Author Austin, Linda Thesis Title Talanoa radio: exploring the interface of development, culture and community radio in the South Pacific School, Centre or Institute School of Journalism and Communication Institution The University of Queensland Publication date 2013 Thesis type PhD Thesis Community radio has a proven track record around the world as a tool for community-led development and social change. Community radio is a new phenomenon in the South Pacific, arising only in the mid-1990s, and it has yet to emerge with the vibrancy found in other developing regions of the world. Pacific cultures embody rich oral traditions that revere communal conversations and islanders are enthusiastic radio listeners. Broadcast radio is a lifeline for countless rural villagers living on isolated atolls and in rugged mountain hamlets. This thesis explores why there is not more community radio in the Pacific, to uncover the obstacles to its emergence, and to explore pathways useful to policy makers and community-media proponents that would allow the medium to grow. Community radio lies at the interface of Western-driven development agendas and indigenous cultural sensibilities. My contention, boldly stated, is that powerful Western development actors move through the Pacific in a state of geo-political rivalry to advance their own political, economic, security and ideological interests under the guise of “development,” just as they did during the colonial era. Since the early 2000s, their interests lie not in broadcast radio but in new information and communication technologies (ICTs) that are embedded in economic globalisation development models. Such media are inappropriate technologies for Pacific rural communities. But alternative Pacific-derived development models do exist. Pacific islanders have adopted a rentier, or rent-seeking, orientation that maximise their unique cultural attributes to extract economic and social rents from lucrative foreign aid streams and other sources of exogenous wealth and redistribute this gain through intricate social networks. In the Pacific, culture impacts directly on political, economic and social development activities. The patterns of societal organisation and cultural development that Pacific islanders constructed in response to geography and history are unique and relevant to discussions about development theory and development communication. Pacific community radio becomes the interface for the meeting of these two divergent worldviews. Media, including community radio, have long held privileged positions in Western development theories. I will demonstrate that Western-derived development theories have failed in the Pacific island context. Given this, is there evidence that a Pacific-derived theory around development communication and community media is emerging that is singularly different from other models existing in the world? To investigate this, I look at four actors: the community broadcasters, their civil society counterparts, their donors, and their governments in their dual roles as regulators and national broadcasters. My research area encompasses seven sovereign, oceanic South Pacific microstates: sovereign in that they can set their own broadcasting regulations and development priorities; oceanic in that their ancient orientation to the sea has given rise to unique cultures and social structures that affect development and communication; and microstates in that their national populations of less than one million lend a distinctive flavour to development trajectories. My research countries are Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. Four case studies involving five community radio broadcasters will be investigated. They are Buala FM and its seven sister radio stations in Isabel Province, Solomon Islands, Niuatoputapu FM in far northern Tonga, Radio BOSCO, a faith-based broadcaster in Guadalcanal Province, Solomon Islands, and a twin study of women’s activist radio, femTALK FM in Fiji and Le’o ‘o e Kakai FM in Tonga. Could there be evidence that Pacific community radio challenges conventional thinking about its role in development communication? The thesis will argue that Pacific community radio is emerging as a distinctive form of development communication that is informed by Pacific indigenous development models. These nascent models are misunderstood and undermined by dominant orthodox development theories and praxis driven by the international development community. espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:319517
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 08:12:59 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015