Pulled two ways: Norms of ‘Pacificness’ and journalism in New Zealand’s Pacific news media

Abstract

By looking at how Pacific media producers position themselves in different contexts, this paper identifies complex identity politics within the communities of practice of New Zealand’s Pacific news media production. Interviews with 23 Pacific news media producers reveal a tension between two fields of journalistic and Pacific norms that hinge upon different locative practices – strategic ploys to locate oneself and one’s media in relation to community and to other Pacific and mainstream media – and appear to depend on each media outlets’ positioning in relation to language, mainstream institutions and their ethnic community. Analysis of these locative practices helps to reveal some of the power relations embedded in Pacific media outlets’ structural, cultural and ideological contexts. Unlike members of the dominant group, who have arguably more stability in identity, Pacific peoples’ identity is always negotiated, and in ways that must continually answer back to the different forces that position them.