Archives

  • Pacific Journalism Monographs No 1: Pacific Media Freedom 2011: A status report
    No. 1 (2011)

    By Alex Perrottet and David Robie

    Pacific media freedom has been under siege for more than a decade, particularly since an attempted coup in Fiji in May 2000, when a television station was attacked and ransacked, a foreign journalist was shot and wounded and a local journalist ended up being imprisoned for treason. Since then various Pacific countries, notably Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu have faced various periods of media repression. Since the military coup in December 2006, Fiji has faced arguably its worst sustained pressure on the media since the original two Rabuka coups in 1987. The Bainimarama regime in June 2010 imposed a Media Industry Development Decree that enforced draconian curbs on journalists and restrictive controls on foreign ownership of the press. This consolidated systematic state censorship of news organisations that had been imposed in April 2009 with the Public Emergency Regulations that have been rolled over on a monthly basis ever since. Promised relaxation of state censorship after the imposition of the Decree never eventuated. This research monograph covers the period 1 July 2010-30 June 2011 and examines the trends in the Pacific region. In addition to Pacific Islands Forum member nations, it covers the French Pacific territories and the former Indonesian colony of East Timor and current twin provinces known collectively as West Papua.

  • Pacific Journalism Monographs No 3: Kiribati media, science and politics: Telling the story of climate change in a ‘disappearing nation’
    No. 3 (2014)

    By Taberannang Korauaba

    Although the Pacific nation of Kiribati has been identified as one of the most vulnerable countries to the impact of climate change, little is known about the attitudes of the local media and the public toward this issue. This is in contrast to empirical study findings which have shown that the public and the media were aware of the threats posed by climate change. This monograph extracted from the author’s thesis argues that the people of Kiribati are not united over climate change.

  • Pacific Journalism Monographs No 5: Pacific Way: Auckland’s Pasifika community diaspora media
    No. 5 (2016)

    By Michael Neilson

    This monograph is the first comprehensive survey of the Pasifika diaspora media in Auckland, the world’s largest ‘Pacific’ city. It starts with a discussion of the concept of ‘diaspora’ and how minority communities have been represented in mainstream media around the world. It then gives a portrait of the Pasifika population of New Zealand, how it has historically been depicted in New Zealand’s various media, and what attempts have been made to improve coverage. The bulk of the report consists of profiles of and interviews with Auckland’s various Pasifika newspapers, radio stations, magazines, TV shows and online media.

  • Pacific Journalism Monographs No. 7: Conflict, Custom & Conscience: Photojournalism and the Pacific Media Centre 2007-2017
    No. 7 (2017)

    Edited by Jim Marbrook, Del Abcede, Natalie Robertson and David Robie

    ISBN: 978-1-927184-45-5

    A group of Melanesian women march behind an anti-mining "NO BCL, NO MINING" banner, across a small field in the now-autonomous region of Bougainville. Their protest is ostensibly unseen by the rest of the world. Their protest efforts are local, gender-specific, indigenous, and part of a wider movement to stop any production on the Panguna copper mine. This conflict claimed an estimated 10,000 lives in the 1990s civil war. This photograph is one of the many that we have selected to mark the 10th anniversary of the Pacific Media Centre in Auckland University of Technology's School of Communication Studies.

    Fifteen photojournalists and photographers who have worked with the Pacific Media Centre for the past decade have donated their images for this book project. Although the book is not actually for sale, it has been produced as a limited edition for those who have contributed to the PMC. It will also be available in libraries.

    Libraries requesting a copy should go to: http://www.autshop.ac.nz/pacific-journalism-monographs-no-7-conflict-custom-conscience/

  • Pacific Journalism Monographs No 2: Coups, conflicts and human rights: Pacific media challenges in the digital age
    No. 2 (2012)

    By David Robie

    At the heart of a global crisis over news media credibility and trust is Britain’s so-called Hackgate scandal involving the widespread allegations of phone-hacking and corruption against the now defunct Rupert Murdoch tabloid newspaper News Of The World. Major inquiries on media ethics, professionalism and accountability have been examining the state of the press in New Zealand, Britain and Australia. The Murdoch media empire has stretched into the South Pacific with the sale of one major title being forced by political pressure. The role of news media in global South nations and the declining credibility of some sectors of the developed world’s Fourth Estate also pose challenges for the future of democracy. Truth, censorship, ethics and corporate integrity are increasingly critical media issues in the digital age for a region faced with coups, conflicts and human rights violations, such as in Fiji and West Papua. In this monograph, Professor David Robie reflects on the challenges in the context of the political economy of the media and journalism education in the Asia-Pacific region. He also engages with emerging disciplines such as deliberative journalism, peace journalism, human rights journalism, and revisits notions of critical development journalism and citizen journalism.

  • Pacific Journalism Monographs No 4: Twentieth anniversary of Pacific Journalism Review: Political journalism in the Asia-Pacific
    No. 4 (2014)

    Conference proceedings edited by David Robie

    Conference proceedings of the "Political journalism in the Asia-Pacific" conference marking 20 years of publication of Pacific Journalism Review, Auckland University of Technology, 27-29 November 2014. The conference combined presentations and papers by journalists, media educators, human rights advocates and investigative documentary makers. This includes the full conference paper on post-elections in Fiji following eight years of military backed rule since the 2006 coup that caused controversy with the Fiji Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA). The proceedings includes messages from the Vice-Chancellor and Head of Pacific Advancement, full abstracts and programme. The full peer-reviewed papers will be published in the May and October 2015 editions of PJR.

  • Pacific Journalism Monographs No. 6: Watching Our Words: Perceptions of self-censorship and media freedom in Fiji
    No. 6 (2017)

    By Ricardo Morris

    Ricardo Morris, a journalist and Thomson Reuters fellow from Fiji, has studied the perceptions and practice of self-censorship among journalists from his country in the years following the military coup in December 2006. He focused particularly on the period after the 2014 general election that returned Fiji to democratic rule. In this research monograph, Morris examines how willing Fiji’s media workers are to self-censor, how self-censorship works in newsrooms, and what factors are influential on journalists’ work. The research monograph was first published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and has been published by the Pacific Journalism Monograph series at the Pacific Media Centre by arrangement with the author and institute. Morris is the founder, publisher and editor of independent media company Republika Media Limited in Fiji, which publishes the magazine Repúblika.