The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the criticality of science communication. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, this article takes an audience-focused perspective to analysing COVID-19 related social media posts on 23 popular South Pacific community Facebook pages over a four-month period across eight South Pacific countries. We analyse how audiences co-opt scientific terms, address information gaps and embed it in their lived experience. It is ascertained that online conversations around COVID-19 in the Pacific are intermeshed with both scientific fact and, personal accounts and rumours, referred to locally as ‘coconut wireless’, problematising established modes of empirical enquiry.
In recent years, there has been an increased recognition of the value of developing the professional capacity of journalists in developing countries and emerging democracies, and of evaluating these developments more effectively. In addition to the quantitative assessment of the media training programs along pre-defined indicators, this article argues for a participatory evaluation approach to assessing donor-funded media capacity building program to capture stories of change from the perspectives of the participants. Drawing on a case study of an evaluation of a media attachment program, ‘MDI Social Journalism Award’, it highlights the most significant change stories from the perspectives of two journalists from Papua New Guinea. The article outlines the outcomes and impacts of the program for the participating journalists, along with the facilitators and barriers that can influence the success of such media capacity building programs.
The Social Journalism Awards (SJA) is a journalism exchange programme providing Papua New Guinean journalists with opportunities to report on development issues. This article draws on information collected from SJA participants, and analysis of the media content they produced, to gather insights into development journalism in Papua New Guinea. The study found that Papua New Guinean journalists are interested in reporting on development issues but they lack appropriate opportunities to do so. The main issues facing Papua New Guinean journalists include few opportunities to report on issues outside the national capital; few professional development or training opportunities; few opportunities to report on development issues, particularly those affecting the rural poor; conflicts of interest for media owners including the government and foreign corporations with mining interests; and low pay within the industry. The study showed that when given appropriate opportunities, PNG journalists can contribute to development and democracy in meaningful ways. The article concludes that it is important for media indices to go beyond procedural freedoms and to measure substantive freedoms, or opportunities, available to journalists.
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