A Free Press, If You Can Keep It

This Brief introduces a novel research approach to investigate freedom of the press in Hong Kong. The authors pair computational analyses from the field of natural language processing with qualitative content analysis of patterns of journalistic practice in volatile political settings. Together, these shed light on the evolution of press freedom in Hong Kong since its return to Chinese sovereignty. Providing an interdisciplinary perspective, the Brief will appeal to a wide range of readers with interests in computational social science, public policy, political sciences as well as policy-makers, think tanks, and practitioners who focus on the China-Hong Kong nexus.

Giovanna Maria Dora Dore is a political economist with nearly 20 years of experience in international development and comparative politics, with a focus on public policy and institutions in East Asian emerging markets. She is Senior Lecturer and Associate Director of the East Asian Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University (US). Between 1998 and 2008, Dr. Dore worked at the World Bank in various capacities, including Special Assistant to the President. Her work focused on the East Asia and Pacific Region and a broad range of topics related to growth and sustainable development, public expenditure and revenue management, and decentralization. Dr. Dore received her PhD from the Johns Hopkins University - SAIS, her MA in in International Relations and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins University - SAIS, and her BA-MSc in Contemporary Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (double first-class honors) from the Catholic University of Milan (Italy).

Arya McCarthy is a Ph.D. student in computer science, in the Center for Language and Speech Processing of the Johns Hopkins University, where he has been awarded the Amazon Fellowship as well as the Jelinek Fellowship. He has published over 30 papers at venues such as ACL, EMNLP, ICASSP, and ICLR, and worked at Google, Duolingo and Facebook. Arya graduated from Southern Methodist University in 2017 with a bachelor's in mathematics and computer science and a master's in computer science.

James A. Scharf is an AI researcher focusing on Human Language and Technology at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. He received his MSE in Engineering (computer science) from the Whiting School of Engineering of the Johns Hopkins University and his BA in political science and computer science from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences of the Johns Hopkins University.