Lexical Choices as Politics: Discursive Strategies of Hong Kong Television Journalists after National Security Law

This article investigates how television journalists in Hong Kong have adjusted their lexical choices and discursive practices in response to the 2020 National Security Law (NSL). Drawing on a complete-member ethnographic study of a Hong Kong television newsroom, comprised of participant observation, fieldwork and interviews with current and former journalists, and a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach, the study identifies a set of word-level and framing strategies that journalists employ to navigate a constrained media environment. Key practices include lexical substitutions (e.g., substituting “Mainland” for “China”), cautious referencing of Taiwan, strategic silences or avoidance of politically sensitive terms, and template-based adoption of state media phrasing. These linguistic adjustments are not merely defensive; they reflect a negotiation between compliance and professional identity, allowing journalists to continue reporting while managing legal risks and editorial pressures. The findings illustrate how word choice becomes a critical site of political negotiation, ideological constraint, and journalistic agency in post-NSL Hong Kong. This article contributes to scholarship on media under censorship by highlighting the importance of word choices as micro-level discursive strategies in semi-authoritarian media systems.