The world is shrinking and Papua New Guinea and the Pacific are mysterious, unknown places. We need to take some responsibility to find out what the world is doing, achieving, developing, and then contribute to it meaningfully while we keep our cultural integrity, our dance and song and art and craft. We have much to contribute to the improvement of this world and all of our stories have value. As well as focussing on positive media, Stella magazine aims to celebrate the complexities of life in the Pacific Islands. Mainstream media tends to stereotype our Pacific lifestyle as two extremes, with stories about either the romantic holiday destination with palm trees on the beach, or the high rates of violence against women in male dominated traditional societies. This simplistic view of our culture and lifestyle is evidence of a total lack of understanding, and an unwillingness to understand our cultures. I believe it is extremely important for us to be telling our stories to the world for ourselves, to ensure that nothing gets ‘lost in translation’. As media, we have a responsibility to protect the integrity of culture, knowledge, and people’s right to privacy. For a long time now, foreign owned media has profited from the telling of our stories, and sometimes even damaged the image of our culture, our traditions, our rites of passage, our spirituality. But now it is our responsibility to take ownership and revolutionise media in our countries, celebrate the achievements of people impacting society for good, not the achievements of the latest tycoon travelling overseas or living large on ill-gotten money. Give due attention to the high achievers that are not exploiting people for their own gain. -Amanda Donigi
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 12:39:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015