Pacific Journalism Review (Pacific Media Centre, School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology)
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Policy, papers and pages: Improving media engagement in the Pacific
Get PDFCommentary: Merits and drawbacks exist in all forms of media across the world, so Pacific Islanders would do well to deeply consider the kind of journalism they want to cultivate in their region. While exposition of media freedom issues is important, there are other ways to progress the media freedom cause aside from raising awareness and discussing the issue explicitly. Media outlets and professionals should stay mindful that they have a role to play in shaping and informing policy discussions and need to recognise that the internet and social media are changing the game—and both government and traditional media can engage more with the online world. The author argues that better connectivity and engagement between media, government and international organisations can help improve quality journalism
Constitution-making in a stifled democracy: A case study of self-censorship perpetuating propaganda in Fiji
Get PDFFiji is preparing for general elections in 2014 by when the country will have been under military rule for eight years. A process of constitution-making began in mid-2012 and a new Constitution should be available by 2013. Citizens and the media continue to practise self-censorship and the military regime continues to remind citizens that they would crack down harshly on ‘trouble-makers’. In the same breath, the regime has promised the international community that the process for constitution-making will be free, fair, participatory and transparent. This article, through analysis of media reporting, will examine whether current self-censorship by media is aiding the constitution-making process, and if indeed, self-censorship is promoting peace? Through an analysis of the work of the Constitution Commission, the article will analyse the extent of participation of citizens in the context of a stifled democracy
Online or conventional democracy? The Ashgrove election and networked journalism
Get PDFThis study focuses on new media use in democratic discourse, specifically in the Queensland state electoral division of Ashgrove in 2011. This site was chosen to make an enquiry into the place of mass media in public decision-making, asking the question: did online media provide an extension of democracy, and what would be journalism’s role in democratic discourse? The study utilises a survey of 280 constituents, a review of pertinent news coverage, and extensive interviews with a panel of informants. In the outcome, it found those most equipped to utilise online media showed a lack of will to get involved in deeper political, social engagements. It also sees younger demographics forming news habits, not usually in step with traditional political avenues, based on familiarity with online processes, while consciously marginalising the need for trustworthiness in this setting. These issues are considered together with one leading proposal as to where the future of new media might be heading. It assesses the notion of professional and amateur collaboration by employing the model articulated by Beckett, called ‘networked journalism’
When the barking stopped: Censorship, self-censorship and spin in Fiji
Get PDFAfter four military coups in 20 years, Fiji is poised to return to democracy in elections promised for 2014. An emergency decree placing censors in newsrooms was lifted in January 2012, but with domestic media gagged by lawsuits and Fiji Television threatened with closure for covering opposition figures, a pervasive climate of self-censorship imposed by government decrees is enforced by a government-appointed judiciary. As elections draw closer, the illusion of press freedom is framed by highly paid American ‘spin doctors’ from a prominent Washington DC public relations and lobbying firm. Paralysis in the newsroom is reflected at Fiji’s premier University of the South Pacific, once a leader in journalism education. The author taught television journalism at the university and trained reporters for Fiji TV in the 1990s, but returned to find Fiji’s media and higher education in a crisis reflecting the decline of Western influence in the Pacific. Student grievances over harassment and expulsion in retaliation for independent reporting echo the deceit and dysfunction unfolding on the national stage. As traditional allies Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States anguish over sanctions, unprecedented visits to the Fijian government by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and incoming Chinese Premier Xi Jinping portend diplomatic rivalry and raise the stakes for a fragile Pacific nation
Where are the women candidates during elections? A Fiji media case study
Get PDFThis article examines the visibility of female election candidates, and females in general, in The Fiji Times and Fiji Sun during the 2006 general election. After analysing the data collected quantitatively, it can be concluded that female election candidates and females in general were virtually invisible in both the newspapers during the selected time period. The few articles published on or quoting women were mostly clichéd, lacked critical analysis and stereotyped them. An unexpected but equally important finding of the research sheds some light on the why of female election candidates’ invisibility in the dailies during election. The data shows the extensive prominence Fiji’s print media gave to race and coup-related issues as elections drew near, crowding out reportage of other major issues. Because of the fixation on race, the media overlooked many important issues, such as the fact that in all elections since independence, women have only managed to secure fewer than 12 percent of parliamentary seats, even though they make-up nearly half of the total population of the country. Such debates are rarely raised in the media
The emerging practices of Chinese web journalism during the Beijing Olympics: A textual comparison with Western news sites
Get PDFWhen the Beijing Olympics opened in July 2008, it was described by commentators as the first online games. The moment of the Games therefore presents an opportunity to compare the way web-based news is being produced by leading news organisations in different parts of the world and therefore to reflect on how far China’s rapidly growing web-based news practice is following Western practices and how far it operates by distinctive dynamics.A genre analysis of major online news outlets shows that quite distinctive journalistic logics were deployed in Chinese reporting, as a result of a mix of local factors. The article points to some characteristics of the emerging textual news practices. It also emphasises the need to develop this kind of analysis further so that Chinese web journalism can be understood in terms that are less reliant on those developed to analyse Anglo-American news websites
A strain of heroes
Get PDFThe concept of scandal is a central trope of today’s journalism, ranging from political coverage of the affairs of state down to the state of affairs in the celebrity press and media. Not only is there an apparently inexhaustible public appetite for rumours, speculations and provable dark deeds and saucy goings-on fed by scandals but also a considerable section of professional journalists and photojournalists earn their crust from it. In this introductory commentary some of the key concepts defining celebrity and scandal are introduced and some observations on the current state of public culture in New Zealand are examined
REVIEW: Some bright spots in the gloom
No full textReview of: Australian Journalism Today, edited by Matthew Ricketson. Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 258pp. ISBN 9781420256727.According to this collection of essays, Australian journalism is in a parlous state, beset by public mistrust, new demands of technology, the insidious influence of public relations and the greed and short-sightedness of newspaper proprietors. We have been here before, of course, and journalists and good reporting have managed to survive, but the challenges are bigger than they have been in the past. Neither have journalists had to contend with quite such a lack of acknowledgement of their professional status
Online style – poking a hornet’s nest
No full textWriting news for newspapers and websites typically demands conformity to a style that promotes clarity and ease of reading, and includes a publication’s house style, that inflexible set of rules that ensures things—from minutiae like monetary values to the great events of history—are expressed consistently every time they are mentioned. Against a background of disruptive technological changes in the wider world of journalism, this article grew out of the authors’ interest in the new style demands that arguably have arisen with the advent of online publishing. If online readers have a different set of habits—and researchers assure us they do—then how is house style being changed to accommodate this? Are newspapers with websites differentiating their online copy from their print copy? Or are they still stuck with so-called ‘shovelware’? Keen to ensure the university production journalism courses on which they teach are reflecting industry practice, the researchers surveyed and interviewed reporters, subeditors and editors from titles across Australia and New Zealand to find out, and interviewed the online editor of NZ’s largest newspaper. The research supports our hypothesis—that newsrooms are aware of a need to develop style guidelines for their online news stories but most have yet to truly grapple with the issue
REVIEW: Readers held the key to early media success
Get PDFIt has been many years since an author has produced a New Zealand press history that has so resolutely taken to task previous research in this field. But David Hastings has done this with his new book on the early newspaper scene in Auckland, Extra! Extra! How the people made the news