The making of Ophir - Bougainville stories and silences: An exploration of the documentary

This article focuses on the making of the award-winning film Ophir in the context of issues relevant to journalism and documentary production. It explores how a partnership of filmmakers, scholars and Bougainvillean community leaders worked to create a documentary that goes beyond bare facts to create deeper meaning. Based on an interview with one of the filmmakers, Olivier Pollet, it discusses issues of archival research, gender, distribution and language. It raises ethical questions about how mining company Rio Tinto used an anthropologist to produce covert corporate intelligence in the 1960s. Through a discussion of the work of independent investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein, it considers how recent Australian aid policy was used to shape public debate about options for Bougainville. It highlights the importance of supporting grassroots storytelling that penetrates distorted mainstream media narratives, especially at a time of shifting geopolitical interests.

The role of collaborative journalism in West Papua: A Jubi and Tirto case study

In this article, the author explores the collaboration between Tirto and Jubi in reporting on the Wamena and Jayapura riots in September 2019 in what has been described as the Papuan Uprising. The collaboration was greatly influenced by the desire of both media to improve the quality of news on human rights violations in West Papua. Tirto is an Indonesian online media outlet. Its journalists often criticise various government policies and the Indonesian political world through headlines, news and special articles. Tirto won an award as the Most Innovative Cyber Media in the 2017 Adinegoro Journalism Awards organised by the Indonesian Journalists Association. In the following year, Tirto became the only media outlet in Indonesia to receive an award from the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). Jubi is a general news media service from West Papua which reports on the West Papuan conflict, especially human rights issues. At the conceptual level, one can expect an accurate and in-depth report resulting from the journalism collaboration between Tirto and Jubi. However, at the practical level, a question arises about what the collaboration means for the life of West Papuan journalists? Research results using qualitative content analysis and interviews suggest that the collaborative journalism they created was able to restore West Papuan journalists’self-esteem. These findings can contribute to the enhancement of the knowledge in the field of journalism and provide valuable information for West Papuan journalists.

A meta-analysis of hate speech in Indonesia: The yielding of an academic discourse to the discourse of authority

This article focuses on academic publication on hate speech within Indonesia’s scholarly context. The authors analyse the ongoing discourse on hate speech by conducting a meta-analysis method on Garuda, an official website designed for repository of scholarly publications in Indonesia. By examined 143 scientific articles, this study found that most studies refer to the definition of hate speech from the Circular No. SE/06/X2015 on hate speech issued by the Indonesian National Police which shows how most Indonesian academics were comfortable in using limited perspectives on hate speech. Furthermore, the variety of the studies on hate speech comes from law or legal studies and communication or da'wah communication. Most Indonesia academics also conducted studies on hate speech with a juridical normative approach, as well as qualitative research. Intriguingly, some studies have been done with unclear method and approaches. Academics ideally should serve as one of the critics for people in power and government apparatus, for example by continuing to question how hate speech is studied, including in the context of its definition and how it affects the implementation in Indonesia. Hence, the authors urged Indonesian academics to do more studies on hate speech from various backgrounds with more rigorous and various research methods to be able to expand the knowledge on hate speech cases in Indonesia.

'I want to buy my own block of land': Representation of urban settlement communities in Papua New Guinea

Urban settlements are home to around half the urban population of Papua New Guinea. Since the end of the Second World War, PNG towns and cities have experienced significant growth of urban settlements. Urban dwellings were established on customary and untransformed state lands. With limited support for services from government, informal settlements in the urban landscape have often been perceived from the perspective of their deficiencies. However, residents of urban settlement communities play an important role in urban economies. The purpose of this article is to critically review perceptions of settlements and issues affecting settlement communities in PNG, both in the mainstream media and from within settlement communities. The authors first present a media content analysis of reporting on settlement communities on PNG’s main online media sites. Second, they examine urban market vendors’ personal experiences of the challenges and solutions of living in Kamkumung Settlement in Lae. Drawing on storytelling and photovoice workshops with market vendors at Awagasi market, they argue for the need for media actively to include the voices of settlement residents. The article suggests that, by better understanding the context and personal experience of residents, journalists and the media could make a stronger contribution to sustainable development and urban planning in PNG.

REVIEW: Noted: Destructive pandemic impact on Global South media

The Impact of COVID-19 on Journalism in Emerging Economies and the Global South, by Damian Radcliffe. London: Thomson Reuters Foundation. 2021. 142 pages. A NEW publication from the Thomson Reuters Foundation reviews the impacts of COVID-19 on journalism in Emerging Economies and the ‘Global South’. Working on the premise that media and journalism in these regions already face even greater challenges than in the ‘West’, this report describes a worsening of the situation through effects of the pandemic. It shows that factors external to media practice and media organisations are having destructive impacts, but proposes remedies which draw on internal strengths and professionalism in journalistic practice. The work is a qualitative research project obtaining analysis from 56 journalists from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, out of 15,000 journalists who have done courses offered by the foundation, as a backer of innovation and media freedom.

REVIEW: Like the pandemic, climate action is urgent

Climate Aotearoa: What’s happening and what we can do about it, edited by Helen Clark. Auckland: Allen & Unwin, 2021. 327 pages. ISBN 9781988547633 WHEN the publication of Climate Aotearoa was heralded by Radio New Zealand in April 2021 it was featured along with a striking image and a quote from the collection editor, former prime minister Helen Clark. The illustration by Vinay Ranchhod was a dazzling red lobster in a boiling pot. 'I would liken [the challenge of climate change] to being the lobster in the pot and the pot starts to heat, and by the time it’s realised it’s being cooked, it’s too late to change. Its fate is sealed. 'That’s in essence the message: you’ve got time to act, the window is closing. And if you don’t, you’re going to get over those tipping points from which there’s no return.' (‘Time for action’, 2021)

REVIEW: Tears flow as redundancy stories spell end to journalism’s heyday

Upheaval: Disrupted Lives in Journalism, edited by Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson. Sydney: UNSW Press. 2021. 368 pages, ISBN 9781742237275 I DOUBT there is anyone who has worked—or currently works—in journalism that would not have tears rolling down their cheeks as they read the stories of redundancy within Australia’s faltering news industry in this carefully edited collection. That’s not to say that Upheaval: Disrupted Lives in Journalism doesn’t also provoke laugh-out-loud moments at memories of newsroom antics or angry agreement about bullying, misogyny and blatant gender discrimination, but there is no getting around the fact that the central point of this book is tell the stories of the human impact of the brutal gutting of Australia’s media.

Building independent media: Sustaining democratic freedoms

This article examines trends in new media journalism, identifying an independent sector which began to emerge with the internet circa 2000. It finds that publications from initially single-person start-ups like Crikey, to the large circulation New Daily, have proved viable and durable, providing alternatives to mainstream print and broadcast media. They have specialised in politics while publishing also in many other fields, characteristically emphasising user participation in both production and funding and exploiting possibilities of new digital models. This article has case studies of the publications Independent Australia, and the New Zealand-based Asia Pacific Report, to further explain the independents’ motivation and mode of operation. It reviews the media environment in two parts: a first phase from 2000 to 2010 and a second major change after 2010 with smart phones and social media. Conclusions are made that the independent sector stands to play a central role in sustaining democracy.

REVIEW: Ophir: Bougainville's epic struggle for freedom

Ophir: Decolonize. Revolutionize, directed by Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet. Arsam International/Fourth World Films/Ulster University. 2020. 97 minutes. https://www.ophir-film.com/ IN OPHIR (2020), a feature length documentary film about the Bougainville civil war (1989-1998), French filmmakers Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet analyse the devastating conflict and under-reported repercussions which continue to reverberate in the region today. Ophir in the Old Testament (Genesis 10; 1 Kings 10:22) is a land of great mineral wealth exploited by King Solomon. In eastern Papua New Guinea, the people of Bougainville also claim Ophir to be the original name of their remote islands. Like the fabled land, Bougainville is endowed with treasure, predominantly copper and gold. In the late 20th century, exploitation of these was at the centre of a powerful story of colonialism, inequality, war and redemption.

Manus to Meanjin: A case study of refugee migration, polymorphic borders and Australian ‘imperialism’

This non-traditional research article argues that the refugee and asylum-seeker protests in Brisbane’s Kangaroo Point between April 2, 2020 and April 14, 2021 can be viewed against a backdrop of Australian colonialism—where successive Australian governments have used former colonies in Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea as offshore detention facilities—as a dumping ground for asylum-seekers. Within the same context this article argues that the men’s removal to the Kangaroo Point Alternative Place of Detention is a continuation of this colonial policy of incarcerating ‘undesirables’ on occupied land, in this case on Meanjin—Jagera land identified by the colonial name of Brisbane. This extension of Australian sub-imperial and neo-colonial dominion and the imagining of its boundaries is viewed though the theoretical prism of a polymorphic border, a border that shifts and morphs depending on who attempts to cross it. In a departure from orthodox research practice, this article will use visual storytelling drawn from photojournalism praxis alongside more traditional text-based research prose. In doing so, it will use photo-journalistic artifacts and the visual politics that surround them, as core dialogical components in the presentation of the article as opposed to using them as mere illustrations or props.