ENG-1991 — Page 344

288

COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA

play a major role in maintaining the flow of information and helping to improve relations with the public.

Publicity Division

The Publicity Division consists of three sub-divisions: Creative, Publishing and Promotions. The work of the creative group embraces many forms of visual presentation including photography and film-making, staging exhibitions, designing books, leaflets, press advertisements and posters.

The publishing sub-division produces a wide variety of publications ranging from leaflets and fact sheets to the Hong Kong Annual Report and other full-colour books. Sales of government publications totalled more than $35.7 million in 1991, compared with $33.4 million in 1990. The main emphasis of publishing activity continued to lie with information material for free distribution. During the year, some 481 items totalling over 5.3 million copies were given out to the public. These included leaflets advising on procedures for obtaining a wide range of government services, together with fact sheets covering 62 topics, which are updated annually with the latest statistics. The sub-division also maintains an extensive photographic library.

The promotions sub-division plans and implements all government campaigns and publicity programmes to educate the public on major issues of concern and create public awareness of civic responsibilities. Publicity messages are disseminated through films, publications, posters, press advertisements, exhibitions and other promotional activities such as concerts and variety shows. In 1991, nine major government campaigns were organised. The most significant programme was the Elections Campaigns for the three-tier government elections which were held within a span of just over six months. An intensive campaign was mounted to encourage voter turnout on polling days. The other campaigns mounted during the year were: Environmental Protection, Fire Prevention, AIDS, Fight Crime, Road Safety, Anti-Narcotics, Identity Card Re-Issue and Civic Education.

The Press

Hong Kong's flourishing free press consists of 69 newspapers and 598 periodicals, which have a high readership. They include 39 Chinese-language dailies and two English- language dailies. One of the English dailies publishes a daily braille edition, in conjunction with the Hong Kong Society for the Blind. A number of news agency bulletins - Chinese, English and Japanese - are also registered as newspapers.

Of the Chinese-language dailies, 33 cover mainly general news, both local and overseas, while others cover solely entertainment, especially television and cinema news, and two concentrate on finance. The larger papers include Chinese communities overseas in their distribution networks, and some have editions printed outside Hong Kong, in particular in the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia.

Hong Kong is the South-east Asian base for many newspapers, magazines, news agencies and electronic media. Among the international news agencies with offices in Hong Kong are Associated Press, Reuters, United Press International, and Agence France-Presse, Kyodo News Service of Japan, Agencia EFE of Spain and LUSA of Portugal. Newsweek and Time magazines have editions printed in Hong Kong, which is also the base for the regional magazines Asiaweek and the Far Eastern Economic Review, as well as the Asian Wall Street Journal and the International Herald Tribune.