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Chapter 2 begins the empirical sections of the book with a historical analysis that demonstrates how talk radio has taken up varying characteristics and significance in the changing social and political contexts. Emphasizing the “multilevel interactions” between the media and its environment, the chapter shows that talk radio began as a channel for citizen-official communication in the late 1960s in Hong Kong. It was transformed into a platform for public discussion in the 1980s, and then became a critical watchdog in the 1990s and early 2000s. In most recent years, talk radio has become a channel for citizen-official communication again, with a new emphasis on the accountability performance by political leaders.

The author presents his argument in the Introduction, that talk radio has continued to maintain its prominence and distinctive significance over the past fifteen years in Hong Kong largely due to the changing social and political context of the city, which has led to the formation of a specific type of congenial and cooperative relationship between talk radio and the mainstream press. Remediation by the mainstream media occurs mainly through thematic representation and content adaptation, and different mainstream media outlets remediate talk radio in both different and similar ways. Remediation also influences how ordinary citizens evaluate and perceive the social roles and functions of talk radio.

Chapter 5 begins the analysis of remediation. It first further substantiates the argument of a congenial relationship between mainstream media and talk radio by drawing upon two representative surveys of professional journalists. It then presents a textual analysis of how newspapers reported the voices of the citizen-callers from talk radio as “public opinion.” It illustrates the textual strategies employed to construct the callers as reasoning and engaged citizens and their views as substantive, representative, and potentially influential.

Chapter 10 discusses the theoretical implications of the book on the analysis of media interconnectedness and remediation, and the implications of the findings in relation to the broader problematic of the communication of public opinion in Hong Kong. It also comments on the most recent and possible future development of talk radio in the city.

Chapter 8 turns to thematic representation and examines three key moments in the past fifteen years during which the symbolic value of talk radio was constructed and negotiated: the physical attack of Albert Cheng in 1998, the resignation of three radio talk show hosts in 2004, and the non-renewal of Ng Chi-sum's contract in 2011. The analysis illustrates the extent to which and the ways in which talk radio was defended by the press when it was perceived to be under attack. It shows how talk radio was articulated with the notion of freedom of speech. The similarities and differences among the three cases also illustrate the changing symbolic status of talk radio in Hong Kong.

Chapter 9 turns to survey data to examine the characteristics of talk radio listeners. More important, the chapter examines public perceptions of talk radio and analyzes the presence or absence of remediation effects by looking into the relationship between perceptions of talk radio and mainstream news media consumption. It provides evidence showing that the remediation processes analyzed in Chapters 5 to 8 do matter.

Chapter 6 continues the analysis of content adaptation, but with an emphasis on selective appropriation and therefore the differences between newspapers with varying marketing and political positions. It presents a content analysis of how frequently different types of talk radio materials were used by different newspapers. Then, drawing upon the analysis of reported speech and constructed dialogue by applied linguists, the chapter discusses how news articles construct society-wide dialogues through organizing the discourses from talk radio with discourses from other speech contexts. It shows how the political stances of the newspapers are embedded in such constructed dialogues.

Chapter 7 goes beyond the reporting of talk radio contents in daily news and examines what is called the life cycle of iconic sound bites in the media arena. Talk radio can be a source of prominent sound bites, such as verbal blunders made by politicians in the show. The sound bites are not only reported in news; they can also be recirculated in media and public discourses. Focusing on the case of a verbal transgression committed by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong government in 2008, the chapter examines how a sound bite originated from talk radio was negotiated and appropriated in the media arena over time.

Chapter 3 focuses on the case of the liberal-oriented Open Line Open View (OLOV). This chapter discusses the basic set-up of the program, and through a conversation analysis of a sample of program episodes, illustrates how the liberal and critical character of the program was produced through the conversational dynamics of the show.

Chapter 4 examines another type of radio talk shows in Hong Kong, what I will call the “accountability shows.” This type of phone-in programs typically involves government officials and politicians as studio guests, and is therefore particularly newsworthy. Using three episodes of an annual program as a case study, the analysis focuses on how the hosts' conversation management shaped not only the voices of the people expressed but also the performance of the attending official.