Pacific Journalism Review Special Edition
Who are we?
The Melanesia Media Freedom Forum was developed to respond to increasing media repression in Melanesia and to future-proof press freedom, though trans-national regional co-operation and knowledge-sharing among Melanesian journalists, editors, publishers, press-freedom advocates and journalism scholars.
This forum will provide a safe space for media leaders who work in Melanesian countries and territories. It will enable them to collaboratively formulate strategies to counter increasing incidences of curtailment of media freedom and create pathways to enable mutual support in the face of existential threats to freedom of expression and communication. During the concurrent academic conference, scholars with expertise in this area will present research in this area and join the forum to provide knowledge resources and support for this work.
The conveners of this knowledge-sharing program believe it is vital for leading journalists across the Melanesian region to meet face-to-face at a neutral ‘safe’ location outside the Melanesian political theatre, in order to work together to learn from past experience, share knowledge about current and emerging challenges, and identify potential strategies for the future.
Who is it for?
- Senior journalists, editors and publishers from Melanesian countries and territories.
- Scholars who can contribute to knowledge resources for media professionals around the media/democracy nexus, especially in the Melanesian context.
Target Countries & Territories
Fiji; Vanuatu; New Caledonia; Solomon Islands; Papua New Guinea; Autonomous region of Bougainville; Torres Strait Islands.
Media Industry Forum
11-12 November Griffith University, South Bank campus, Brisbane, Australia.
Melanesian Media Industry practitioners are invited to attend a closed door gathering of news media leaders from the region to collaboratively formulate strategies to counter increasing incidences of curtailment of media freedom and create pathways to enable mutual support in the face of existential threats to freedom of expression and communication.
Media Industry Forum Expression of Interest
If you are journalist, editor or publisher with in the Melanesia region and are interested in applying for funding to attend the media forum, register your interest with us. Limited travel bursaries available.
Academic Conference
11-12 November Griffith University, South Bank campus
Scholars are invited to submit 200-300 word conference presentation abstracts, for the MMFF in Brisbane, hosted by the Melanesia Media Freedom Group and Griffith University’s HLSS and GCSCR. Presentations on media freedom in Melanesia will be given priority. Presentations on social justice, human rights, environmental and climate change reporting in the Melanesian media are also welcome.
Academic Conference abstract submissions: Closed
Pacific Journalism Review Special Issue on Melanesia Media Freedom
Paper submission: Deadline Monday 20 January 2020
Pre-Conference keynote address hosted by Professor David Robie
Pre-Conference Keynote Address, Monday 28 October 2019, Griffith University, South Bank campus
What is it?
Based on recognition that media freedom is a cornerstone of democratic culture, the Melanesia Media Freedom Forum will provide a safe space for news media leaders who work in Melanesian countries and territories to collaboratively formulate strategies to counter increasing incidences of curtailment of media freedom and create pathways to enable mutual support in the face of existential threats to freedom of expression and communication. Running concurrently with the forum will be an academic conference. Scholars with expertise in this area will join the workshop to provide knowledge resources and support for this work. The Melanesia Media Freedom Forum will provide opportunities for like-minded professionals:
- to work together in appreciating, managing and navigating the current and emerging political, social and environmental challenges to media freedom in their countries and across the sub-region
- to formulate, where appropriate, transnational and regional strategies to counter increasing autocracy by creating pathways that enable mutual support in the face of existential challenges to the freedom of expression and communication
- to explore the possibility of developing secure web-based transnational platforms to share knowledge and document threats to press freedom; and
- to develop strategies and networks to increase the international reach of Melanesian journalism, encouraging and supporting local journalists to be telling their stories to the wider world. This includes developing a network that will enable international editors to identify and engage local reporters and editors
- to further scholarly research, exploring press freedom in Melanesia through, culture sensitive, problem solution frames in collaboration with leading media practitioners in the region.
Why now?
Journalists, editors and media watchers across the Melanesian sub-region have been reporting and cataloguing numerous and varied threats and challenges to media freedom at micro and macro levels. The increased frequency of these threats coincides with an apparent shift in Melanesian politics, a slide to increasingly authoritarian attitudes, policies and practices exhibited by governments, often in the guise of ensuring ‘stability’.
Given the rapidly changing national, regional and global environments, it is necessary, now more than ever, that media freedom be defined, understood, protected, and enhanced.
While those who work in the regional media are already at the forefront of this, the proposed forum provides an opportunity to forge new alliances and reinforce existing ones to address the challenges that lie ahead.
Conference Themes
The State of Play
- Current and emerging threats to media freedom in Melanesia.
- Structural issues that constrain media organisations and practitioners (pay rates, legal restrictions, lack of wide understanding of the role of the media, cultural barriers, etc).
- The significance of climate change and climate politics for media freedom.
Media, democracy and development
- Developing strategies to entrench the oversight and ‘holding to account roles’ of the media on both sides of the equation (production and consumption).
- Withstanding the pressures to be ‘telling the development story’ without critique (including from donors and providers of ‘media training’).
- Initiating debate, including in complex and politically charged areas such as decolonisation, resource management, and climate change.
Social media – risks and opportunities
- Countries in Melanesia have seen a rise in non-journalists accessing social media to contribute to public discourse. Writers, bloggers, advocates from all spheres are accessing platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to voice their understanding and opinions about national, regional and global issues, including climate change.
- Connecting these individuals to media houses, journalists may enhance the breadth of information, and level of critique.
- Emphasis on connecting the diaspora to domestic journalists necessary to expanding the reach of information coming out of the country.
Climate Change in the Pacific
- The impact of climate change is not just a concept in the Pacific, its impact is being experienced now, with a disproportionate impact on women, and there is a need to share this message more widely.
- Vulnerable ecosystems and communities, are impacted by adverse weather patterns and events and rising water-levels with several islands already lost. Activities around climate resilience, disaster preparedness and response create opportunities and challenges for media professionals in Melanesia.
- What impact can media reporting have on how climate change is being addressed in the region?
Surveillance
- Globally we are seeing a crackdown on journalists and journalistic practice on the part of increasingly authoritarian states. Sadly, Melanesian states are also beginning to argue that state security hinges on monitoring and controlling journalists.
- Journalists in and from Melanesia need space to discuss the increasing surveillance of their work and to connect with global journalists who have faced this surveillance for decades.
- Since some of the new media in Melanesia (Facebook and Twitter for example) are both avenues for more expressing and avenues for increased surveillance, Melanesian journalists need the space to assess and strategise their relationships to these platforms.
What is the way forward?
- What do we want and what can we realistically achieve?
- What are the options, what is required, who can or will do what?
- Roles of national and regional media organisations.
- Opportunities to link with international and global ‘fellow travellers’ including international NGOs with appropriate resources and experience.
- Cross-border linkages and alliances.
- Where do we want to be come 2030?
Lessons learned
- The lessons of history from Melanesia and elsewhere in the Pacific.
- The lessons from elsewhere in the world.
Pacific Journalism Review: Te Koakoa
Media and cultural diversity
The Pacific Journalism Review: TeKoakoa is a peer-reviewed journal examining media issues and communication in the South Pacific, Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand. Founded in 1994 at the University of Papua New Guinea, PJR has been published since 2007 by the Pacific Media Centre in the School of Communication Studied, Auckland University of Technology, and has links with the University of the South Pacific. PJR is a ranked journal with SCOPUS metrics.
In partnership with the Melanesian Media Freedom Forum, Pacific Journalism Review: TeKoakoa invites presenters at the Melanesian Media Freedom Forum and other interested scholars to submit academic papers for a special edition of the Pacific Journalism Review: Te Koakoa focusing on Media Freedom in Melanesia.
Coordinating Team
The Melanesia Media Freedom Forum is organised by The Melanesia Media Freedom Group (MMFG) in conjunction with the Griffith University, TNC Pacific Consulting, MEAA, University of Melbourne and the Pacific Journalism Review. MMFG was formed in 2018 in order to facilitate this event. We have drawn on a number of conversations with media professionals in Melanesia to ground the format and objectives of the Melanesia Media Freedom Forum (MMFF) in the lived experience of those who are dealing with the impacts of threats to media freedom on a daily basis.
Tess Newton Cain, TNC Pacific Consulting (Chair)
- Stefan Armbruster, Pacific correspondent and MEAA representative
- Jemima Garrett, Freelance journalist & consultant
- Caroline Giraud, Media consultant
- Maureen Mopio-Jane, Freelance Pacific journalist
- Faith Valencia-Forrester, Director Service Learning, Griffith University
- Kasun Ubayasiri, Program Director Journalism, Griffith University
- Jo Chandler, University of Melbourne
- Hyraina Kintau, Griffith University
articles and media coverage from the Melanesia Media Freedom Forum
Media challenges in Pacific and impact of online news concerns on Melanesia
Praise for young Pacific journalists and threats to Melanesian journalism
Moale James: Citizen journalism countering ‘deliberate’ media silence on West Papua
PMC director blasts politicians, media over ‘shameful silence’ on West Papua
Media freedom in Melanesia focus of next PJR and upcoming forum
Pacific journalists unite to fight for media freedom
Pacific journalists under growing pressure - watchdog
Melanesian journalists call on Indonesian government to stop criminalizing journalism
McGarry’s removal, barring by #Vanuatu Government is an attack on #media #freedom
The Pacific Hub
The Pacific Hub was established at the Griffith Asia Institute in 2020. Led by Dr Tess Newton Cain, Adjunct Associate Professor, the Pacific Hub adds to the established profile of the Institute by providing a suite of activities. including research, events, commentary, and professional services, focused on the Pacific islands region. The Pacific Hub provides a platform to promote and share the related work of academics from Griffith University and an intersection point for us to meet and learn with the wider community, including Australia’s near neighbours in the Pacific.
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