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Going to the people: Community screening, documentary and the plebeian public sphere in Hong Kong
- Source: Asian Cinema, Volume 33, Issue Documentary and Democracy, Hong Kong, Oct 2022, p. 209 - 224
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- 10 Nov 2021
- 24 Jul 2022
- 02 Feb 2023
Abstract
This article is an ethnographic and historical study that focuses on the ‘plebeian public sphere’ – a democratic sphere opened up by the community screening of independent documentary films. My article argues that this innovative public screening establishes a mode of communication that connects audiences with the neighbourhood where people gather together and form local communities by sharing experience and emotion based on history, story and memory. This process evokes a source of affective energy that is capable of catalysing social change. It challenges not only previous theoretical approaches to the public sphere, but also the stereotypical understanding of ‘the public’ in the Hong Kong context.
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