Political Communication: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue

The goal of the event is to bring together scholars studying media and politics across political science, economics, and communication to discuss and debate the frontiers of this research area, creating an interdisciplinary dialogue for new insight. It also aims to enrich the intellectual community on this subject at the HKU and across Hong Kong and provide our colleagues and students with a platform to interact with leading local and international scholars.

Please check out our guest speakers and their research topics below:

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Examining the role of news literacy to enhance information integrity and sustainable development goals.

by Professor Michael Chan | School of Journalism and Communication, Associate Editor, Political Communication, CUHK

Michael Chan is a Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research examines the roles and impact of mediated communications on politics, society, and journalism. He is currently involved in several international collaborations, such as exploring how audiences consume news and respond to misleading online content, and adopting comparative frameworks to measure and compare how countries around the world are resilient and vulnerable to misinformation. He serves as Associate Editor for Political Communication, Social Science Computer Review, and Telematics and Informatics, and sits on the editorial boards of nine other journals.

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by Professor Yanhui Wu | HKU Business School

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How Chinese Censorship Allows Public Discourse on Democracies but Not Their Institutions

by Professor Tony Yang | Political Science, Emory University
Dr. Tony Yang is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Emory University and an Associate at the University of Oxford China Centre. His research focuses on authoritarian politics, political communication, and public opinion. Specifically, he investigates how authoritarian regimes use censorship and propaganda to manipulate domestic and international information environments. Dr. Yang adopts a multi-method approach, including computational methods, experiments, design-based causal inference, and qualitative fieldwork. Dr. Yang's work was published in leading journals, including the Journal of Politics, International Organization, and Comparative Political Studies, and his dissertation won the 2025 APSA Thomas E. Patterson Best Dissertation Award in Political Communication.

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Screened Realities: How Entertainment Fosters Political Compliance in Autocracies

by Professor Rex Deng | Division of Social Science, NYU Abu Dhabi

Rex Deng is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis (WashU). Beginning in Fall 2026, he will join the Division of Social Science at New York University Abu Dhabi as an Assistant Professor of Political Science. His research lies at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations, focusing on authoritarian politics, public diplomacy, political communication, and political psychology. Specifically, Deng investigates how political elites use communication and development strategies to overcome public skepticism and build support for their rule and policies in both domestic and international environments.