‘Telling the Brown Stories’: An Examination of Identity in the Ethnic Media of Multigenerational Immigrant Communities

Abstract

Ethnic media models tend to categorise ethnic news media as alternative, diasporic, community or ethnic minority language media. This paper argues for a different way of looking at Pasifika news media that recognises identity as a dominant force in their construction and practice. Through analysis of the producers' discursive practices and the texts of two major Pasifika media in Aotearoa/New Zealand—Tagata Pasifika and Spasifik—this paper finds that identity work lies at the heart of what Pasifika news media do. Producers deliberately set out to do Pasifika identity and be the Pasifika voice: about and for all Pasifika. Yet, the texts studied here suggest that by emphasising identity, Pasifika news media risk falling back on well-established, often racialised, versions of Pasifika identity that misrepresent the diverse and shifting identities of New Zealand's Pasifika population, especially its New Zealand-born youth. An examination of ethnic minority news media in identity terms, then, can usefully illuminate powerful production forces, including the influence of minority communities and their elites on ethnic minority media.

Keywords:

• Ethnic Media
• Pacific
• Journalism
• Identity

Notes

[1] For the purpose of this investigation, ‘Pasifika’ news media are defined as news and current affairs media produced in New Zealand by and for New Zealand's main Pacific groups, that is, predominantly Samoan, Cook Islands Maori, Tongan, Niuean, Fijian, Tokelauan and Tuvaluan communities.

[2] White New Zealander as opposed to Maori or Pasifika.

[3] Some Pacific broadcasters, including Tagata Pasifika Pasifika, do receive government support, but their legislative mandate is weaker and their funding is smaller.

[4] Spasifik editor, Tagata Pasifika Pasifika executive producer, Tagata Pasifika Pasifika senior reporter and two former Tagata Pasifika Pasifika reporters.

[5] As with other conglomerate groups (Matsaganis, Katz, and Ball-Rokeach 2011, 263), Pasifika do not share a common language, so the Pasifika language media are limited to the small ethnic-specific audiences who understand them. To maintain viability, media such as Spasifik target the larger conglomerate Pasifika group, but can do so only in English.

[6] The September/October 2011 edition of Spasifik (Issue No. 46, Special Rugby 2011 Collector's Edition) and Tagata Pasifika Pasifika episodes 25 (September 8, 2011) to 32 (October 27, 2011), immediately following the October 23 tournament final.

[7] Tonga's national team, it means ‘sea eagles’.

[8] This was the only time presenters used a Pasifika language for anything other than a greeting.

[9] Notably, Samoans make up 50% of all Pasifika in New Zealand (131,103), Tongans 18% (50, 478) and Fijians 4% (9,864).

[10] New Zealand women's rugby team.

[11] Pasifika and Maori are typified in physical terms as strong, fast and ‘naturally’ talented, but rarely in terms of leadership, intelligence or ability to make decisions under pressure. Hoberman (1997, 125–126) says the dichotomy, replicated elsewhere, is a function of colonial psychology and justifies white male authority.

[12] More than 20% of 0–4-year-old Pasifika in the 2006 Census identified as Pacific and Maori (Statistics New Zealand and Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs 2010), and 22% of Spasifik readers in a 2010 survey identified as partly Maori (Spasifik 2010).

[13] Samoan word used to refer to white New Zealanders (as opposed to Maori or Pasifika).