The Png Media Challenge

The Png Media Challenge
http://www.thenational.com.pg/040207/w5.htm

By Nancy Sullivan

PORT MORESBY (The National Online/Pacific Media Watch) - Media, Information and Development in Papua New Guinea, edited by Evangelia Papoutsaki and Dick Rooney (2006), is a much-awaited contribution to what is a meagre library of scholarship on media in Melanesia.

David Robie at the University of Papua New Guinea laid the foundations of the field in 1995, with Nius Bilong Pasifik, then with Mekim Nius at the University of the South Pacific in 2004; but the focus of these volumes has been pan-Pacific and until now there just didn't exist a collection of essays on PNG media alone.

The editors are both formerly of Divine Word University, and they collaborated with other members of the Department of Communication Arts (Alphonse Aime, Michael McManus, Kevin Pamba, and Joe Weber), along with four then-current students (Lawrencia Pirpir, Joshua Kais, Aaron English and Andrew Alphonse), and other media specialists (Peter John Aitsi and Lee R. Duffield), to produce an excellent overview of the key issues in PNG media today.

Eleven chapters cover everything from media content to free speech and government controls. But one of the best features of the volume is the way the editors have laid out these essays to build and reveal links in an argument for greater media education, more indigenous content, and more community radio stations.

Rooney and Papoutsaki open with an Introduction on the media 'landscape,' including its role in shaping national identity, and its current strengths and weaknesses, which is followed by an Aaron English content analysis of the two national newspapers. English concludes that neither paper covers enough development news, and yet that this does not seem to be influenced by the papers' respective ownerships.

Following this, Michael McManus and Papoutsaki discuss the topic of journalism education in PNG, and how the mandate for DWU's Department of Communication Arts has changed, and what still needs to be accomplished.

They tell us that professional journalism standards need to be raised, and while trying to accomplish this with 'international standard' curriculum, schools have lost sight of the communications needs of most PNG communities.

Working from questionnaire responses, they also conclude that DWU's Department needs to offer more practical skills. The book itself represents one response to that call, as it brings together findings from various research projects conducted after the initial survey and the call for practical skills.

Lawrencia Pirpir was a DWU journalism student when she authored her chapter on the role of journalists in PNG. Drawing from multiple surveys conducted with different target groups, Pirpir concludes that PNG journalists lack training and professionalism, but the government also lacks commitment to guarantee press freedom.

This is an exceptional piece of undergraduate research, working within time constraints, and some of the comments she cites from the questionnaires are illuminating in themselves.

One journalist, for example, tells her that professional news reporting in PNG reflects 'western democratic' values more closely than it does Melanesian ones.

Dick Rooney writes about media ownership and its implications for democracy, which is critical for small island states. Very little market competition, and even less government support, inevitably gives privately owned news media, for one, a disproportionate authority.

Ultimately, Rooney makes a good case for more non-commercial community radio. Lee R. Duffield follows with a chapter on media and government relations, and he corroborates Rooney's points but also adds that the news organs in PNG are pressed to serving too many needs.

The issue of government and market constraints to democracy recurs in many chapters, and what makes a difference here is how qualitative research is employed to get beyond making empty recommendations.

When there are no simple solutions, it is clear that each case must be examined in its own rights. The point made by the journalist (above) that absolute democracy is un-Melanesian, can be used for and against advocating greater media controls, and scholars need to ask what constitutes good governance for the most multicultural Melanesian state.

Greater media accountability is one solution, and Alphonse Aime calls on the media to be more reflective and accountable about their influence on the public.

He says media in developing countries has a dual responsibility to educate as well as inform, and to be aware that what they do not choose to report upon becomes as much a part of the general public's worldview as what they do.

Joe Weber, another former Communications HOD at DWU, follows Aime's piece with a discussion on freedom of expression in PNG. He writes that the media was inexcusably muzzled during the Bougainville crisis, in what was really a test case for the strength or weakness of the country's constitutional guarantees of free speech.

Most dangerous, he notes, is the self-censorship of journalists during times of crisis or doubt. Without strong professional standards for journalists it becomes that much easier for government and private entities to regulate free speech.

Joshua L. Kais' chapter on national identity and the media is of particular interest to anthropology. Kais was also a student when he wrote this, and his analysis rests on some very good qualitative research, if also a limited literature review.

His respondents generally confirm the anthropological truism that Melanesian identities are 'nested' from family to clan to province, and so forth, and that the commitment to a national pan-ethnic identity remains very loose.

The insignia of country - flag, bird, currency and so forth - are good markers, but they indicate a very poorly defined 'citizenship.'

It is a reflection of how unglobalized educational institutions and academic subjects still are, however, that Kais's article has not been informed by more of the anthropology of nationalism in PNG (although he does cite Robert Foster's important 1997 volume).

The conclusion is that media have a responsibility to cultivate nationalism as part of the solutions to ethnic division and low civic morale. How they shall define it is yet to be seen, because most respondents to Kais's survey complained that EMTV, for one, has yet to generate indigenous formats or values.

Respondents also claim to access media mainly for entertainment and news, but the majority also said these programs do not reflect indigenous cultural values.

Kais's data agrees with English's argument that radio is the most effective in disseminating information, but it is silent on what seems to be a major loophole: 'entertainment' is not clearly defined, so the kinds of programming the majority of respondents enjoy might be anything from McLeod's Daughters to Chin H Meen music videos.

The publication concludes with a case study of community radio in the Southern Highlands province. Here Andrew Alphonse talks about the listening habits of Southern Highlanders receiving Radio SHP, Karai National Radio, CDI FM, PNG FM and Radio Australia.

Survey respondents report that Radio SHP is not satisfying all the listeners' news and information needs, even though it has the widest footprint in the province. People are anxious for more and better information on provincial affairs, and law and order issues, and they particularly lack information on conflict resolution and peacemaking. Alphonse concludes that community radio with feedback or call-in possibilities would be the most appropriate alternative.

Interestingly, then, we see that all these chapters have been selected and edited to serve a clear argument for community media, airing grassroots concerns and voices, and giving time to critical local topics.
Respondents throughout these studies suggest that more voices and more time need to be dedicated to community-level issues, in what seems to be a working definition of Melanesian democracy.

Some kind of compromise between indigenous protocols and western free speech must be established in each case, but it does seem that voices on the airways are and can be the most effective medium of nation-building in PNG.

If these papers share one implicit conclusion it would be that the more persistent identities of blood and tongue are a strong foundation for community media participation, and from these a national identity will be built - from ground up, rather than satellite down.

* For copies of the book contact Aiva Ore at DWU aore@dwu.ac.pg

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