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This paper presents the findings from a focus group research study on public assessments of the police and policing in Hong Kong. The main findings indicate that while people have generally positive views about police effectiveness in responding promptly to and fighting crime, they have decidedly mixed views regarding stop and search and public order policing. By drawing on the multi-dimensional framework of trust proposed by other policing scholars, we suggest that a useful way to conceptualize public assessments of the police and questions of satisfaction and trust of policing in Hong Kong is to distinguish between people's instrumental concerns about personal safety and crime and their affective concerns about the process of policing and the symbolic role of the police in maintaining a particular way of life. The paper concludes by reaffirming the value of sociologically informed, qualitative policing research that examines questions of police-citizen relationship and legitimacy within a broader socio-political context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the relationship between consumers and producers of cultural products is shaped by the proprietary nature of digital platforms. Drawing on 4 years of online observation and analysis, we examine the relationship between the producers of online Chinese fiction, amateur writers, and their consumers, that is, the fan communities of readers who respond to their work. Enabled by Chinese literary websites, readers act like sponsors who provide emotional and financial incentives for writers to produce online fictions by commenting, voting, and sending money. Readers become actively involved not just because of the content of the stories but because they form strong commitments to stories and their writers, and gain reciprocity and a sense of self-determination during the interactional process. We argue that although writers are freer from state control online, they are still beholden to the whims of their fans because of what we call the commissioned production of fictions. We contribute to fan community studies by analyzing how commercialized website settings structure the strategies available to participants, how these settings affect the content of the cultural products, and how the Chinese historical and cultural contexts impact the dynamics of the online community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]