Academic literature on the topic 'Radio Djiido'

Although its mission is to be the Kanak people's voice, Radio Djiido broadcasts news and commentry in French. This use of the colonial language to further an indigenous cause might appear odd, but the reason is purely pragmatic— there are 32 different Kanak languages.

Commentary: Since the 1990s, the media landscape has broadened in New Caledonia, with new magazines and websites across the political spectrum. New Caledonia’s FLNKS independence movement has long been supported by the community station Radio Djiido, which has expanded into live broadcasting and streaming on the web. But over the last decade, there has been an increase in opportunities for journalists to work with a range of new magazines, covering politics, culture, environment and economics. There is also increasing interest in the web among the young, with the beginning of internet blogging.

While the Kanaks’ (local indigenous population of New Caledonia) pro-independence protests against the French settlers and, more broadly, the French Republic, have been extensively documented in the global media and academic literature, another protest - more subtle and diffused, but deeply embedded - is taking place in New Caledonia.New Caledonia is a South Pacific archipelago colonised by the French in 1853 and set to decide whether to remain in the French Republic or become independent in a referendum between 2014 and 2019.This paper suggests that there is a polarisation in the New Caledonian media sphere, which deeply affects journalistic practices with tendencies to resist Western impositions, standards and dominance (for Kanak journalists and their leaders), while metropolitan journalists (who have settled in New Caledonia from France) tend to often reject customs or indigenous rules shaping general and media communication within local communities. Both tendencies also have a significant impact on which material the journalists will be able to collect for their news organisations, as well as an impact on the relationships these journalists will maintain (or not) with local communities and personalities.This paper examines some aspects of Pacific knowledge (including traditions, values, beliefs and protocols) and explores the nuances of a complex socio-political ‘liquid modern’ context in order to present examples of how developments inherent from tradition, colonisation and decolonisation aspirations, affect the work of local journalists (both metropolitan journalists, and Kanak journalists). Drawing on data collected during periods of archival research, participant observation and interviews conducted at both the metropolitan daily newspaper, Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes, and the pro-independence radio station, Radio Djiido, this paper demonstrates how local journalists problematically navigate, and often contest, diverse socio-cultural values, practices and principles inherent from different times and places/spaces creating a deep division in the New Caledonian media sphere. It is suggested in this paper that Kanak values are often strongly contested by many metropolitan journalists, who often refuse to give any consideration to cultural factors, while, on the other hand, Kanak journalists will often tend to reject some of the principles of Western (or modern) journalism, adjusting these values and/or standards for specific or strategic reasons, such as preserving ‘la coutume'. This paper will also argue that deploying an approach that engages with the concept of liquid modernity, takes into account re-emerging oceanic epistemologies, and that provides a thicker explanation of observed media practices, proves useful for studying journalism in New Caledonia, where culture appears to deeply affect journalism practice on a daily basis.

This thesis analyses the discursive struggle in the New Caledonian media over the question of independence during the period of most acute conflict during the 1980s. It seeks to demonstrate that the discursive struggle was central to the political struggle, particularly in its emphasis on the development of discourses on identity which authorised particular forms of political engagement. Colonial discourses in New Caledonia provided a well tested armory of identifications of the territory’s indigenous people which were mobilised in the anti-independence media, particularly the territory’s monopoly daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes. The thesis attempts to demonstrate how these identifications connoted, in effect, the non-existence of Kanaks through a denial of a ‘Kanak’ identity: Melanesians who identified themselves as Kanaks and took a pro-independence stance were not recognised within the colonial identity constructions of ‘Caledonian’ and ‘Melanesian’, and their claims to constitute a ‘people’ were vociferously denied. They existed within colonial discourses as a human absence, and were therefore considered to have no rightful claim on Caledonian political life. In the face of such identifications, the pro-independence movement articulated in its media notions of ‘Kanakness’ and the ‘Kanak people’ which sought to hyper-valorise their identity as human and rightful.¶ It is argued that an analysis of media discourses requires consideration of the type of institutional constraints operating within the media institutions from within which these discourses emerge. The thesis therefore analyses the major constraints operating within Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes and the two major pro-independence media organisations, ‘Kanaky’s first newspaper’ Bwenando and ‘Kanaky’s first radio station’ Radio Djiido.¶ As an overarching concern, the thesis attempts to work through and apply different theoretical approaches relevant to the analysis of media reporting in situations of heightened political contestation, negotiating through aspects of neo-Marxist and post-structuralist approaches. It assesses the relevance of the notion of ‘ideological effect’ as an analytical tool in assessing the effects of power produced by particular discourse, concluding that some theoretical notion concerned with elucidating the differential effects of power is required.¶

This thesis analyses the discursive struggle in the New Caledonian media over the question of independence during the period of most acute conflict during the 1980s. It seeks to demonstrate that the discursive struggle was central to the political struggle, particularly in its emphasis on the development of discourses on identity which authorised particular forms of political engagement. Colonial discourses in New Caledonia provided a well tested armory of identifications of the territory’s indigenous people which were mobilised in the anti-independence media, particularly the territory’s monopoly daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes. The thesis attempts to demonstrate how these identifications connoted, in effect, the non-existence of Kanaks through a denial of a ‘Kanak’ identity: Melanesians who identified themselves as Kanaks and took a pro-independence stance were not recognised within the colonial identity constructions of ‘Caledonian’ and ‘Melanesian’, and their claims to constitute a ‘people’ were vociferously denied. They existed within colonial discourses as a human absence, and were therefore considered to have no rightful claim on Caledonian political life. In the face of such identifications, the pro-independence movement articulated in its media notions of ‘Kanakness’ and the ‘Kanak people’ which sought to hyper-valorise their identity as human and rightful. ¶ ...