Case Studies/Pacific Media Centre
Informed journalism and media research contributes to economic, political and social development. — Pacific Media Centre website
Overview
The Pacific Media Centre (PMC) was established by AUT University’s Faculty of Design and Creative Industries in Auckland, New Zealand in 2007 and is the only media research and community resource centre of its kind in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The Centre aims to stimulate cultural and research publications dealing with contemporary Mâori, Pacific and ethnic issues. Mâori and Pacific issues are generally in need of greater representation in academic research, something PMC is aiming to correct.
PMC believes that by providing informed journalism and media research they will contribute to economic, political and social development. Indeed an informed, independent and inquiring media helps to ensure that the government is truly representative of, and accountable to, the people and so supports good governance. Not only does the Centre provide a source of information for people within the New Zealand culture, but it also promotes understanding and respect for all cultures worldwide. It provides a place where people can gain a greater understanding of cultures they would otherwise not be able to experience, something which cannot be undervalued in our culturally diverse society. In doing so, it will encourage other media outlets to provide a higher quality and more attuned approach to Pacific issues, and increase overall public awareness.
In seeking to achieve this, the Centre has focused on developing relationships and collaborating with other centres of research excellence in media and cultural production, including: - Asia NZ Foundation (ANZF); - Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ); Human Rights Commission (HRC); and - Pacific Cooperation Foundation (PCF).
As part of their partnerships with Asian Media Information and Communication (AMIC); University of the South Pacific (USP) and Fiji Institute of Applied Science (FIAS), the Centre has recently co-published two new Pacific media and communication books: - Media and Development: Issues and Challenges in the Pacific Islands (Shailendra Singh and Professor Biman Prasad, editors); and - South Pacific Islands Communication: Regional Perspectives, Local Issues (Evangelia Papoutsaki and Usha Sundar Harris, editors)
The Centre has already established a YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/pacmedcentre); blog (http://pacificmediacentre.blogspot.com/); Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48624011152); and twitter page (http://twitter.com/pacmedcentre).
License Usage
The Pacific Media Centre has licensed their website under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 New Zealand licence (CC-BY-NC-ND). This means that people are free to use material on the website for non-commercial purposes provided they attribute the work, but are not permitted to alter, transform or build upon the works.
This licence is applied through the use of a licence button on every page of the site linking to a summary of the licence, which in turn links to the full licence.
Motivations
As the only media research and community resource centre of its kind in Aotearoa/New Zealand, providing their resources under a CC licence makes their wealth of information more freely available to the public and so helps to fulfil their aim of stimulating informed cultural research.
The Centre’s goal of contributing to economic, political and social development through informed journalism cannot be achieved if people are not given access to that information, and releasing information from their website under a CC licence serves to assist in achieving their goals. More people being able to use the information will lead to increased understanding of cultural issues as well as a higher standard of journalism in this area.
