Locating Ourselves: An analysis and theoretical account of strategic practices of identity and connection in Aotearoa/New Zealand’s Pacific news media A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Media and Communication in the University of Canterbury by Tara Ross University of Canterbury 2017 2 For Rosa 3 Acknowledgements A work such as this is rarely the result of one person’s efforts and I have many people to thank here. First and foremost, thank you to my Pacific research participants, who generously gave of their time and knowledge and without whom this research would not have been possible. I hope that I have done justice to your contributions and produced a work that might seed positive change in both academia and the media industry. Thank you to the members of my Pacific Advisory Group, who gave much-needed guidance and encouragement, and to the colleagues, friends and family who offered support, read early drafts and otherwise put up with my distraction. Thank you, also, to the countless people who work behind the scenes to improve outcomes for Pasifika. Without you, this kid from Porirua would likely never have undertaken postgraduate study. In that vein, I’d like also to acknowledge the University of Canterbury for awarding me a Pacific Students’ Thesis Scholarship, the NZ Federation of Graduate Women for a PhD Scholarship and the Tertiary Education Commission for granting me a Building Research Capacity in the Social Sciences (BRCSS) II Postgraduate Research Award. That material support was crucial for this research project. Special thanks go to: - My supervisors: Yvonne Crichton-Hill, for helping me to position myself as a Pacific researcher; and Donald Matheson, for being so generous with his time and support and wise with his criticism and feedback. - My kids, Sam and AJ, who have felt my absence and done their best not to show it. - The strong women in my life: my mother, Erika (for teaching me that I could do anything); my aunt, Margaret (who forged the way); my sister, Trina (for her fearlessness), and my grandmother, Rosa (who started the journey). - Last, but not least, my partner, Barry, who sustained me through earthquakes, a new and time-consuming job and a part-time PhD that seemed never to end. Fakafetai lasi. 4 Abstract This thesis sets out to explore the under-researched field of New Zealand’s Pacific media to yield insights into Pacific media and audiences, and what makes media ‘ethnic’. It draws on theories about identity, practice and the audience, and a qualitative multi-method approach grounded in Pacific people’s actual voices and practices. It breaks new ground on Pacific media, which have not been studied in such depth or from a broad audience perspective, and reveals that Pacific media are highly diverse and face considerable challenges, including a significant demographic shift among their intended audiences. It adds to the scholarship on ethnic media, first, by revealing tensions within Pacific media practice (including a tension between Pacific and journalistic fields), which helps to problematise scholarly assumptions about ethnic media, and, second, by suggesting a model of Pacific media as a media of identity negotiation. It finds that Pacific media are powerful symbolic referents of Pacific identity and key sites where producers and audiences negotiate community and belonging through various locative practices, often in ways that establish tighter connections than in mainstream media. This is notwithstanding that the range of ‘Pacific’ identities represented in Pacific media can be narrow and risk excluding New Zealand-born Pacific youth. This study further suggests that societal-wide ideas of journalism and publicness are more central to Pacific audiences’ assessments of Pacific media than may have been accounted for to date. Pacific groups are positioned narrowly in New Zealand publicness, including by funders’ whose focus on Pacific media in terms of ethnicity and culture tends to overlook audiences’ demand for in-depth news, innovation and diverse content. This study concludes that viewing ethnic media within categories of ethnicity or culture (as do funders, scholars and, often, media producers) risks exaggerating the ‘otherness’ of ethnic minority groups. Instead, we need to reorient our efforts to categorise ethnic media away from a fixation on difference and towards people’s actual media practices to better reflect people’s multiple and complex realities. 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgements p.3 Abstract p.4 Table of Contents p.5 List of Tables and Figures p.8 Publication Arising from Research p.9 Chapter One_ Charting tensions within New Zealand’s Pacific media p.10 1.1 Introduction p.10 1.2 Research questions p.12 1.3 Chapter overview p.15 Chapter Two_ Bringing Pacific media into focus: Pacific peoples in Aotearoa/NZ and their media p.17 2.1 Pacific peoples in New Zealand p.18 2.2 Pacific and Māori identity politics p.25 Polynesian affinities p.25 Dawn raids and the Treaty of Waitangi p.27 2.3 Pacific peoples’ representation in mainstream media p.28 2.4 Pacific media in New Zealand p.31 Mostly small and diverse p.32 A field connected by funding and structural challenges p.36 2.5 Pacific audiences p.44 2.6 Summary p.52 Chapter Three_ Review of the literature p.53 3.1 Pacific media in New Zealand p.54 3.2 Pacific identity p.57 3.3 The ethnic media scholarship p.61 Functionalist approaches p.63 - Language and culture p.64 - Counter-narrative to mainstream p.67 - Self-representation and identity formation p.68 - Public sphere and democratic role p.73 Critical approaches p.76 - Community media p.76 - Indigenous media p.78 - Migrant/diasporic/transnational media p.82 3.4 Summary p.86 Chapter Four_ Developing a theoretical framework p.88 4.1 Understanding ‘media’ as news media p.88 4.2 Finding an appropriate theoretical foundation p.90 4.3 Theories of news and journalism p.92 4.4 Culture, ethnicity and identity p.96 4.5 Theorising audiences and their media practices p.101 4.6 Summary p.106 6 Chapter Five_ Research design and methodology p.107 5.1 Rationale for qualitative methods p.107 5.2 Pacific framework p.108 5.3 Ethics p.110 Researcher’s position p.112 5.4 Definitions, delimitations and limitations p.113 ‘Pacific’ as focus of study p.113 Research design p.115 Limitations p.120 5.5 Methods p.124 One-on-one interviews p.124 Textual analysis p.125 Focus groups p.127 5.6 Analysis p.129 5.7 Summary p.133 Chapter Six_ Mapping tensions in language, ‘homeland’ and ‘Pacificness’ p.135 6.1 Locating differences in language p.136 6.2 Imagining diaspora p.143 6.3 Pulled two ways: Norms of Pacificness and journalism p.148 6.4 Conclusion p.158 Chapter Seven_ Doing identity: By, for and about some Pacific peoples p.162 7.1 Identity p.163 7.2 Pacific identity construction: A case study p.168 7.3 Identifying and identification back p.172 7.4 Conclusion p.180 Chapter Eight_ Building affective bonds and community belonging p.183 8.1 Media producers and community p.184 Community talk p.185 Community-in-practice p.192 8.2 Pacific communities and Pacific media p.196 8.3 Conclusion p.209 Chapter Nine_ Pacific audiences’ desire for news and a sphere of their own p.211 9.1 Audience views of Pacific media p.213 9.2 Valuing quality journalism p.220 9.3 Valuing a sphere of one’s own p.226 9.4 Conclusion p.229 Chapter Ten_ Conclusion p.231 10.1 Answering the research questions p.231 10.2 Wider contribution and discussion p.235 Contribution to the literature p.235 Contribution to practice p.237 7 Contribution to policy p.241 10.3 Recommendations for future research p.243 Appendices Appendix 1: Glossary of non-English terms p.245 Appendix 2: A snapshot of Pacific media in New Zealand p.247 Appendix 3: Pacific Advisory Group members p.254 Appendix 4: Pacific media producers’ interviews p.255 Appendix 5: Pacific audience focus groups p.257 Appendix 6: Categories of analysis - producer interviews p.259 Appendix 7: Ethics documentation p.260 References p.268 8 List of Tables and Figures Table 1: Pacific ethnic groups as a percentage of the overall New Zealand Pacific population 2013…………………………………………………………………p.21 Table 2: Proportion of Pacific peoples identifying with only one ethnicity in 2013………………………………………………………………... p.22 Table 3: Percentage of Pacific ethnic groups able to speak their Pacific language……………………………………………………………. p.23 Table 4: Audience ratings for NZ on Air-funded Pacific TV programmes…………………………………………………………p.48 Table 5: Pacific media consumption compared to the average in terms of daily reach………………………………………………………………... p.50 Table 6: NZ on Air funding for Pacific special interest TV programming 2011-2015 ……………………………………………………………………………... p.225 Figure 1: Tagata Pasifika audience ratings by annual programme schedule……………......................................................................... p.47 Figure 2: Māori and Pacific audiences for Tagata Pasifika, Fresh and Pacific Beat Street 1995-2015, as a percentage of the Māori and Pacific population………………………………………………………….. p.49 Figure 3: Audience share for Tagata Pasifika, Fresh and TheCoconet.tv 2015/2017.......................................................................................... p.208 9 Publishing Acknowledgements Chapter Seven of this thesis is derived in part from an article published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, copyright Taylor &Francis: • Ross, T. 2014, “'Telling the brown stories': an examination of identity in the ethnic media of multi-generational immigrant communities.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40(8): 1314-1329. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2013.831547 Chapter Nine of this thesis is derived in part from an article published in Journalism Studies, copyright Taylor &Francis: • Ross, T.