Pacific Journalism Review (Pacific Media Centre, School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology)
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REVIEW: Riveting National Press Club tales of espionage
No full textBureau of Spies: The secret connections between espionage and journalism in Washington, by Steven T. Usdin. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. 2018. 360pp. ISBN 9781633884762.DON’T be fooled by Bureau of Spies’ provocative title. Steven Usdin’s careful and considered account of how foreign and domestic agitators have manipulated the American media and subverted that country’s democracy is thoroughly researched and extremely well written. It contains riveting descriptions of America First’s Nazi propaganda efforts as well as the extent of Russian intelligence’s attempts to hoodwink US delegates and voters. However, the setting for these seismic events is in the 20th Century rather than the 21st. 
REVIEW: How Indonesia’s political system has ‘failed’ minorities like Papuans
No full textRace, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia, by Andreas Harsono. Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. 2019. 288 pages. ISSN 978-1-925835-09-0.THIS PASSIONATE book is something of a cross between an inspired political travelogue, journalistic catalogue of insights into suffering and a cathartic defence of human rights. Published on the eve of the Indonesian national elections on 17 April 2019 and barely a month after the Christchurch mosque massacre, from a Pacific perspective Race, Islam and Power is also an impeccably timed analysis of how the centralised political system has failed many of the country’s 264 million people – especially minorities and those at the margins, such as in West Papua
REVIEW: How soldier guitars, culture and faith paved way for Bougainville’s peace
No full textSoldiers Without Guns: An untold story of unsung Kiwi heroes, documentary, 92min. Director Will Watson. Narrated by Lucy Lawless.WHILE a gripping film about the apocalyptic Bougainville war, or more accurately the peace that ended the decade-long conflict, opened in cinemas across New Zealand in April 2019, an island roadshow was taking place back in the Pacific. Initiated by the United Nations, the roadshow—featuring Bougainville President Father John Momis, many of his cabinet members and UN Resident Coordinator Gianluca Rampolla—was designed to help prepare Bougainvillean voters to decide on their future. This future is due to be put to the test in a referendum on October 17 in the crucial political outcome of an extraordinary peace process that began in chilly mid-winter talks at Burnham Military Camp near Christchurch in July 1997
Good news media book in regional bad news year: Review of Media Information and Development in Papua New Guinea, edited by Evangelia Papoutsaki and Dick Rooney
No full textMedia, Information and Development in Papua New Guinea is one of the most interesting books I have on Pacific media. It is a collection of different writers, some of whom are current or former journalists. Several of the authors have direct media links as staff working with the Divine Word University in Madang, a private Christian institution. For the uninitiated, the opening chapter gives an outline of the media landscape in PNG. Other chapters explore media ownership, journalism education and the role of media national development. 
Whither Pacific ‘traditional’ media? Internet technology in political education and participation
Get PDF‘Digital Democracy’ and ‘digital government’ are relatively new concepts posing challenges for governments, journalists, political analysts and political scientists. Written from a political science perspective, this article provides an overview of selected Pacific Island government efforts on the web and assesses the contribution this makes to political education, on one level, and building egalitarian democracies on another level. Providing a brief survey of internet developments in the area of government within 12 selected Pacific Island countries, the argument is made that, while any additional education in the broad area of politics is welcome, there are still challenges that exist and room for progress. Given current technological capabilities around the region, more ‘traditional’ forms of media still have a vital role to play
Social media and disaster communication: A case study of Cyclone Winston
Get PDFThis article presents an analysis of how social media was used during Tropical Cyclone Winston, the strongest recorded tropical storm that left a wake of destruction and devastation in Fiji during February 2016. Social media is increasingly being used in crises and disasters as an alternative form of communication. Social media use in crisis communication varies according to the context, the disaster and the maturity of social media use. Fiji’s experience during TC Winston contributes to the growing literature as it shows how social media was used during each stage of a disaster in a developing country. The article finds that before the cyclone, people used social media to share information about the cyclone and to be informed about the cyclone. During the cyclone, individuals used social media to share their experiences with some citizens capturing the cyclone as it happened and even one citizen live-tweeted her ordeal during the cyclone. Finally, following the cyclone, the hashtag #StrongerThanWinston was coined as a rallying point to bolster a sense of national solidarity
Ecological communication in Asia-Pacific: A comparative analysis of social adaptation to maritime disaster in Indonesia and Fiji
Get PDFThis article is of a comparative study of social adaptation in the Cyclone Winston disaster case in Fiji and rob flooding in Semarang, Indonesia. In February 2016, the largest tropical storm in the Southern Hemisphere, Cyclone Winston, struck Fiji and caused severe damage and loss of life. Meanwhile, in the last two decades flooding has become an increasingly acute disaster situation in Semarang and the northern coastal region of Java, Indonesia. Communities in the path of both these disasters are the ones who suffer most. Social adaptation is important to consider in these two cases to encourage improved future mitigation and adaptation efforts. Data was collected from interviews and documents in the form of news media articles and previous research reports relevant to tropical disasters and the impact of climate change. The results show that social adaptation to both types of disasters is not identical due to the characteristics of the two different disasters and the different social, economic, political and cultural contexts in Fiji and Indonesia
REVIEW: Charlie Hebdo and the free speech conflict
Get PDFAfter Charlie Hebdo: Terror, Racism and Free Speech, edited by Gavan Titley, Des Freedman, Gholam Khiabany and Aurélien Mondon. London: Zed Books. 2017. 313 pages. ISBN 9781783609383
IN OCTOBER 2016, I returned to that stunning and iconic French eighth monastery Mont St Michel, once also a post-Revolution jail for political prisoners, and was struck by the sight of a garrison of soldiers – part of the Vigipirate programme. Vigipirate has parallels with the US Homeland Security Advisor system and has now been in place in various forms for almost 26 years, since Bush’s Gulf War in 1991. Based on laws adopted in 1959 during the Algerian War of Independence, it was first suspended for a while after the Gulf War and then introduced again in 1995 after a car bomb blew up outside a Jewish school in Lyon. Vigipirate has since then gone through various phases and updates with the 1995 Paris Metro bombing, 2004 Madrid terror train attack and the 2005 London underground bombing. Official documents now designate the programme as ‘permanent’
A plan nobody hopes they will need: New Zealand and climate change migration
Get PDFAt the Second Pacific Climate Change conference in Wellington in February 2018, New Zealand’s Minister for Pacific Peoples, ‘Aupito Tofae Su’a William Sio, said New Zealand must have policies in place to deal with the possibility of climate induced migration from the Pacific Islands. He described having such a policy in place as being akin to a factory preparing an evacuation plan in case of an earthquake: A vital precaution for something everybody hoped would never be needed. But what would that policy look like, how far forward would planners have to think, what issues are involved and who would be responsible for making sure it was effective? This article examines four key areas of concern that will have to be dealt with if an effective policy on climate change-induced migration is to be developed: Public perceptions, the law, maintaining Island culture and identity and changing the existing media narrative on social change. It identifies three groups of key players in the process: Legislators and legal experts, churches and journalists
Acehnese or Indonesian?: Post-conflict representation of identity in a local newspaper
Get PDFTo what extent does a local newspaper in the Indonesian province of Aceh construct Acehnese identity as distinct from Indonesian national identity? In this article, the authors examine the representation of Acehnese identity post-civil conflict and in relation to Indonesian national identity by drawing on a content analysis of Aceh’s local newspaper, Serambi Indonesia. There are few studies of representations of local ethnic groups in their local newspapers, let alone the representations of ethnic groups with a history of separatist movements. Therefore, this study sets out to bridge the gap in the literature on how a formerly separatist ethnic group is positioned vis-à-vis its nation-state in its local media. This study examines the representation of Acehnese in the local newspaper in terms of Anderson’s (1983) ‘imagined community’, Billig’s (1995) ‘banal nationalism’, as well as ‘media representation and identity’. In doing so, this study attempts to give a more comprehensive approach to show that the local newspaper continues to be a means for the reproduction of ‘imagined communities’ and the delivery of the narrative of collective identity through the everyday representations of the nation