winning food writer, recommended regulating factory farming. Doris LEE, a key figure in China’s alternative protein landscape, called for raising public awareness by investing in new proteins derived from plants and micro-organisms. Anna LAPPÉ, an expert on sustainability and justice along the food chain, stressed the need for social movements to hold

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governments and business accountable. Clarissa WEI, a Taiwan-based journalist, proposed to embrace local food systems, which are a better fit for our local environments.

On 13 April 2022, two esteemed veterans of debates on the food system, Temple GRANDIN and Peter SINGER, along with an emerging voice on new approaches to food sustainability, Varun DESHPANDE, were invited to be the panelists for the second event. Deshpande recommended regenerative farming and exploration of more alternative protein options. Grandin suggested an organic-conventional hybrid farming system to make food production more diversified. Singer expressed his concerns about animal welfare and gave examples of wasteful aquaculture practices that lead to overfishing.

In the Q&A sessions, students from local universities and secondary schools asked the panelists questions, along with comments submitted in the chat box by the audience of practitioners and members of the general public. The events gained positive feedback from audiences and stirred up more discussion about global food issues.

Scan to watch the videos of previous events.

NEWS

CityU and Yonsei University Offer New Joint PhD Programme W

ith a vision to broaden and deepen mutual scientific and pedagogical relations and cooperation in research and higher education, CityU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) recently established a partnership with Yonsei University’s College of Social Sciences to launch a two-certificate Joint PhD Programme (“Dual Degree” as named by Yonsei University).

Under the agreement, each institution can admit a maximum of six students per academic year from the partner institution. The admitted students must be from CityU’s Department of Public Policy or Department of Media and Communication, or Yonsei’s Department of Public Administration or Department of Communication. Each student has to simultaneously enrol in both institutions, which will jointly appoint a thesis supervisor from each institution, determine a study plan, appoint examiners for the oral examination and assess the thesis.

Some of the credits obtained at the admitted students’ home university may be transferred to fulfil the PhD degree requirements

of the university of residence. Those who fulfil all of the requirements and conditions set out in both institutions will receive two PhD degree certificates, conferred by CityU and Yonsei, respectively.

For CityU students admitted to the programme, spending at least three semesters at Yonsei University is required. Apart from conducting their research work, they have to complete some required courses. They must submit a thesis, and defend a preliminary and a final thesis evaluation. Their final thesis must be written in English and include a summary in Korean.

While they need to pay tuition fees to the institution of residence and arrange their own accommodation and medical insurance, assistance and studentship from the institution of residence will be provided. It is a precious opportunity for students pursuing further studies and research in public administration / media and communications to study in two metropolitan areas in East Asia and gain valuable international connections.

The new Joint PhD Programme is expected to deepen academic collaboration between the two institutions.

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NEWS

Mentoring Secondary School Students in Buddy Programme

Mentors and mentees took a photo with the University management at the opening ceremony.

T

he transition from secondary to tertiary education is an important developmental milestone in one’s life. Secondary school students may not yet have developed a clear understanding of what their aspirations are and in what fields they would like to pursue further studies. To encourage secondary school students in planning their future pathway, CityU has set up a BOLD Buddy Scheme to help secondary school students gain insights into university education from first-hand interaction with CityU students.

The scheme was kick-started in October 2021. Form Three to Five students in local secondary schools (or equivalent year of study in international schools) were paired up with CityU undergraduates to form a Buddy Team. The mentor-mentee relationship gives CityU students leadership opportunities, in which they can be role models for the secondary school students. Meanwhile, secondary school students get a more all-round understanding of university life and education.

During the programme, secondary school students consulted their CityU buddies about their university application and interview

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tips. CityU students were generous in sharing their personal experience of how they prepared for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE) and how they went through their university application process. The paired-up teams joined competitions and events together and the secondary school students reported that they learnt from the experience and widened their horizons through collaborating with their mentors. For CityU students, the experience of guiding and supervising the junior students was highly rewarding and can be used as solid evidence of leadership, positive attitude and interpersonal skills on their CVs. Most importantly, both the secondary school students and CityU students agreed that the most rewarding part in this programme was the rapport and friendship developed between them. CityU buddies become like big brothers and sisters to the secondary school students whom they can seek advice from. Some have maintained contact with each other to share their experiences. It is believed that after joining this programme, the secondary school students would have a clearer vision and aspirations concerning their future pathway.

NEWS

The meta-analysis on strategic planning which was cited by the US President is a recognition of the research team's efforts.

CityU Research Cited in US Budget FY2023 S

trategic planning is regarded as a popular management approach adopted by public, private and non-profit organisations today to set priorities and steer future development. It helps define the mission of the organisation and establish realistic goals and objectives consistent with that mission in a defined time frame for implementation within the organisation’s capacity. The management of the organisation uses the plan to make the most effective allocation of resources against key priorities.

To discuss strategic planning as a successful management approach adopted in public and private organisations and its positive results on organisational performance, Prof Richard M WALKER, Dean of CityU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences wrote a research article entitled “Does Strategic Planning Improve Organisational Performance? A Meta-Analysis” jointly with Prof Bert GEORGE and Joost MONSTER. It was published in 2019 and won the 2019 Louis Brownlow Award from Public Administration Review.

The research was recently cited in US President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2023 Budget released in March 2022, in the chapter “Delivering a High-Performance Government” in the volume “Analytical Perspectives”, as evidence to support the US Government’s use of

strategic planning and priority goal-setting to define organisational effectiveness.

In the research article, a random-effects meta-analysis of 87 correlations from 31 empirical studies and tasks was undertaken to reveal that strategic planning has a positive, moderate or significant impact on organisational performance. Meta-regression analysis suggests that the positive impact of strategic planning on organisational performance is strongest when performance is measured as effectiveness and when strategic planning’s formality is measured as formal strategic planning. The positive impact is observed across sectors (private and public) and countries (US and non-US contexts).

The citation by the US President is a recognition of the research efforts of Prof Walker and his research collaborators. It also proves that the use of strategic planning can be effectively applied in both private and public sectors across international settings. The research findings have a great impact on public policy and management, and encourage social scientists to explore a deeper level of strategic planning in public administration and the effective management of government.

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Dean: Director of Administration: Production:

Professor Richard M WALKER Dr Hermia CHIU Po-hing College Publicity Team

CITY CLASS connects the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) with our stakeholders. The magazine offers a snapshot of CLASS events and achievements in areas such as teaching, research, knowledge transfer, student activities, learning experiences, and university life. It aims at providing readers with insights into the College’s commitment to quality education and research.

Online version is available on www.cityu.edu.hk/class/magazine

To subscribe to the magazine, please send an email to: ch.publicity@cityu.edu.hk ©2022 College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong Facebook: www.facebook.com/CLASS.CityU