Impact

The Era of AI: How Persuasive is Artificial Intelligence as Compared to Humans?

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As AI takes on a growing diversity of tasks, people are curious about the communication effectiveness of AI versus humans. Professor HUANG Guanxiong, Associate Professor of CityU’s Department of Media and Communication, conducted a research on the relative effects of AI versus humans on persuasion and help uncover the circumstances under which these effects are stronger, weaker, or null.

First Corpus-based Quantitative Exploration of Verb-Frame Distribution in Chinese Textbooks

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Textbooks serve as a vital language input for language acquisition, as indicated by usage-based accounts of language acquisition. Prof LIU Meichun and Prof John LEE Sie-yuen from CityU’s Department of Linguistics and Translation conducted a research project analysing verb-frame diversity and distribution trends by difficulty levels based on a corpus of primary school Chinese textbooks.

Benefits and Challenges of Hong Kong’s First Transitional Social Housing Project

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To provide affordable housing to people in need, the government implemented a policy of transitional social housing in 2018 to enhance the livelihood of low-income families. Prof CHAN Siu-ming of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, published his research findings about Hong Kong’s first TSH project Nam Cheong 220 and evaluated the social impact and effectiveness of the project.

Nurturing Medical Professionals to be Pioneer in Medical Education Research

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Prof Jack PUN of CityU’s Department of English is an expert in health communication and has extensive experience in conducting qualitative research in medicine. Invited by the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, he organised a workshop at the Hong Kong Jockey Club Innovative Centre for Medicine to share his expertise and provide research training to its faculty members and related clinicians in Hong Kong.

A Policy Framework for the Circular Economy to Achieve Sustainability

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The circular economy (CE) is seen as more environmentally-friendly and in some ways better fits the imperatives of the United Nations Sustainable Goals. Professor Kris HARTLEY, Assistant Professor in CityU’s Department of Public and International Affairs, conducted a study to fill a CE research gap by introducing a policy framework for CE that includes over 100 policy instruments. The article is part of Kris’s broader research agenda to understand new public policy models for 21st century challenges.

Survey Reveals Hong Kong Citizens Mentally Overcome Pandemic Gloom But Information Fatigue Looms

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Since the World Health Organization declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency, Hong Kong citizens’ lives have gradually resumed normal. Professor Christine HUANG Yi-hui, Chair Professor of CityU’s Department of Media and Communication (COM), and her research team* conducted online surveys with 1,913 Hong Kong citizens aged 20+ from April to July 2023. The objective is to understand their perceptions of psychological, living and interpersonal well-being.

legal-english-research

Empowering Novices to become Experts: Impact of the Legal English Project 培養初學者成爲專家:法律英語項目之影響

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Learning ‘legal English’, the specialised language that students encounter in law school, is particularly challenging. Law students must learn to use English forms and structures in such a way as to meet the expectations of members of the legal academic community, consistent with the conventions of the legal discipline. Professor Christoph Hafner, Associate Professor of CityU’s Department of English, formed an interdisciplinary project team with legal and language experts in local and overseas universities, in order to develop a digital multimedia resource for legal English based on an analysis of the language needs of Hong Kong law students.

Effects of Public Housing Neighbourhoods on the Risk of Dementia Among Hong Kong Older Adults

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Public housing is a major component of the housing in Hong Kong, with nearly half of the population now residing in some form of public housing. Prof Derrick HO Hung-chak, Assistant Professor of CityU’s Department of Public and International Affairs, has recently published a research article in Public Health journal with Prof Tracy LU Shiyu, Assistant Professor of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences and other researchers to evaluate how form/characteristics in public housing neighbourhoods may be associated with dementia among seniors in Hong Kong.

Retirement Goal Clarity Leads to Better Financial Preparedness

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Hong Kong is grappling with the issue of an ageing population, as there is no universal pension system, and retirement protection is primarily dependent on the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) scheme. To shed light on this daunting issue, Professor Dannii YEUNG of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences has conducted a study aimed at identifying the psychosocial factors that impact working adults’ readiness to financially prepare for retirement.

Storytelling Reduces Aggression and Bullying in Young Schoolchildren

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Storytelling brings various psychological and educational benefits to young children. Children learn valuable life lessons through listening to an adventure story or a fairy tale. Instead of giving lectures to children to teach them good behaviour and morals, storytelling is a more effective way to instill good deeds in children. Dr Annis FUNG Lai-chu, Associate Professor of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Science, has conducted a first-ever study to investigate the positive impacts of a storytelling intervention based on the social information processing (SIP) model in reducing reactive and proactive aggression among schoolchildren.

Collaboration between Corrections and Psychology Blossoms at a Sharing Forum

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The partnership between Hong Kong Correctional Services Department (CSD) and Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences (SS), City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has been working to bring solace and healing to those in custody. On 30 May 2023, they co-organised a sharing forum titled “Gripping Insights: Recent psychological research on Hong Kong corrections”; over 250 scholars, students, and professionals in correctional services joined the event.

New Study on Health Communication Promotes Better Quality of Care for Patients Receiving Chinese-Western Medicine Treatment

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As the use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in integrated treatment is gaining increasing recognition and popularity amongst the general public, there is a need to investigate the role of effective clinical communication in TCM context, particularly for communicating with patients who seek both TCM and Western Medical care. Dr Jack PUN, Assistant Professor from the Department of English at CityU, and his team designed a communication intervention based on the Calgary-Cambridge guides for teaching effective doctor-patient communication skills and modified it for TCM context, in collaboration with TCM professors/researchers from School of TCM at HKBU and CUHK.

Largest Territory-wide Survey on Mental Health of Homeless People in Hong Kong

Largest Territory-wide Survey on Mental Health of Homeless People in Hong Kong

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Dr CHAN Siu-ming of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences conducted a large territory-wide homeless survey in Hong Kong with his research team, aiming to examine the mental health conditions of homeless people and the determinants of mental health problems.Interviewers talked to 1,103 homeless people and successfully collected 711 valid questionnaires for analysis.

Exploring Social Entrepreneurship Comics as Effective Ethical Business Pedagogy

Exploring Social Entrepreneurship Comics as Effective Ethical Business Pedagogy

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Social entrepreneurship has arisen as a new business model to achieve specific social objectives through entrepreneurial strategies and self-sustaining operations. Dr Yanto CHANDRA of CityU’s Department of Public and International Affairs has conducted a research project to assess the efficacy of applying a multimedia perspective as a complementary approach to the current pedagogy of the topic.

Immobility and Pandemic: Examining Diseasescape in the Post-COVID Era

Immobility and Pandemic: Examining Diseasescape in the Post-COVID Era

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Studying global cases of immobility governance strategies in different stages of the pandemic, Dr CHAN Yuk-wah of CityU's Department of Public and International Affairs has published a research article with her research partner on examining how the COVID-inflected diseasescape has impacted the dynamic between mobility and immobility, and how the diseasescape continued to evolve with the disease and the policies.

Political Unfriending: A Comparative Study of Selective Avoidance on Social Media in Western Democracies

Political Unfriending: A Comparative Study of Selective Avoidance on Social Media in Western Democracies

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When people encounter dissonant speech on social media, functions such as hiding comments, unfriending and unfollowing friends may reinforce the behaviour of selective avoidance in order to re-establish more homophilous environments online. Dr Marko SKORIC of CityU’s Department of Media and Communication conducted a comparative study with his team on the selective avoidance behaviour of social media users in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Hope-based Research

A Journey of Hope: Impact of Hope-based Research 希望之旅:「希望為本」研究之影響

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People often feel helpless and depressed when facing life-altering situations such as a terminal diagnosis, incarceration and even a global pandemic. While many clinical psychologists mainly provide their patients with symptom treatments that focuses on “now”, Prof Samuel HO Mun-yin, Head of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, has dedicated over two decades to his hope-based treatments that focus on the future.

Language Ideologies of International Students in a Hong Kong EMI University

Language Ideologies of International Students in a Hong Kong EMI University

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To dissect the language-related experiences and beliefs of international students, Dr Matthew SUNG of CityU’s Department of English launched a research project at an EMI university in Hong Kong. From the perspectives of language policy and critical sociolinguistics, he zoomed in on their ideologies about the roles, the varieties, and the monolingual and multilingual uses of English in the EMI university context.

Ghost Marriage and Corpse Trading Crime in Rural China

Ghost Marriage and Corpse Trading Crime in Rural China

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Professor LO Tit-wing of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences led a research project to go beyond social culture and folklore to investigate the criminal business processes in this emerging economic market. He studies the nature and substance of ghost bride-induced crime while looking into the criminal business processes of ghost bride-induced crimes from an economic perspective.

First Ever Online Racial Discrimination Study in Hong Kong

First Ever Online Racial Discrimination Study in Hong Kong

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Funded by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), Dr WANG Yuan of CityU’s Department of Media and Communication led a research project titled “A Study of Online Media Representation of Ethnic Minorities and Online Racial Discrimination in Hong Kong.” It analysed how online news articles and their reader comments portray ethnic minority groups in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether this portrayal involves racial bias, stereotypes, or discrimination.

Pandemic Fatigue? CityU’s Survey Reveals Half of the Citizens Support “Living-with-COVID”

Pandemic Fatigue? CityU’s Survey Reveals Half of the Citizens Support “Living-with-COVID”

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Professor Christine HUANG Yi-hui, Chair Professor at the Department of Media and Communication, led a local survey together with Dr Crystal JIANG Li, Dr Vincent WANG Xiaohui and Dr Nancy DAI Yue. Survey results showed that the majority of the respondents supported the “Live-with-COVID” policy, but there were different stances on COVID policies depending on personal backgrounds.

Privacy Concerns in the Context of Online Political Participation

Privacy Concerns in the Context of Online Political Participation

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Dr Chris SHEN Fei and his doctoral student at CityU’s Department of Media and Communication have conducted a research study across 10 Asian cities. The findings are presented in the article The relationship between online political participation and privacy protection: evidence from 10 Asian societies of different levels of cybersecurity, published in Behaviour and Information Technology.

Understanding Political Polarisation in the New Media Age

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The distribution of public opinion signals social preferences. People make many decisions in their daily lives based on their perception of the opinion climate. Similarly, policymakers formulate policy proposals based on their understanding of public opinion. With digital and social media becoming an integral part of people’s daily lives for information and communication, the proliferation of digital technologies is changing not only how public opinion can be represented, but also how it can be studied. By adopting a big data-based approach, Dr Chris SHEN Fei, Department of Media and Communication, specialising in the social and political impact of new media technologies, has proposed ways of understanding public opinion through online textual mining.

New Methodology for Assessing Spatial Inequality Quantitatively

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Spatial inequality in basic service provision can negatively affect living standards, economic security, and human rights, and have wide policy implications. Thus, the issue needs to be considered when developing strategic planning for smart city development. Professor ZHANG Xiaoling and her team presented a new methodology to evaluate the distribution of resources in metropolitan cities based on small-area-level analysis, and proved the effectiveness of this methodology using New York City as an empirical case.

Recent progress on innovative urban infrastructures system towards sustainable resource management

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To address various emerging challenges and capture opportunities for urban transition from an infrastructure system innovation perspective, this Special Issue (“Urban infrastructures system for sustainable resource management”) of the journal highlighted recent progress on characterizing the sustainability of infrastructure system towards sustainable urban development and resource management.

Establishing the Innovative Spectrum Policies to support the 5G, IOT, and AI Ecosystem : Case of Taiwan

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Since many companies or organizations in Taiwan have expressed the need to build 5G enterprise application networks, the government in Taiwan has committed to establish innovative spectrum policies to support the vertical application model to develop the 5G enterprise network to accelerate the digital transformation. This presentation will discuss the stakeholders’ views with regard to the 5G vertical application domains.