Holy Shum completed her PhD studies in the Department of Sociology at HKU in 2024. She was also an alumna of the Master of Social Sciences in Media, Culture & Creative Cities (MCCC).
Holy’s research focuses on how new technologies are transforming creative industries and their practitioners in mainland China and Hong Kong. She also takes a keen research interest in popular culture, social media, and postcolonialism. Her work has been published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Global Media and China, Media International Australia, and Social Transformations in Chinese Societies.
Currently, Holy is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Hong Kong Shue Yan University. Before her PhD studies, Holy worked as an advertising copywriter and marketer.
PhD, Sociology
The University of Hong Kong
MSocSc (MCCC)
The University of Hong KongBA (Philosophy and Psychology)
The University of Hong KongCultural and creative industries
Creative labour
Technology and art
Social media
PhD research: Theorising “arts tech”: Mediations between art objects, people and policy in Hong Kong’s creative industry
Hsin Chong – K.N. Godfrey Yeh Education Fund for Joint Student Projects 2020/21 (1st Round) <Project title: “From Precarity to Empowerment: Participatory and Collaborative Learning for Hong Kong Youths”>
Outstanding Paper Award (2022-2023) presented by The Academy of Hong Kong Studies:
Platforms, politics and precarity: Hong Kong television workers amid the new techno-nationalist media agenda. European Journal of Cultural Studies (Co-authored with Tse, T.).
Journal articles:
Shum, H. (2023). Oculus power! Arts and technology’s mediation of postcolonial neoliberal nationalism in Hong Kong. Global Media and China, 0(0).
Shum, H. H.-K. (2022). A tech takeover: Alibaba and the transforming work culture of the South China Morning Post. Social Transformations in Chinese Societies.
Tse, T., & Shum, H. H.-K. (2022). Platforms, politics and precarity: Hong Kong television workers amid the new techno-nationalist media agenda. European Journal of Cultural Studies.
McDonald, T., Shum, H. H.-K., & Wong, R. (2021). Payments in the pandemic: orchestrating and imagining cross-boundary digital money infrastructures in China during COVID-19. Media International Australia, 181(1), 44–56.
Book chapter:
McDonald, T., Shum, H. H. K., Wong, K. C. (2022). ‘Mediated money and social relationships among Hong Kong cross-boundary students’. In Costa, E., P. G. Lange, N. Haynes, J. Sinanan (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Media Anthropology. London: Routledge. 301-313.
McDonald, T., & Shum, H. (2024). “Smartphones, shopping and the technomobility of migrant mothers”. In X. Pei, P. Malhotra,& R. Ling (eds.), Women’s Agency and Mobile Communication Under the Radar. London: Routledge. Chapter 10.