Public Demonstrations and Western media supports
"Public demonstrations" seems obvious to define: demonstrations that are performed in public. However, the term "public demonstrations" have been used broadly and it contains lots of things. As mentioned by Claude Rosental in Toward a Sociology of Public Demonstrations,
"Demonstration" and "public demonstration" are used to refer to phenomena as varied as experimental proofs or specific parts of the physics lectures in the academic world, the performances of technology salespeople, and street protests. It is strange to think of all demonstrative practices as belonging to a single field of inquiry.
Public demonstrations have been perceived as democratic practices, and whenever this happens in a "authoritarian/oppressive" regime, it was generally supported by press around the world. Unavoidably, the students protestors have been perceived as heroes during the initial stages of the protests. In Obama's talk at University of Queensland, he stated,
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Those young people, they want the same things that you do. The notion that somehow they’re less interested in opportunity or less interested in avoiding arbitrary arrest, or less interested in being censored is fundamentally untrue. Today, people in Hong Kong are speaking out for their universal rights.
And so here in Asia and around the world, America supports free and fair elections...
We support strong institutions and independent judiciaries and open government, because the rule of force must give way to the rule of law.
And in that same fashion, the United States will continue to stand up for the inherent dignity of every human being. ...So, yes, we’ll speak out on behalf of human rights...
On BBC timeline about Hong Kong, the incidents noted are mostly one-sided. It did not mention how the Hong Kong citizens have divided opinion, and anti-protest protestors are also a big role in the actions.
Pro-democracy protests2014 July - Tens of thousands of protesters take part in what organisers say could be Hong Kong's largest pro-democracy rally in a decade.
2014 August - Chinese government rules out a fully democratic election for Hong Kong leader in 2017, saying that only candidates approved by Beijing will be allowed to run.
2014 September-November - Pro-democracy demonstrators occupy the city centre for weeks in protest at the Chinese government's decision to limit voters' choices in the 2017 Hong Kong leadership election. More than 100,000 people took to the streets at the height of the Occupy Central protests.
2014 December - Authorities take down Mong Kok protest camp, leaving a few hundred protesters at two camps at Admiralty and Causeway Bay.
In addition to these, many news media such as WSJ repeated reports on the unaffected economy,
Mr. Leung said the impact of demonstrations on retailers could be overestimated. “The sector was hurting long before the recent demonstrations,” with retail sales of popular tourist items contracting for seven consecutive months before the protests.
In China, all kinds of public demonstrations are called "collective incidents" instead.