Pacific Journalism Review (Pacific Media Centre, School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology)
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Politics, democracy and the media: Case studies in Fiji, Tonga and the Solomon Islands
Get PDFThis article looks at three South Pacific Island nations—Fiji, Tonga and the Solomon Islands—in terms of some landmark changes occurring in their political arenas. Fiji, beset by racial and political problems culminating in three coups, is experimenting with a multiracial, multiparty cabinet that could be emulated by other multiethnic countries. Tonga, a Polynesian monarchy, has recently seen an unprecedented number of protest marches against the ruling elite, the death of its King, and is in experiencing palpable democratic changes. In the Solomons, the strong desire for a fairer political system was manifested in the 2006 riots in Honiara. It caught the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) napping and brought into question the sufficiency and focus of Australia’s intervention policy in the country. The media has been a key player in these events. Regularly accused of adding fuel to fire in its coverage of crises, the media faces constant government pressure in all three countries. This article argues that rather than the media, the sources of discontent and instability are self-serving leaders clinging to outdated political systems. The authors believe political reform, not media control, is needed
REVIEW: A revelation about human rights and the ‘war on terror’: Review of The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, by Robert Fisk
No full textReview of The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, by Robert Fisk
Since 9/11 and the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, British journalist Robert Fisk has built a huge following as a staunch critic of George W. Bush’s ‘war on terror’. But Fisk’s cogent—often controversial—analysis of American foreign policy and Western meddling and mendacity in the Middle East is nothing new: based in Beirut, he has reported for 30 years on conflicts from Algeria to Afghanistan
REVIEW: Noted: Thoughtful web challenges: Review of Web Journalism: Practice and Promise of a New Medium, by James Glen Stovall
No full textReview of Web Journalism: Practice and Promise of a New Medium, by James Glen StovallWeb journalism is more of a thoughtful critique of online publishing than a 'how to' training text. While it tackles the challenges posed by the Daily. Me syndrome, it also questions the ability of journalists to think afresh. Stovall argues that journalists are trained to think lineally and they mostly comfortable with inverted pyramid and other structures: 'It will take some time to reformulate their thinking' (p. 196)
Dialogue: Reporting the Chinese economic juggernaut and justice
No full textThe recipients of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting were two correspondents for The New York Times, Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley, who won for their series of articles on legal issues in China. While visiting New York in May for the awards ceremony, Kahn and Yardley, who are based in Beijing, took part in two roundtable discussions at the Times to talk about the series as well as about some of the rewards and challenges of covering China
Electing women to Parliament: Fiji and the alternative vote electoral system
Get PDFIn many places in the world, women struggle to be heard and, when it comes to having a voice in the highest authority in the land, the difficulties in some countries can be almost insurmountable. Women in Fiji are confronting the problem of women’s representation in Parliament. With only a small number of women (7.04 percent) in the House of Representatives, what changes could the citizens of Fiji make to remedy this lack of female representation? One answer that could be considered is for Fijian lawmakers to make amendments to the alternative vote electoral system, a variation on preferential voting. The alternative vote falls into the same simple plurality category as first-past-the-post, a system notoriously unfriendly to women candidates
The representation of female athletes in online images of successive Olympics
Get PDFPhotographs tell stories. They are ‘so much a part of our daily lives we rarely think about how they influence us and what that influence is’. Yet photographs, like other media images, can be used to legitimate the interests of hegemonic groups seeking to shape consensus or consent to existing social arrangements (Duncan, 1990, p. 22). A content analysis of 2004 Olympic Games coverage on the website of Australia’s national public broadcaster, ABC News Online, shows that images of female athletes outnumbered those of male athletes. However, in line with results from analysis of 2000 Olympics coverage on News Online, women competing in team sports received little recognition and females were frequently depicted as passive subjects rather than active competitors. Such under-representation for team players and stereotypical portrayals of sportswomen on News Online may instill in its news audiences the belief that women’s sports are less powerful, less interesting and thus separate and different from men’s sports
REVIEW: A shameful tale of genocide and human suffering: Review of A-Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass violence in East Timor, by Joseph Nevins
No full textJoseph Nevins exposes and analyses how Western nations conspired together for more than two decades to back Indonesia and keep the East Timor issue out of the spotlight. The price paid by the East Timorese was a loss of life estimated at close to 200,000, or a third of its populatioon, proportionally one of the worst cases of genocide since World War II
From Fiji to Fallujah: The war on Iraq and the privatisation of Pacific security
Get PDFSince the invasion of Iraq in 2003, private security companies from the United Kingdom and United States have been seeking personnel for their operations in the Middle East, and many hundreds of Fijians have signed up. The privatisation of security, a growing trend in the Middle East and Africa, has reached the shores of the South Pacific and governments have little control over former army personnel employed by private military contractors. This article documents the recruitment of Fijian military personnel for service in Iraq and Kuwait, and the casualties that they have faced. The engagement of former military personnel as private military contractors has spilt over into the Pacific as well—from the 1997 Sandline crisis to current events in Bougainville. Since November 2005, the governments of Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands have tried to resolve a crisis caused by the presence of former Fijian soldiers in Bougainville
REVIEW: Crucial Pasifika achievement in an era of intense political conciousness: Review of Polynesian Panthers by Melani Anae, Lautofa Luli, Leilani Burgoyne.
No full textReview of Polynesian Panthers by Melani Anae, Lautofa Luli, Leilani Burgoyne. Auckland: Reed Books, 2006.
This book is the story of the Polynesian Panther Party, a political group of inner city Pacific Island and Maori youth brought together through the shared experience of racism and more importantly, the shared determination to fight it and the marginalisation in its wake. Edited by ex-Polynesian Panther Melani Anae (director of Pacific Studies at Auckland University) and contributed to by a number of fellow members and friends of the party, Polynesian Panthers depicts an era of awakening political conciousness among New Zealand's newest migrants— in particular, through the eyes of their NZ-born children. 
West Papua ‘independence’ and the Papua New Guinea press
Get PDFThis article explores the West Papua issue through the Papua New Guinea news media. It seeks to identify the reasons behind the decline in coverage of West Papua in the PNG press. It provides an historical background to the West Papua conflict and PNG’s relationship with Indonesian-ruled West Papua and it presents the results of a comparative content analysis of three PNG newspapers—Post-Courier, The National, and Times of Papua New Guinea—on their coverage of West Papua, in-depth interviews with journalists and West Papuan refugees in Papua New Guinea