scholarly journals EDITORIAL: Melanesian media freedom

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-14
Author(s):  
Kasun Ubayasiri ◽  
Faith Valencia-Forrester ◽  
Tess Newton Cain ◽  
David Robie
Keyword(s):  
Self Determination ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
West Papua ◽  
The Media ◽  
Political Economic

The sovereign states of Melanesia are countries where the yoke of colonialism and struggles for independence are still within living memory. There are territories within Melanesia where the questions and complexities associated with achieving self-determination are very much live issues. In West Papua, this issue is one over which blood continues to be spilt. As these countries, and the communities within them, grapple with political-economic and technical shifts, the need for independent journalism is self-evident. However, journalists, editors, publishers and media owners face a barrage of challenges to their ability to operate free from repression or coercion by those who wield power in their societies. Some of these challenges are overt and can extend to threats or physical intimidation. Others are more subtle but no less pervasive and damaging. They lead to a narrowing of the media landscape, the loss of talented professionals to other areas, the rise of self-censorship, and more.

scholarly journals Key Melanesian media freedom challenges: Climate crisis, internet freedoms, fake news and West Papua

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Robie
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Network Television ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
West Papua ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Climate Crisis

Melanesia, and the microstates of the Pacific generally, face the growing influence of authoritarian and secretive values in the region—projected by both China and Indonesia and with behind-the-scenes manipulation. There is also a growing tendency for Pacific governments to use unconstitutional, bureaucratic or legal tools to silence media and questioning journalists. Frequent threats of closing Facebook and other social media platforms and curbs on online freedom of information are another issue. While Pacific news media face these challenges, their support networks are being shaken by the decline of Australia as a so-called ‘liberal democracy’ and through the undermining of its traditional region-wide public interest media values with the axing of Radio Australia and Australia Network television. Reporting climate change is the Pacific’s most critical challenge while Australian intransigence over the issue is subverting the region’s media. This article engages with and examines these challenges and also concludes that the case of West Papua is a vitally important self-determination issue that left unresolved threatens the security of the region.

scholarly journals Donor Aid and Private Investment: Their Interplay With Media Development

SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402092061
Author(s):  
Jacob Nyarko ◽  
Eric Opoku Mensah ◽  
Basil Hamusokwe
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Private Investment ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Undue Influence ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Media Development ◽  
Donor Support ◽  
The Media ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
Political Economic

Media development requires substantial funding, and therefore, donors, foreign governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and foundations have found a way to play an influential role through their financial support. However, it appears that the donors are also fighting a losing battle considering the rapidly changing political-economic structures of contemporary society spearheaded by the very private sector they enhanced. This study generally presents a systematic review of “foreign aid” to Africa as a base “to explore how donor funders and private investment impact media functions.” The work also sheds light on the extent to which donor support impacted the governance system within the media political economy of Africa. It establishes that donors, who are the very saviors, are also a threat to media freedom because they set the agenda for content, resulting in undue influence on the type of stories that are told. As a result, media development becomes constricted.

scholarly journals Review: Merdeka: Media and the case for Papuan civil resistance

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 241
Author(s):  
David Robie
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Civil Resistance ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
West Papua

Five years ago the Pacific Media Centre and Pacific Media Watch published a ‘state of media freedom report’—the first such documentation in the Pacific region—and the most devastating section was about West Papua (Perrottet & Robie, 2011, 2012). The harrowing account of human rights violations and abuses of freedom of speech by the Indonesian military and security forces eclipsed comparable reports from the Pacific, including Fiji which was at the time a cause célèbre for free press champions. The theme of this report echoed many articles I have written over the years highlighting the ‘black’ or ‘blind spot’ demonstrated by New Zealand media neglect of covering West Papua and the self-determination cause (see Robie, 2011). Since then much has changed.

Negative Media Effects and Islamic Remedies (Penyelesaian Kepada Kesan Negatif Media Menurut Perspektif Islam)

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Mohd. Shuhaimi Ishak
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Social Influences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Essential Form ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Effects Of Media ◽  
Political Economic

 Abstract Generally speaking, media is extensively used as the means to disseminate news and information pertaining to business, social, political and religious concerns. A portion of the time and space of media has now become an important device to generate economic and social activities that include advertising, marketing, recreation and entertainment. The Government regards them as an essential form of relaying news and information to its citizens and at the same time utilizes them as a powerful public relations’ mechanism. The effects of media are many and diverse, which can either be short or long term depending on the news and information. The effects of media can be found on various fronts, ranging from the political, economic and social, to even religious spheres. Some of the negative effects arising from the media are cultural and social influences, crimes and violence, sexual obscenities and pornography as well as liberalistic and extreme ideologies. This paper sheds light on these issues and draws principles from Islam to overcome them. Islam as revealed to humanity contains the necessary guidelines to nurture and mould the personality of individuals and shape them into good servants. Key Words: Media, Negative Effects, Means, Islam and Principles. Abstrak Secara umum, media secara meluas digunakan sebagai sarana untuk menyebarkan berita dan maklumat yang berkaitan dengan perniagaan, kemasyarakatan, pertimbangan politik dan agama. Sebahagian dari ruang dan masa media kini telah menjadi peranti penting untuk menghasilkan kegiatan ekonomi dan sosial yang meliputi pengiklanan, pemasaran, rekreasi dan hiburan. Kerajaan menganggap sarana-sarana ini sebagai wadah penting untuk menyampaikan berita dan maklumat kepada warganya dan pada masa yang sama juga menggunakannya sebagai mekanisme perhubungan awam yang berpengaruh. Pengaruh media sangat banyak dan pelbagai, samada berbentuk jangka pendek atau panjang bergantung kepada berita dan maklumat yang brekenaan. Kesan dari media boleh didapati mempengaruhi pelbagai aspek, bermula dari bidang politik, ekonomi, sosial bahkan juga agama. Beberapa kesan negatif yang timbul dari media ialah pengaruhnya terhadap budaya dan sosial, jenayah dan keganasan, kelucahan seksual dan pornografi serta ideologi yang liberal dan ekstrim. Kertas ini menyoroti isu-isu ini dan cuba mengambil prinsip-prinsip dari ajaran Islam untuk mengatasinya. Tujuan Islam itu sendiri diturunkan kepada umat manusia ialah untuk menjadi pedoman yang diperlukan untuk membina dan membentuk keperibadian individu dan menjadikan manusia hamba yang taat kepada Tuhannya. Kata Kunci: Media, Kesan Negatif, Cara-cara, Islam dan Prinsip-prinsip.

Political Will and Media Law: A Poland Case Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 088832542110495
Author(s):  
Damian Guzek ◽  
Agnieszka Grzesiok-Horosz
Keyword(s):  
Case Analysis ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Media Law ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Public Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Legal Pressure

A significant element of Central and Eastern Europe’s democracies backsliding process turns out to be changes in the media law. These changes are now leading to a decline in media freedom. The article attempts to understand this phenomenon by analyzing the process of legal and policy changes in Poland. In the course of the analysis, the reader’s attention is drawn to three elements that form the mainline of events related to the weakening of media freedom. These are, in turn, (a) the takeover of public media by influencing the staffing of media companies, (b) introducing a new, completely politicized body into the legal order, which duplicates the already existing and partially politicized media authority, and (c) exerting economic and legal pressure on the media independent of the authorities, so that they can be taken over by state-owned companies or businessmen favoring the authorities. As a whole, this decline in media freedom can be viewed as a strategy that antagonizes society.

Media Systems in the Digital Age: An Empirical Comparison of 30 Countries

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edda Humprecht ◽  
Laia Castro Herrero ◽  
Sina Blassnig ◽  
Michael Brüggemann ◽  
Sven Engesser
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Online News ◽  
Empirical Comparison ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Media System ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Systems

Abstract Media systems have changed significantly as a result of the development of information technologies. However, typologies of media systems that incorporate aspects of digitalization are rare. This study fills this gap by identifying, operationalizing, and measuring indicators of media systems in the digital age. We build on previous work, extend it with new indicators that reflect changing conditions (such as online news use), and include media freedom indicators. We include 30 countries in our study and use cluster analysis to identify three clusters of media systems. Two of these clusters correspond to the media system models described by Hallin and Mancini, namely the democratic-corporatist and the polarized-pluralist model. However, the liberal model as described by Hallin and Mancini has vanished; instead, we find empirical evidence of a new cluster that we call “hybrid”: it is positioned in between the poles of the media-supportive democratic-corporatist and the polarized-pluralist clusters.

scholarly journals REVIEW: Ethics, integrity -but what about truth?

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 182-185
Author(s):  
David Robie
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Media Ethics ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
The Media

Review of A fragile freedom: Challenges facing media in Papua New Guinea, edited by Joe Weber. Madang, PNG: Divine World University Press. The booklet has two sections, one briefly devoted to the Divine Word University Media Freedom Day on 30 April 1999, and the main one which collects papers and speeches at the Media Ethics workshop organised by the PNG Media Council and sponsored by the AusAid Pacific Media Initiative project. 

scholarly journals Factors that Influence Freedom of Speech and Self-censorship in Mass Media in Contemporary Russia

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 110-120
Author(s):  
Oksana Olshevskaya
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Media Freedom ◽  
Negative Experience ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
In The Beginning

An attempt to define the degree of media freedom in contemporary Russia leads to contradiction between the declaration of the mass media freedom provided by the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union heritage of unequivocal control of the press by the government, described by Siebert et al. (1984) as the Soviet-Communist Press Theory. The reason for this ambiguity could be explained by the great deal of different factors that exert an influence on the journalism, such as features of mass media legislation, governmental control of the media, the diversity of media ownership, sources of media incomes, and traditions of censorship in Russia.  The current development of the media legislation in Russia shows no improvement regarding the freedom of speech. In the beginning of the third presidential term in 2012, Vladimir Putin has signed several laws that reduced the freedom of speech through the limitation of public assembly, criminalization of defamation in the mass media, and intensification of governmental censorship on the internet. On the other hand, the contemporary press freedom that appeared in conditions of the new market economy in the beginning of the 1990s has brought discredit as to the conception of an exclusively positive impact of unconditional freedom on the mass media since the newspapers, television and radio channels were controlled by several powerful oligarchs who used the owned mass media to spread and support their political influence. However, after the authorities’ reference in the 2000s the balance was not regained. As a result, the majority of the media outlets in Russia became co-owned or fully controlled by the government. Another crucial aspect of the mass media freedom as the cultural phenomenon should be kept in mind: seven decades of severe censorship could not be erased from the journalism professional community’s memory in several years. The negative experience of predecessors transforms censorship into self-censorship in modern Russia.

scholarly journals Sir Peter firm on Freedom

1996 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Post-Courier
Keyword(s):  
Media Freedom ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject

"Three months ago, Archbishop Sir Peter Kurongku delivered an address to the media freedom seminar on the subject of accountability. In his address, he emphasised that the media had responsibility to find and publish the truth. This, he said, was a responsibility placed upon media owners, managers and staff to carry out their duties 'in the service of the community."

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