From Amplifier to Advocate: Financial Journalism and Crisis Governance in Hong Kong SAR, 1973-2008

This study examines how financial journalism in Hong Kong SAR is reconfigured during periods of financial crisis, drawing on a qualitative, longitudinal analysis of English- and Chinese-language newspaper coverage of four major crises between 1973 and 2008. Rather than functioning as a continuous watchdog or a stable regulatory substitute, financial journalism exercises influence episodically, expanding at moments when routine market narratives lose credibility and institutional actions require public justification. During such periods, journalism becomes a key site for interpreting disruption, attributing responsibility, and rendering harm publicly visible, even though formal regulatory authority remains with state and market institutions. To conceptualize this role, the study advances the notion of hybrid regulatory authority, understood as a non-coercive and historically contingent form of influence that operates through agenda-setting, framing, and moral evaluation rather than enforcement. The analysis shows that variations in journalistic authority across crises are shaped not by linear professional evolution, but by changing configurations of regulatory capacity, market participation, and public expectation. As regulatory institutions became more visible and retail investor participation expanded, later crises generated more explicit accountability and protection narratives. Recognizing journalism as a crisis-activated, relational actor provides a more cautious and empirically grounded account of its role in financial governance.