Digital Ethnic Media and the Construction of Cultural Trauma: The Tai Po Fire and Hong Kong Diaspora Responses in Canada

This paper examines how digital ethnic media supports cultural identity, emotional processing, and resilience among the Hong Kong diaspora in Canada amid ongoing political and social upheavals. Grounded in cultural trauma theory, it analyses media coverage and audience reception of one of Hong Kong's worst disasters in decades. It concludes that digital ethnic media helps Hong Kong Canadian communities adopt, adapt, and respond to layered upheavals: political displacement, immigration uncertainty, and sudden disaster, while actively resisting the erasure of cultural identity and sustaining an evolving sense of belonging.