Ethnic Journalism in the Global South (Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South) 3030761622, 9783030761622

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN JOURNALISM AND THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Ethnic Journalism in the Global South Edited by Anna Gladkova · Sadia Jamil

Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South Series Editors Bruce Mutsvairo Auburn University Auburn, AL, USA Saba Bebawi University of Technology Sydney Ultimo, NSW, Australia Eddy Borges-Rey Northwestern University Qatar Ar-Rayyan, Qatar

This series focuses on cutting-edge developments in journalism in and from the Global South and illuminates how journalism cultures and practices have evolved from the era of colonization to contemporary globalization. Bringing previously underrepresented research from the Global South to the English speaking world, this series will focus on a broad range of topics within journalism including pedagogy, ethics, history of journalism, press freedom, theory, propaganda, gender, cross-border collaboration and methodological issues. Despite the geographical connotations of the term ‘Global South’ the series will not be defined by geographical boundaries, as Western countries are home to millions of immigrants and the contributions of immigrant journalists will be covered. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/16423

Anna Gladkova  •  Sadia Jamil Editors

Ethnic Journalism in the Global South

Editors Anna Gladkova Faculty of Journalism Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow, Russia

Sadia Jamil Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Khalifa University of Science and Technology Abu Dhabi, UAE

ISSN 2662-480X     ISSN 2662-4818 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South ISBN 978-3-030-76162-2    ISBN 978-3-030-76163-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover image: Govindanmarudhai / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Anna Gladkova and Sadia Jamil 2 Ethnic Journalism: Theoretical Context  9 Sadia Jamil and Anna Gladkova 3 Journalism Education and Ethnic Journalism in Ghana: The Case Study of Ghana Institute of Journalism and University of Education, Winneba  23 Gifty Appiah-Adjei 4 Mapping Ethnic Media in Egypt: An Examination of Counter-Publics, Reality, and Challenges 49 Sara S. Elmaghraby 5 Ethnic Journalism in Russia: Between Profession and Social Mission 67 Anna Gladkova and Elena Vartanova 6 ‘Misafir Media’: Domopolitics and Securitization of Displaced Syrian Ethnic Groups  91 Recep Gülmez

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7 “Aquí no hay negros”: Policies of Invisibilisation and the Impact on Afro-­Descendent Media in Argentina  113 Suzanne Temwa Gondwe Harris 8 Safeguarding Ethnic-cultural Identities through Ethnic Media: The Case of Radio Dhimsa in Odisha, India  141 Aniruddha Jena 9 A “Place for Our Small Problems”: Online Ethnic Media of the Turks in/from Bulgaria  155 Slavka Karakusheva 10 Ethnic Journalism as a Social Mission: An Exploration of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s (ZBC) National FM Radio Station  171 Trust Matsilele and Golden Maunganidze 11 Māori-Language Journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: Balancing Cultural Values, Journalistic Norms and the Constraints of the National-Language Revitalisation Agenda197 Atakohu Middleton 12 Ethnic Newsmaking Through Citizen Journalism: Collective Content Production of Syrian Refugees in Turkey  215 Glenn Muschert, Ahmet Taylan, and Duygu Özsoy 13 Afro-Brazilian Journalism in Alternative Media: A Study of Alma Preta239 Igor Oliveira Neves, Victor Fermino da Silva, and Mateus Yuri Passos 14 Understanding Ethnic Journalism in an Extinguishing Print News Media Landscape: Japanese-Language Newspapers in Brazil255 Jessica Retis

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15 ‘Here’ and ‘Back Home’: Imagining Diasporic Connections Through Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific News Media275 Tara Ross 16 Ethnic Media and Racism in Brazil: The Case of Black Nation TV291 Melina Santos and José Cláudio Castanheira Index315

Notes on Contributors

Gifty  Appiah-Adjei, PhD is a lecturer and a researcher with the Department of Journalism and Media Studies in the School of Communication and Media Studies at University of Education, Winneba in Ghana. José  Cláudio  Castanheira  is Professor in the Film Program at Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and leader of the research group  GEIST/UFSC (Group of Research on Images, Sonorities and Technologies)—CNPq. Sara S. Elmaghraby  is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at Journalism Department, Faculty of Mass Communication, Cairo University in Egypt. Anna  Gladkova is Leading Researcher and Director of International Affairs Office at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia, where she conducts research on ethnic media and digital inequalities. She is co-chair of the Digital Divide Working Group (IAMCR). Recep  Gülmez is assistant professor doctor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Erzincan Binali Yildirim University, Turkey. Suzanne Temwa Gondwe Harris, PhD  is an independent scholar and the founder of Changing the Face of Africa (CTFOA).

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Mahmoud Hrebat  is a journalist specialised in social media in Palestine and the Arab World, studying for a postgraduate degree in digital journalism and communication at AlQuds University in Palestine. Sadia Jamil  is a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, United Arab Emirates. She holds postgraduate degrees in Media Management and Mass Communication from the University of Stirling, Scotland, and University of Karachi, Pakistan. Aniruddha Jena  is a PhD candidate at the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad, India. At the same time, he is engaged as a research assistant with the UNESCO Chair on Community Media at the University of Hyderabad. Slavka  Karakusheva  is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Anthropology and a junior researcher at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski. Trust Matsilele, PhD  is a lecturer in the Media Studies department of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa. Golden  Maunganidze  is an award-winning journalist and publisher/ director of TellZim News newspaper based in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. He is also the director of Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) Campus Radio where he lectures practical journalism courses. Atakohu  Middleton is a lecturer in the School of Communication Studies at Auckland University of Technology. Glenn  Muschert is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Khalifa University of Science and Technology (Abu Dhabi, UAE). His research focuses on digital society, sustainable development, and the ethical solution of social problems. Igor Oliveira Neves  is a master’s candidate at the Graduate Program in Social Communication at Universidade Metodista de São Paulo, Brazil. Olivier  Nyirubugara is a lecturer in Media Theory and Journalism, among other subjects at Erasmus University Rotterdam and The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Duygu Özsoy  is a researcher of communications in the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema at Atatürk University (Erzurum, Turkey). Her research focuses on Internet studies, digital technologies, and digital inequalities.

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Mateus  Yuri  Passos is Professor of the Graduate Program in Social Communication at Universidade Metodista de São Paulo, Brazil, and editor of the Comunicação & Sociedade journal. Jessica Retis, PhD  is Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Affiliated Faculty with the Center for Latin American Studies at The University of Arizona. Tara Ross  is a senior lecturer and head of the journalism programme at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Melina Santos  is Collaborating Professor at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS). Victor Fermino da Silva  is a master’s candidate at the Graduate Program in Social Communication at Universidade Metodista de São Paulo, Brazil. Ahmet Taylan  is a researcher of communication in the Department of Journalism at Mersin University (Mersin, Turkey). His research focuses on alternative media, new social movements, digital journalism, globalization, and popular culture. Elena Vartanova  is a professor and holds the position of the Dean and Chair in Media Theory and Economics at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University. She is also Academician of the Russian Academy of Education and President of the National Association of Mass Media Researchers.

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 16.1

Distribution of ethnic media in Egypt. (Source: Author) Nação program, hosted by journalist Fernanda Carvalho (the third from left to right). (Source: YouTube) Fig. 16.2 One of the interviewees of the special issue of Nação program. (Source: YouTube) Fig. 16.3 Statistics chart presented in the special Issue of Nação program. (Source: YouTube) Fig. 16.4 Comment on the content of the special episode of ‘Black Youth Genocide’. (Source: Youtube)

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction Anna Gladkova and Sadia Jamil

The idea of this book comes from a relatively small number of studies focusing on ethnic media and ethnic journalism in the Global South. While there are numerous publications that discuss ethnic journalism in Europe (e.g. Georgiou, 2006; Sahin, 2018), the United States (e.g. Viswanath & Arora, 2000), or Russia (e.g. Malkova & Tishkov, 2002; Gladkova et al., 2019; Vartanova, 2013), countries of the Global South have rarely been in the focus of researchers’ attention (e.g. Soobben & Rawjee, 2013; Shamala et al., 2019). Given the unprecedented number of ethnic groups living in the countries of that region, the important role of ethnic media in securing ethno-cultural diversity, pluralism, multicultural understanding, equality and inclusion (Matsaganis et al., 2011), and the fact that minor ethnic groups are often underrepresented in public space due to many reasons—access to information and communication

A. Gladkova (*) Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia S. Jamil Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_1

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technologies (ICTs), literacy, different forms and levels of divides (age, gender, income, education, motivation, etc.) (Ragnedda & Gladkova, 2020)—we believe a study of ethnic journalism in the Global South is long overdue. In this book, we systematize previous research on ethnic media in the Global South and contribute to the ongoing discussion around ethnic journalism as both a profession and social mission. By ethnic media we understand media produced for (and usually also by) a particular ethnic community; and as our case studies show, being oftentimes different in terms of producers, consumers, funders, size, location, etc. We also draw a line between ethnic media and local/locative/community media, which can be produced in indigenous/ethnic languages too but which serve people in a particular local space (Matsaganis et al., 2011). In this book, we approach ethnic media and journalism in broad theoretical and practical dimensions, also covering identity and culture issues, and not limiting our study to one geographical, local or national framework alone. The book addresses the diversity of ethnic media in the Global South, revealing ethnic media journalistic practices, their roles and challenges, and shows how ethnic journalism helps to safeguard multicultural understanding and inclusion, languages, identity and pluralism of ideas (Yu & Matsaganis, 2019). We show that in the countries of the Global South the ethnic media journalistic practice varies because of differences in the news production process, the ownership structure, regulation and funding of ethnic media outlets. Ethnic news producers and journalists may belong to one ethnic community living in one city or town, but news producers can also be part of mainstream news media. The audience of ethnic media can be co-ethnics living in a neighbourhood of a huge metropolis, but it may also be comprised of all people with the same ethnic background living in various countries around the world. The content of ethnic media may be focused on the life of a specific ethnic community, promoting their ethnic culture, identity and language, or it can embrace broader topics too. As far as the ownership structure of ethnic media organizations is concerned, they can be owned by entrepreneurs from specific ethnic communities who operate either from the home country or from other countries of their settlement. The regulation of ethnic media can vary or can be same as that of mainstream media organizations in various countries of the Global South. We also show that while there are many ethnic newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television channels, ethnic media producers make use of cable networks, satellite network technology and also the

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Internet to distribute their stories and programs and to reach out to a broader audience. How do ethnic media owners and news producers manage to do so regardless of digital inequalities that are still present in the Global South (Mutsvairo & Ragnedda, 2019)? This book, thus, reflects on how inequalities in access, skills and benefits that people receive through being online hinder the development of ethnic journalism in the Global South, and what the ways to overcome these inequalities are. The book is divided into four thematic sections, based on geography, South America, Africa, Europe and Asia, and Asia and Oceania, in an attempt to provide a multifaceted coverage of diverse regions of the Global South. The choice of countries was determined by the idea of showing different practices of ethnic media in different national contexts—Brazil, Argentina, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, India, and New Zealand. The countries selected provide interesting case studies and opportunities for comparative analysis, since they differ from each other culturally, economically, politically, socially, etc., and yet are all multicultural and multilingual regions. The chapters tackle ethnic media and ethnic journalism from both a theoretical and a more practical perspective, looking into concrete examples of ethnic TV, radio and print media in indigenous languages, as well as immigrant media and citizen journalism in different countries. The book covers several key areas in regard to ethnic media and ethnic journalism in the Global South. First, we approach ethnic journalism as a profession. Here we look at the number of journalists working for ethnic media outlets in the countries of the Global South, the different challenges they face in their work (availability of ICTs and digital technologies in editorial offices, digital literacy issues, etc.), the specifics of education/ training of journalists working for ethnic media, and best journalistic practices from the Global South. In this context, Gifty Appiah-Adjei in her chapter, ‘Journalism Education and Ethnic Journalism in Ghana: The case Study of Ghana Institute of Journalism and University of Education, Winneba’, covers specifics of ethnic journalism training in Ghana. The chapter addresses the topic of journalism education/journalism training with the help of engagement theory and case study design. The author uses focus group discussions, document analysis and in-depth interviews to explore if ethnic journalism training is integrated into the Ghanaian journalism curriculum or not. The chapter argues that there is a need for the Ghanaian journalism curriculum to be modified, with a stronger focus to be added both on

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indigenous language competence and the necessary skills of news writing and production in ethnic journalism—something that can be considered in other countries of the Global South too. Slavka Karakusheva focuses in her chapter, ‘A “Place for our Small Problems”: Online Ethnic Media of the Turks in/from Bulgaria,’ on the online ethnic media of the biggest ethnic minority in Bulgaria, the Turkish. The chapter shows how ethnic media contribute to local news coverage, and discusses their role in reshaping the minority portrayals in mainstream media, which is also an important task today. Second, we approach ethnic journalism as a social mission, discussing its role in safeguarding a pluralistic media landscape, fostering multicultural understanding and inclusion, protecting ethnic identities and cultures in the Global South. Melina Santos and José Cláudio Castanheira argue in their chapter, ‘Ethnic Media and Racism in Brazil: The Case of Black Nation TV’, that ethnic media can be a possible counterweight to the inequalities produced by the current political and economic system in Brazil. While analyzing the case of TV Nação Preta (Black Nation TV), an online communication channel situated in the capital Porto Alegre, the authors discuss the role of ethnic media in serving as a rescue and celebration of black culture in Brazil. Aniruddha Jena uses a case of Radio Dhimsa to show in his chapter, ‘Safeguarding Ethnic-Cultural Identities through Ethnic Media: The Case of Radio Dhimsa in Odisha, India’, how an ethnic community radio station is engaged with the Desia, an indigenous community based in Koraput district of Odisha state, and how community radio safeguards ethnic-­ cultural identities in India. The author stresses the importance of this study given lack of research on how ethnic media in general and community radio in particular engage with ethnic-cultural identities in the Global South. The problem of denial and invisibility of some ethnic groups and their cultures is raised by Suzanne Harris in her chapter, ‘“Aquí no hay negros”: Policies of Invisibilization and the Impact on Afro-Descendent Media in Argentina’. Looking at the history of Afro-descendant media in Argentina and the interplay between public policies and media laws since 1816, the author discusses ‘policies of invisibilization’ that led to the habitual denial and invisibility of Afro-descendants and their media. Finally, Trust Matsilele and Golden Maunganidze focus in their chapter, ‘Ethnic Journalism as a Social Mission: An Exploration of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s (ZBC) National FM Radio Station’, on National FM, one of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Cooperation’s radio

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stations established to address ethnic minorities who for long were forgotten in the national discourse. The authors argue that the government of Zimbabwe needs to ensure that the national broadcaster ZBC fulfils its constitutional mandate of providing information for all. The authors stress that it is also important to safeguard National FM radio’s support by all relevant government departments, so that it can promote indigenous languages and cultures in Zimbabwe. Third, we analyse ethnic journalism in regard to ownership, regulation, production and financing aspects. Here we see how ethnic media in the Global South are regulated and funded (through state subsidies, grants, donations, advertising, subscription, etc.); who owns such media (state, public institutions, private owners, etc.) and possibly has control upon their content and editorial strategies; who produces such media (members of an ethnic community in a particular geographic area of a country, one or more media organizations based in an ethnic community’s country of origin, etc.); how media policy in the Global South today protects media outlets in ethnic languages on broader federal and regional/ local levels. Atakohu Middleton discusses in her chapter, ‘Māori-Language Journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: Balancing Cultural Values, Journalistic Norms and the Constraints of the National Language Revitalisation Agenda’, the political and social contexts that led to the development of radio and television news for Māori in their heritage language. The author mentions that today Māori-language journalism faces a number of challenges. Among those are regulation and funding issues: since Te Māngai Pāho, the Māori media funding agency, funds journalism for language outcomes rather than news, it has no statutory interest in the quality of the news it funds. The author draws attention to other challenges too, including ethnic media regulation and self-regulation policies, production processes in the new digital age, amongst others. Anna Gladkova and Elena Vartanova examine in their chapter, ‘Ethnic Journalism in Russia: Between Profession and Social Mission’, both social and professional dimensions of ethnic journalism, looking into main funding sources and ownership forms of ethnic media outlets in three national republics of Russia (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Chuvashia), state regulation mechanisms, media policy issues, etc. The authors show that ethnic media outlets in Russia are in most cases state-owned and state-funded, with only a small number of them receiving extra financing from advertising or donations.

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Fourth, we look at ethnic journalism through case study analysis. In this vein, we provide deeper analysis of journalistic practices and ethnic media in the Global South with a focus on their managerial and editorial strategies, content specifics (e.g. choice of themes and topics for publications), target audience (ethnic communities in a particular geographic space, ethnic communities outside a home country and audiences within the home country, etc.), distribution channels (mail service, door-to-door, public radio or television broadcasting networks, Internet-based networks, etc.), main challenges and trends of development in the digital age. In this context, Sara S. Elmaghraby discusses in her chapter, ‘Mapping Ethnic Media in Egypt: An Examination of Counter-Publics, Reality, and Challenges’, key features of ethnic media in Egypt by focusing on the production process, the content, and the dynamics that shape the ethnic minorities’ media in the country. The author examines the relation between ethnic media and the state, the economy, the journalistic profession and civil society in Egypt. She also explores how ethnic groups use their media for self-representation and communication amongst themselves and with the surrounding community. Furthermore, the chapter shows that all analysed ethnic media outlets encouraged the local community to send stories and opinions, especially during the COVID-19 crisis. Tara Ross, in her chapter, ‘“Here” and “Back Home”: Imagining Diasporic Connections through Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific News Media’, shows that Pacific news media today are not only key sites where people negotiate identity and community belonging, but also sites of diversity, complexity and dispute. The chapter emphasizes a need for more nuanced ways of understanding the identity work of ethnic news media, whose locative practices encompass a sense of identity and connection that is not well accounted for in the existing literature. Lastly, we analyse ethnic media in relation to migration issues. Migration crises in the last few years and the challenges it has brought to societies worldwide is an important problem by itself, but in this book we focus specifically on ethnic aspects—ethnic identities of migrants, their cultures, self-representation through media channels, the role of the state, public institutions and journalistic community in this context and much more. Glenn Muschert, Ahmet Taylan and Duygu Özsoy show in their chapter, ‘Ethnic Newsmaking through Citizen Journalism: Collective Content Production of Syrian Refugees in Turkey’, that refugees from Syria are often mischaracterized in mainstream Turkish media. They are also often

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not targeted as an audience of the Turkish media outlets, which are produced in the Turkish language. Interviews with Syrian ethnic journalists working in Turkey and an employee working at an NGO concerned with refugee media revealed an importance of refugee participation in content production in both mainstream and ethnic media in Turkey. The chapter ‘“Misafir” media: Domopolitics and Securitization of the Syrian Displaced Ethnicities’ by Recep Gülmez uses securitization and domopolitics theories to examine the role of mass media in the protection of the Syrian ethnic identities and their cultural rights. The author introduces the term ‘misafir’ (guest) media, referring to the ethnic or mainstream media aimed at integrating immigrants generally portrayed through a negative lens by the media themselves. Concluding, we should note that all chapters included in this volume certainly cover more than just one thematic area, approaching ethnic journalism not just as a profession but also as a social mission and vice versa, speaking about migration issues but also discussing how ethnic media are regulated and funded, and much more. We believe that given the multi-­ ethnic, multicultural and multilinguistic character of the Global South, more studies on ethnic media and ethnic journalism there are needed today. It is important to discuss the role of ethnic media in protecting cultures, languages, history and identities of ethnic groups in the Global South to examine professional, economic, technological and other challenges ethnic media experience today and to foster their work in securing ethno-cultural diversity in the public space.

References Georgiou, M. (2006). Diasporic Media Across Europe: Multicultural Societies and the Universalism-Particularism Continuum. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 31, 481–498. Gladkova, A., Aslanov, I., Danilov, A., Danilov, A., Garifullin, V., & Magadeeva, R. (2019). Ethnic Media in Russia: Between State Model and Alternative Voices. Russian Journal of Communication, 1(11), 53–70. Malkova, V., & Tishkov, V. (2002). Etnichnost’ i tolerantnost’ v sredstvakh massovoi informatsii [Ethnicity and Tolerance in Mass Media]. Institut jetnologii i antropologii imeni N.N. Mikluho-Maklaja RAN. Matsaganis, M.  D., Katz, V.  S., & Ball-Rokeach, S.  J. (2011). Understanding Ethnic Media. Producers, Consumers, and Societies. SAGE. Mutsvairo, B., & Ragnedda, M. (Eds.). (2019). Mapping the Digital Divide in Africa. A Mediated Analysis. Amsterdam University Press.

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Ragnedda, M., & Gladkova, A. (Eds.). (2020). Digital Inequalities in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan. Sahin, S. (2018). Journalism and Professionalism in Ethnic Media. Journalism Studies, 9(19), 1275–1292. Shamala, R., Devadas, M.  B., & Barclay, F.  P. (2019). Glocalised-Television Content: Interaction with Local Cultures and Impact on Audience Perceptions. World of Media. Journal of Russian Media and Journalism Studies, 1, 33–49. Soobben, D., & Rawjee, V. P. (2013). Ethnic Media and Identity Construction: The Representation of Women in the Ethnic Newspaper in South Africa. Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Study, 8. Vartanova, E. (2013). Postsovetskie transformatsii rossiskikh SMI i zhurnalistiki [Post-Soviet Transformations of Russian Mass Media and Journalism]. MediaMir. Viswanath, K., & Arora, P. (2000). Ethnic Media in the United States: An Essay on Their Role in Integration, Assimilation, and Social Control. Mass Communication and Society, 1(3), 39–56. Yu, S. S., & Matsaganis, M. D. (2019). Ethnic Media in the Digital Age. Routledge.

CHAPTER 2

Ethnic Journalism: Theoretical Context Sadia Jamil and Anna Gladkova

Introduction In the quickly transforming journalistic environment across the globe, journalism scholars and schools are stimulated to preparing a new generation of journalists and communication professionals (Jamil, 2019). This new generation of journalism professionals and students needs to be educated and well-trained to handle a broad array of new challenges, many of which are related to the advent of new media (Jamil, 2020b). Today, due to rising cultural and societal sensitivities, journalism and media professionals are required to be able to deal with the challenges of working in a multiethnic society than ever before. For example, they need to be trained to engage with diverse ethnic communities and to produce news for specific ethnic target readers/or audience while catering to their demands and expectations from ethnic news media (Jamil, 2020a). It is essential because specific sectors of the population cannot or choose not to access

S. Jamil (*) Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE A. Gladkova Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_2

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mainstream television, radio, or newspapers. With the challenges, however, new opportunities appear, too. Young journalists and media professionals may be inclined toward joining ethnic news organizations primarily due to the remarkable growth of the ethnic news media as a sector of the media industry and the emergence of certain ethnic media outlets in many countries of the global South, particularly in India, which is the largest multicultural South Asian society. This makes it imperative to understand the practice of ethnic journalism and its diverse roles in multiethnic and multicultural societies. To understand the practice of ethnic journalism holistically, this chapter sheds light on the concept of ethnic news media, compares it with mainstream, immigrant, minority and diasporic media, highlighting how it differs from these types of media, and the diverse roles it performs in any society

Concepts of Ethnic Journalism and Ethnic News Media Ethnic journalism is the practice of journalism by, for and about ethnic communities. The relationship of power and variation is vital to the ways scholars conceptualize ethnic media because ethnicity is a historical and relational construction (Erlandsen, 2019; Jessica & Tsagarousianou, 2019). Ethnic journalism relates to how differentiation is reproduced and linked to the social, political and economic involvement of ethnic communities in any society. By the foregoing concept, all news media are ethnic. What makes ethnic journalism distant as a different category of news making is the participation of ethnically differentiated communities living within a dominant culture (Matsaganis et al., 2011). Scholars have widely conceptualized ethnic news media as a media that is produced and distributed for a specific ethnic community. This implies that ‘ethnicity’ is the central motivation for the creation, production and consumption of ethnic news media, and it generally incorporates journalism produced by and for (a) immigrant, (b) ethnic, racial and linguistic minorities, as well as (c) indigenous groups living in various countries across the world (Jamil, 2020a; Jeffres, 2000; Matsaganis et al., 2011). In the global North, New  York City is a very good example of a thriving ecosystem of ethnic news media to serve a multicultural population, which speaks almost more than over 150 languages. In the global South, India as a country represents a very extreme example of ethnic diversity and thus

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the country is host to several ethnic newspapers and television news channels in more than 22 constitutional languages such as ‘Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri’ (Gulf News, 2018). As far as the operational concept of ethnic news media is concerned, one can see variations in the way ethnic news organizations (i.e., radio, television news channels and newspapers) operate, either in the global North and global South, or both. The first mark of differentiation is that not all ethnic news media are necessarily produced by the ethnic community they serve and journalists from mainstream news media can also produce the news content to serve any specific ethnic community. For instance, a journalist working for a Hindi-language newspaper can produce content in Marathi, Sindhi, or any other local language if he or she is well-trained to deal with it. Secondly, there is a large variety of ethnic media. They differ, first of all, with respect to who produces them. Ethnic journalists and news producers may belong to one ethnic community living in one city or town, but producers can also be big media organizations whose activities span the globe. Another important aspect of operational concept of ethnic news media is related to the key question: who are the news consumers? The news consumers of ethnic news media can be co-ethnics living in a neighborhood of a main metropolis, but they may also be consisted of all people with the same ethnic background residing in different countries across the world (Yu & Matsaganis, 2019). For example, people belonging to Punjabi community of Pakistan and India can be news consumers of Punjabi-language newspapers, radio and television news channels in their respective countries and indeed around the world. This applies to members of other ethnic communities who speak a variety of languages and who have specific ethnic origins. News consumers can use ethnic news media in various forms such as ethnic newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television channels, cable networks, satellite network technology and the Internet (Matsaganis et  al., 2011). The news content of ethnic media may be focused on the life of a particular ethnic community, the news from a home country, or both. Hence, one simple definition of ethnic news media can be that it tells the many stories of different ethnicities living in a country or dispersed in various parts of the world (Jamil, 2020a). Given that ethnic media usually function for people in a peculiar local space, some researchers understand it as local media, locative media, or

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community media (Matsaganis et al., 2011). The term diasporic media is usually used in European research on ethnic media. Nevertheless, the term diaspora does not fit many immigrant or ethnic communities. For example, Indian, Chinese, Jewish and Greek origin communities are some of the most well-known and well-studies diasporas (Riggins, 1992). Scholars widely agree that the understanding of diaspora is qualitatively different from the idea of migrated and ethnic communities. And therefore, ethnic journalism stands out different than local or diasporic journalistic practices. Today we experience growing population diversity and the emergence of more hybrid or hyphenated identities (e.g., Australian-Indian, Australian-Pakistan, British-Indian, British-Pakistani, Mexican-American, French-Algerian, Japanese-Brazilian etc.). Diverse ethnic communities, either in their home country or in the country of settlement/immigration, buttress ties with their ethnic cultures, identities and languages through ethnic media. However, the roles these media play may change. For example, people may, over time, rely on ethnic media more for negotiating bicultural identities and for social networking in their home country and the country of settlement (Jeffres, 2000). Last but not least, it is imperative to understand that ethnic news media has various forms and functions similar to mainstream news media and presents different challenges and pressures for journalists, reflecting their communities’ consumption habits and social, economic and political circumstances. There are two key conceptual dimensions that can be operationalized as a model to help understand ethnic media journalists’ practice, their professional roles and performance: Who produces ethnic news media content? Who are the news consumers? These dimensions, which may overlap in practice, aim to provide the basis for studying ideas and attitudes toward journalism and the context of production within ethnic media (Lazarte-Morales, 2012; Yu & Matsaganis, 2019).

Comparing Ethnic Media with Other Types of Media Most scholars agree that ethnic news media is different than the mainstream news media. Nevertheless, it is important to look at what makes mainstream media different to ethnic media. Conceptually, the content of mainstream news media is produced by and produced for the majority population of any society (Jamil, 2020a; Matsaganis et al., 2011). It is disseminated by the leading distribution channels as well as delivers news and

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information to a larger set of population at a time. In other words, one can say that mainstream news media is the major source of news consumption by news consumers in any society, and it is considered as a trusted and reliable source of information (Tsfati, 2010). Ethnic news media differs from the mainstream news media as it does not provide information to the large amount of people, rather it focuses on news content relevant to specific communities belonging to diverse racial, ethnic and linguistic groups. In terms of content, mainstream news media generally reflects and represents the voices of majority and thus it is opined that it often ignores the issues of minority ethnic groups (Jamil, 2020a; Holt et al., 2019). Moreover, scholars have used different terms to define ethnic media such as minority media, immigrant media, diasporic media and community media. However, it is important to look at subtle differences in these descriptions and how these terms are understood in different contexts reflecting ethnicity or racial based variations among people across the world. The term minority media is common in countries where people are not distinguished based on their ethnicity or racial background. For example, in France, people are just identified as citizens and non-citizens. Therefore, the media produced for smaller proportion of the French society is termed as minority media (Husband, 2006; Riggins, 1992). The term minority, in some countries, also suggests variance in which one ethnic community or group is compared against another ethnic group. Quite often, in the global North, minorities are considered as non-White population, while the main group and assumed majority is identified as White (Cormack & Hourigan, 2007). Some scholars choose to use the term ethnic minority media, because they study media produced for a specific ethnic group but, more explicitly, they look into the roles these media perform in the negotiation of minority-majority or minority-dominant group relations (Barclay & Liu, 2003; Larson, 2006). Some other scholars prefer to use term immigrant media because many ethnic news media outlets primarily focus on issues and topics related to immigrant population. Some prominent countries that host immigrant news media include the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the United States and Germany (Bleich et al., 2015; Kosnick, 2007). Noticeably, the concept of immigrant news media is limited given it does not include ethnic news media outlet catering to the needs of diverse ethnic native groups in many contexts. For example, in Australia, immigrant media does not cover issues of native indigenous population. Similarly, Black media has a long history in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

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However, content produced by immigrant news media is restrictive and certainly does not cover racially and ethnically diverse population in these large multicultural societies (Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann, 2015). Notwithstanding its limited scope, immigrant media and news outlets are the key source for immigrants to get to know about their host country, which is helpful for their cultural adaptation (See also Kim, 1988). When looking at the term diaspora media, it does not align well with the notions of immigrant or ethnic media (Karim, 2003). The term diaspora derives its origin from the Greek language and it is ‘based on a translation of the Hebrew word, Galut. Based on speiro (to sow) and the preposition dia (over), in the Ancient Greece, the word referred to migration and colonization’ (Anteby-Yemini & Berthomière, 2005, p. 262). A diaspora involves movement of a big population from one or more places of origin. This is every so often related with distressing events, such as a genocide or exclusion of a specific ethnic group from any place. Scholars, in Social Science research, have started using the term diaspora in the era of 70s (Anteby-Yemini & Berthomière, 2005). Consequently, the concept of diaspora media developed to define news media outlets produced for and produced by migrants’ groups, who strive to maintain their ethnic values and cultural tradition (Brubaker, 2006; Durham, 2007; Georgiou, 2006; Karim & Al-Rawi, 2018; Ogunyemi, 2015; Shuval, 2003). Either in the global North or in the global South, news media outlets operated by Greek, Turks, Jewish, Indian and Chinese origin communities are prominently thriving these days. Many ethnic groups do not fit within the definition of a diaspora. Therefore, diasporic news media is too narrow in its scope to address the concerns and topics of diverse ethnic communities and people living at a particular place and in a community (Jessica & Tsagarousianou, 2019). This has led to the emergence of some more terms that helps to define ethnic news media as local media or community media. But it is important to remember that local and community media primarily focus on place or geographical location; and hence, these terms do not capture the ethnic focus of the media in question. This is very important, since ethnicity is the key motivation for the development, production and consumption of ethnic journalism (Jamil, 2020a).

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The Roles of Ethnic News Media Ethnic news media is at the heart of the routine journalistic practices that produce and renovate ethnic identity, culture and views of race (Cottle, 2000a, 2000b). Many mass media and journalism studies highlight the news media impacts on public opinion. People rely on the news media for information that can help them to keep themselves informed and to make rational decisions about their lives. This is particularly important in crises and conflict situations and when people need vital information about the events and incidents in their surroundings (Steven, 2015). The question is what specific role ethnic news media can perform both in times of crisis and otherwise? Since ethnic media aims to serve specific ethnic groups or communities, it can aware especially young people about their ethnic identity, specific community, its values and resources, and can also educate them subtler rules about appropriate behaviors for buttressing the community value system (Jeffres, 2000; Tufte, 2003; Yu, 2010). On the other hand, mainstream news media is less sensitive to the ongoing negotiation of ethnic identity, culture and race. Therefore, journalistic content from mainstream news media is less inclusive, suggesting the growing importance and role of ethnic news media (Smith, 2015). One good example of comparison between mainstream and ethnic news media is the Indian Americans’ use of ethnic media that is complex because of audiences’ critical responses to the news content while also appreciating their role in facilitating debate about hybrid ethnic identities in the United States (Aksoy & Robins, 2003). In this particular example, one of the reasons for involving with home-country’s media could be that the mainstream American portrayals of Indians continue to be stereotypical and exaggerated both positive and negative (Nijhawan, 2015; Shome, 1996). Given the relatively scarce representations of Indians in mainstream popular US media, ethnic media becomes a vital substitute space for diverse media representations for Indians. In the past decade, it is observed that the number of cable and satellite channels continues to grow to satisfy particular tastes (e.g., news-only channels, channels that broadcast historical documentaries exclusively, sports channels, channels with only children’s programs), indicating that the audience is becoming more and more segmented across the globe. In the global South, there are many countries that have experienced the

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growth of ethnic news media that is disseminated through cable channels, especially in countries like Pakistan (Jamil, 2020a); India (Somani & Guo, 2017); and Bangladesh (See Yu & Matsaganis, 2019). The less inclusive nature of mainstream news media, language barriers and a desire for stronger ethnic identity can be viewed as the key factors for the growth of ethnic news media in the global South. For instance, in Pakistan and India, a large proportion of population prefer to consume news through ethnic newspapers, television and radio news channels and online platforms that operate in local or ethnic languages (Jamil, 2020a). This wider population reach, in diverse languages, makes the roles performed by ethnic news media stronger. Sections below look at the different roles played by ethnic news media briefly. Ethnic News Media Contributes to Social Processes Ethnic news media contributes to broader social processes too, such as facilitation of the public participation (Deuze, 2006); and their dialogue about identity, ethnicity and citizenship of a country (Viswanath & Arora, 2009; Yu, 2017). In addition, ethnic news media also takes part in policy discussions affecting ethnic communities by highlighting their concerns and resolving their issues (Gerson & Rodriguez, 2018). Ethnic News Media as a Mobilizer Ethnic news media offers freshly arrived immigrants as well as people belonging to specific ethnic communities a sort of social gauge. They provide an understanding of the existing relationship between the ethnic community and the wider society. Ethnic news media is vital because it pinpoints the matters of dispute or disagreement between diverse ethnic communities, and it provides a collective platform for the ethnic communities to dialogue about the issues and solutions with mutual consensus and agreed course of action. In this way, ethnic media journalists serve as mobilizers in not only conflict situations but many other situations that require public dialogue for broader societal benefit (Yu & Matsaganis, 2019). Ethnic News Media as the Facilitator of Social Change Ethnic news media provides people awareness and insights into changes that are taking place around them (Lazarte-Morales, 2012). In many

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ways, ethnic journalists are more active to address community-specific issues that needs mutual societal effort to bring about change. For example, Karokari or honor killing, is very common in Pakistan’s Sindh province. While the country’s mainstream news media does highlight this issue, Sindhi-language newspapers and television news channels have performed a major role to create social awareness around this issue and to facilitate change within the Pakistani society (Jamil, 2020a). Ethnic News Media as the Transformer of Media Ecologies and Market In the past two decades, changes in population diversity in different regions of the world, have formed space for many ethnic news media outlets to grow into major and cost-effective businesses. Their successes have stimulated mainstream news media, marketers and advertisers to research readers and viewers from diverse ethnic origins and backgrounds (Budarick & Han, 2017). New market strategies have been created by these news outlets to attract diverse ethnic groups and communities that are often under-represented and ignored by mainstream news media. Moreover, advancement in information and communication technologies and news organizations owners’ commercial joint ventures have resulted in the establishments of numerous transnational ethnic media corporations and satellite-based ethnic broadcast channels across the globe. Consequently, the rise of this type of media operation has transformed the way we view the media ecologies. Particularly, in the global South, the Indian news media is a prominent example that explains how penetration of ICT infrastructure and news organizations’ investments for ethnic newspapers, radio and television channels have increased ethnic audiences both online and offline. Interestingly, thanks to technological advancements, ethnic news media’s reach is not just confined to one specific country and it is no longer constrained by national borders.

Conclusion The steady growth in ethnic news organizations worldwide suggests that ethnic minority communities would no longer live in isolation and their voices would be heard, no matter under-represented by mainstream news media (Luther et al., 2018). It is now recognized that ethnic news organizations are real competitors in the mainstream media markets, suggesting

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that ethnic journalism practice will continue to thrive, especially in the global South. Additionally, though both mainstream and ethnic news media are growing as competitors in many media landscapes of the global South (such as India and Pakistan), there is room and strong reasons for their partnerships with each other. Out of such alliances, ethnic news media may, for instance, gain access to resources they do not have to produce and disseminate journalistic content (e.g., investments in new productions and distribution, online collaborative ventures). For the mainstream news media, developing partnerships with ethnic news media provides an explicit view of different aspects of society they have not been able to access and represent. The co-presence of ethnic and mainstream news media in our communication environment is critical for individual citizens and society as a whole. Developing societies, in the global South, need to be able to view themselves through produced journalistic content and reflect on the transformations they are experiencing because of globalization and increasing population diversity. Furthermore, we need to acknowledge that a rich and ethnically diverse news media landscape helps us better understand and form bonds with each other, despite and eventually because we are all not the same. Thus, having a clear understanding of ethnic journalistic practices is much needed than ever before.

References Aksoy, A., & Robins, K. (2003). The Enlargement of Meaning Social Demand in a Transnational Context. Gazette, 65(4/5), 365–388. Anteby-Yemini, L., & Berthomière, W. (2005). Diaspora: A Look Back on a Concept. https://journals.openedition.org/bcrfj/257 Barclay, K., & Liu, J. (2003). Who Gets Voice? (Re)presentation of Bicultural Relations in New Zealand Print Media. New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 32(1), 3–12. Bleich, E., Bloemraad, I., & de Graauw, E. (2015). Migrants, Minorities, and the Media: Information, Representations, and Participation in the Public Sphere. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 41(6), 857–873. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/1369183X.2014.1002197 Brubaker, R. (2006). The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28(1), 1–19. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/ 0141987042000289997? Budarick, J., & Han, G. (2017). Minorities and Media: Producers, Industries, Audiences. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Cormack, M., & Hourigan, N. (2007). Minority Language Media: Concepts, Critiques and Case Studies. Multilingual Matters. Cottle, S. (2000a). Ethnic Minorities and the Media: Changing Cultural Boundaries. Open University Press. Cottle, S. (2000b). Introduction Media Research and Ethnic Minorities. Mapping the Field. In S.  Cottle (Ed.), Ethnic Minorities and the Media: Changing Cultural Boundaries (pp. 1–30). Open University Press. Deuze, M. (2006). Ethnic Media, Community Media and Participatory Culture. Journalism, 7(3), 262–280. Durham, M. (2007). Constructing the “New Ethnicities”: Media, Sexuality, and Diaspora Identity in the Lives of South Asian Immigrant Girls. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 21(2), 140–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 07393180410001688047 Erlandsen, M. (2019). Ethnic Media in the Digital Age. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2019.1587783 Georgiou, M. (2006). Diasporic Media Across Europe: Multicultural Societies and the Universalism–Particularism Continuum. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 31(3), 481–498. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830500058794 Gerson, D., & Rodriguez, C. (2018). Going Forward: How Ethnic and Mainstream Media Can Collaborate in Changing Communities. https://www. americanpressinstitute.org/publications/repor ts/strategy-­s tudies/ ethnic-­and-­mainstream-­media-­collaborations-­in-­changing-­communities/ Gulf News. (2018). Census: More than 19,500 Languages Spoken in India as Mother Tongues (published online, July 1, 2018). https://gulfnews.com/ world/asia/india/census-­more-­than-­19500-­languages-­spoken-­in-­india-­as-­ mother-­tongues-­1.2244791 Holt, K., Figenschou, T., & Frischlich, L. (2019). Key Dimensions of Alternative News Media. Digital Journalism, 7(7), 860–869. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 21670811.2019.1625715 Husband, C. (2006). Minority Ethnic Media as Communities of Practice: Professionalism and Identity Politics in Interaction. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 31(3), 461–479. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13691830500058802 Jamil, S. (2019). Increasing Accountability Using Data Journalism: Challenges for the Pakistani Journalists. Journalism Practice (published online first on December 4, 2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2019.1697956 Jamil, S. (2020a). Ethnic News Media in the Digital Age: The Impact of Technological Convergence in Reshaping Journalists’ Practices in Pakistan. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 15(2), 219–239. https://doi.org/10.108 0/17447143.2020.1756305 Jamil, S. (2020b). Artificial Intelligence and Journalistic Practice: The Crossroads of Obstacles and Opportunities for the Pakistani Journalists. Journalism

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Practice (published online first on July 7, 2020). https://doi.org/10.108 0/17512786.2020.1788412 Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann, A. D. (2015). The Polish Hearst: Ameryka-Echo and the Public Role of the Immigrant Press. University of Illinois Press. Jeffres, L. (2000). Ethnicity and Ethnic Media Use: A Panel Study. Communication Research, 27(4), 496–535. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365000027004004 Jessica, R., & Tsagarousianou, R. (2019). The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture. John Wiley & Sons. Karim, K. (2003). The Media of Diaspora. Routledge. Karim, K., & Al-Rawi, A. (2018). Diaspora and Media in Europe: Migration, Identity, and Integration. Palgrave Macmillan. Kim, Y. Y. (1988). Communication and Cross-Cultural Adaptation: An Integrative Theory. Multilingual Matters. Kosnick, K. (2007). Migrant Media: Turkish Broadcasting and Multicultural Politics in Berlin. Indiana University Press. Larson, S. (2006). Media & Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment. Rowman & Littlefield. Lazarte-Morales, A. (2012). Ethnic Journalism. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ doi/10.1002/9781405186407.wbiece036.pub2 Luther, C., Lepre, C., & Clark, N. (2018). Diversity in U.S. Mass Media. Wiley Blackwell. Matsaganis, M.  D., Katz, V.  S., & Ball-Rokeach, S.  J. (2011). Understanding Ethnic Media Producers, Consumers, and Societies. Sage. Nijhawan, A. (2015). Mindy Calling: Size, Beauty, Race in The Mindy Project. M/C Journal, 18(3) http://www.journal.media-­culture.org.au/index.php/ mcjournal/article/view/938 Ogunyemi, O. (2015). Introduction: Conceptualizing the Media of Diaspora. In O. Ogunyemi (Ed.), Journalism, Audiences and Diaspora. Palgrave Macmillan. Riggins, S. (1992). Ethnic Minority Media: An International Perspective. Sage Publications. Shome, R. (1996). Race and Popular Cinema: The Rhetorical Strategies of Whiteness in City of Joy. Communication Quarterly, 44(4), 502–518. Shuval, J. (2003). The Dynamics of Diaspora: Theoretical Implications of Ambiguous Concepts. In R. Münz & R. Ohliger (Eds.), Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants: Germany, Israel and Russia in Comparative Perspective. Frank Cass. Smith, P. (2015). New Zealand Passport Holder Versus New Zealander? The Marginalization of Ethnic Minorities in the News – A New Zealand Case Study. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/56365081.pdf Somani, I., & Guo, J. (2017). Seeing Indian, Being Indian: Diaspora, Identity, and Ethnic Media. Howard Journal of Communication, 29(1), 63–82. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2017.1327376

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Steven, G. (2015). Impact of Communication and the Media on Ethnic Conflict. IGI Global. Tsfati, Y. (2010). Online News Exposure and Trust in the Mainstream Media: Exploring Possible Associations. American Behavioral Scientist, 54(1), 22–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764210376309 Tufte, T. (2003). Minority Youth, Media Uses and Identity Struggle. The Role of the Media in the Production of Locality. In T.  Tufte (Ed.), Medierna, minoriterne og det multikulturelle samfund. Skandinaviske perspektiver (pp. 181–198). Göteborgs universitet: Nordicom. Viswanath, K., & Arora, P. (2009). Ethnic Media in the United States: An Essay on Their Role in Integration, Assimilation, and Social Control. Mass Communication & Society, 3(1), 39–56. Yu, S. (2010). Identity Construction of the Chinese Diaspora, Ethnic Media Use, Community Formation, and the Possibility of Social Activism. Continuum, 19(1), 55–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/1030431052000336298 Yu, S. (2017). Ethnic Media as Communities of Practice: The Cultural and Institutional Identities. Journalism, 18(10), 1309–1326. https://doi. org/10.1177/1464884916667133 Yu, S., & Matsaganis, M. (2019). Ethnic Media in the Digital Age. Routledge.

CHAPTER 3

Journalism Education and Ethnic Journalism in Ghana: The Case Study of Ghana Institute of Journalism and University of Education, Winneba Gifty Appiah-Adjei

Introduction There is a worldwide increase in university-related journalism education, and this has resulted in the formalisation, standardisation and professionalisation of journalism education globally (Deuze, 2006; Goodman, 2017; Josephi, 2010; Obijiofor & Hanusch, 2011). Journalism education is an outstanding “potential agent of change” (Josephi, 2010, p.  259). Therefore, homogeneity in journalism training (Josephi, 2010) ensures uniformity in one of its key elements: “laying the foundation for the attitudes and knowledge of future journalists” (p. 42). This aligns with the assertion by Gaunt (1992) that “[j]ournalism training perpetuates or

G. Appiah-Adjei (*) Department of Journalism and Media Studies, School of Communication and Media Studies, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_3

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modifies professional practices and moulds the perceptions journalists have of the role and function of the media” (p. 1). To UNESCO (2007, p. 5), “journalism, and the educational programmes that enable individuals to practice and upgrade their journalistic skills, are essential tools for the underpinning of key democratic principles that are fundamental to the development of every country”. In the midst of the preceding, debates on a mismatch between the focus of journalism training and the needs and challenges of the industry persist in journalism education literature. One aspect of such debates is that journalism education is seen as training for and a remedial to journalism. Such debates place journalism education in a think-tank position for the industry. Studies (especially outside Africa) have established that journalism education is responding to the changes and needs in the industry (Mensing, 2011; Robinson, 2013). With regard to the focus of this study, the journalism curriculum is responding to the importance of ethnic journalism in societies because scholars are giving attention to the phenomenon. For instance, Hernandez (2010, para 3) posits that in the United States, “schools, such as California State University, Northridge, sanction student-written ethnic publications” while the “University of Georgia and Louisiana State University, among others, host events for ethnic media reporters”. However, another side of the debate is that journalism education is unable to meet the needs and challenges of the industry. Professionals in the industry have “often viewed journalism education as overly theoretical and impractical” due to the assumption that it does not cognise the needs of the industry (Wall, 2017, p. 327). For instance, Deuze (2006) has also raised concerns about the promotion of “a product-oriented teaching culture instead of a process-focused learning culture”, which results in students for industry-related jobs than learners with critical thinking skills that can positively change society (p. 30). In Africa in general and Ghana in particular, the expansion of university-­ related journalism education has not contributed much to the improvement of journalism practices (Steyn & de Beer, 2004), even though Obijiofor and Hanusch (2011) posit that the focus of journalism education is on how to train students to impact society. Intellectual resource of journalism education is not much appreciated by some critical actors of the African media industry. This and other factors that have led to a situation where journalism education in Africa is unable to become the think-­ tank for the industry, unlike other professions (like Law). Steyn and de

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Beer (2004), therefore, avow that expansion of journalism education in Africa should transform the industry’s institutional and organisational culture to ensure real change. One of the needed transformations in journalism education in Africa, especially Ghana, pertains to ethnic journalism. According to Afrifa et al. (2019, p. 418), “Ghana is a highly multilingual society”. To Simons and Fennig (2018), the total number of ethnic languages in Ghana is 81, yet the English language remains significant in the media landscape of the country “because it is the official language of the country and the language of power and privilege” (Gadzekpo et al., 2020, p. 7). Unfortunately, the majority of its masses are not literate so far as the official language is concerned. The preceding establishes the relevance of ethnic media in Ghana because it prevents marginalisation of the masses and strengthens participatory democracy. Thus, it ensures the masses who are not literate in English language or the major ethnic languages have access to and share their opinions on political, economic and social developments in the country even if the mainstream media fails to broadcast their stories in their languages. This conforms to the claim by Ojebode (2013, p.  21) that ethnic media “remain important in the search for democracy and development in Africa” because they “remain the grassroots media that can support, and even, engineer grassroots participation”. Though the number of local-language media outlets in Ghana outnumber the English-language media organisation (National Communication Authority, 2018), preference for western-styled journalism practices is the norm in the country (Gadzekpo et al., 2020). As a result, news stories for local-language electronic media organisations are translated from scripts in the English language to the local-language extempore (Heath, 2001; Opare-Henaku, 2016). It is important to note that this situation has led to the evolution of a culturally rooted style of presenting media content to an audience that is “more accommodating of indigenous forms of communication and information sharing” and distinct from the western-styled journalism practices (Gadzekpo et al., 2020, p. 7). Thus, traditional forms of orature like anecdotes, euphemisms, humour, hyperbole, proverbs, among others are infused into media content from ethnic media organisations. These culturally rooted styles of distribution of media content attract audiences to the local media organisations (Boachi, 2010). Unfortunately, it affects journalism’s cannons of objectivity and accuracy in media production because there have been instances of unprofessional acts like sensationalisation in the process of translating the media content

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from English to the local language or using proverbs, idioms and other forms of orature in the presentation of media content. The preceding justifies the need for journalism education and research to pay attention to ethnic journalism in Ghana. This chapter, therefore, seeks to examine how journalism institutions in Ghana are integrating ethnic journalism into their curricula to facilitate the development of ethnic journalism in Ghana. Specifically, it seeks to examine the relevance of ethnic journalism to the media industry in Ghana, to determine whether journalism education in the country is facilitating the development of ethnic journalism and to investigate if the existing journalism curriculum needs modification so far as ethnic journalism is concerned. This is because journalism education is underpinned with the “intent of modifying practice, enriching the quality of information produced and, with the help of this quality journalism, achieving improvement in the workings of civil society” (Josephi, 2009, p. 43). The History and Landscape of Ethnic Media in Ghana To Salawu (2016), the origin of ethnic media in Africa is associated with Christian missionaries. They established ethnic media for evangelical purposes (Anyidoho, 2016) because the “missionaries knew that the only way they could effectively diffuse the beliefs and tenets of their religions among the natives was to communicate with them in indigenous languages” (Salawu, 2016, p. 13). However, it also played a crucial role in the struggle for the independence of many African countries because it enabled African politicians to use ethnic media as tools to communicate to galvanise support for the fight effectively. Ethnic journalism has been in co-existence with journalism in the English language since Ghana’s pre-independence era. During this era, ethnic media, in the form of indigenous newspapers, were used either to supplement adult literacy of Ghanaian languages or as a professional source of news (Anyidoho, 2016). Mention can be made of the launch of Asenta (News) in 1935, Amansoun (All Nations) in 1943 among others. Privately owned and state-owned indigenous newspapers were conventional in the country. However, Graphic Nsempa, an indigenous newspaper which was published by Graphic Communications Group under the Fourth Republic of Ghana, is now defunct. With regard to the electronic media, radio was introduced into Ghana in 1935 by the colonial administrators. Only the state-owned electronic

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organisations existed in the country and the “state-controlled radio ceded limited airtime to programmes in  local languages because the colonial intent was to use radio to perpetuate imperial privilege, not popular participation” (Gadzekpo et al., 2020, p. 5). The number of indigenous languages in broadcast increased to 15 in the 1960s because Nkrumah was of the view that the indigenisation of Ghana’s electronic media was critical to the consolidation of the new Ghana. However, none of these were ethnic media but public service media. The liberalisation of the airwaves, under the Fourth Republic, permitted the proliferation of mainstream and ethnic electronic media in Ghana. The concept of community radio was first introduced in 1995 when “when Radio Ada, Radio Progress and Radio Peace submitted applications for broadcast frequencies to the then Ghana Frequency Registration and Control Board (GFRCB)” (Faisal & Alhassan, 2018, p. 88). Radio Progress was the first community radio to start broadcasting on 17 February 1997, and they produced content in Dagaare, one of the ethnic languages in Northern Ghana. Radio Ada also started broadcasting on 1 February 1998 at Ada in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. They also produce content in Ga Dangme. Then Radio Peace in Winneba, the Central Region of Ghana also commenced broadcast in Fanti and Efutu languages on the first of September, 1999. These three media organisations are the pioneers of ethnic radio in Ghana. Available statistics have indicated that there are 71 community radio stations in Ghana (National Communication Authority, 2018). Most of these outlets enjoy high patronage from the audience because a study by Afrobarometer revealed that in Ghana, 56% of sampled respondents listen to radio every day (Isbell & Appiah-Nyamekye, 2018). In Ghana, ethnic broadcast media has fared better than ethnic print even though both have been competing with English-language media outlets (Adedeji, 2015). Indigenous newspapers have been in existence in Ghana since the pre-independence era (Anyidoho, 2016) but they have not been able to thrive in the media landscape to date like the English-­ language print media (Adedeji, 2015; Salawu, 2006). This is due to the dominance of English-language newspapers, lack of funding for the cost of operations and training of journalists for ethnic media (Adedeji, 2015; Anyidoho, 2016). On the other hand, indigenous radio organisations have become proliferated and popular in Ghana (Adedeji, 2015) after the liberalisation of the airwaves under the Fourth Republic. This conforms to

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the claim by Salawu (2006) that the ethnic broadcast media in Africa fare better than its print counterpart because the African culture is oral. Perspectives on Journalism Education and Ethnic Journalism in Ghana The preference for western models of journalism training and the dearth of guiding Afro-centric frameworks have characterised communication education in Africa (Coker, 2018). As a result, journalism education “is heavily dependent on western scholarship” like many professional communication programmes in Africa (Coker, 2018, p. 137) and communication education has been described as conflicting with the epistemologies and ontologies that are unique to Africa (Boafo & Wete, 2002; Skjerdal, 2012). Unfortunately, African communication education has not succeeded in developing African-based models even though the dependence on western education has been criticised by African scholars (Coker, 2018). Besides, it has been noted that the indigenous language is not given priority in the journalism curriculum of most African countries but English langauge is mandatory for all tertiary students in Nigeria (Salawu, 2017). Also in Ghana, a good pass in English language is one of the key entry requirement to the university and some brilliant students who fail in English language have been denied access to university education even when they do well in an indigenous language. Hence, James (1990) argues that western journalism education may not always be beneficial to the development in Africa; therefore, the need to desist from copying it blindly. Though some attempts have been made in this regard, the desired expectations. The National Universities Commission in Nigeria demands that the journalism/mass communication curriculum for Nigerian universities should encompass a course in African indigenous communications systems (Salawu, 2008). Also, some universities in Nigeria and South Africa, according to Salawu (2017), have pedagogy in African-language media. A suggested syllabus for the teaching of indigenous-language journalism (Salawu, 2007) was used in 2007/2008 academic year to teach students at Ajayi Crowther University in the Oyo State in Nigeria (Salawu, 2017). The suggested syllabus has also been adopted by the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa “for a probable teaching of a similar course” (Salawu, 2017, p.  199). Unfortunately, such attempts have not attained the expected outcome in

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Nigeria because Salawu (2017) posits that the course which was previously a compulsory course for all third year students at the undergraduate level in Ajayi Crowther University has “eventually become a an elective, resulting in a marked drop in enrolments” (p. 199). In Ghana, journalism education started in February 1959, when Kwame Nkrumah established the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) (Boafo, 1988). Nkrumah anchored the establishment of GIJ on the need to provide the needed ideological and professional training of journalists who will play a pivotal role in the liberation of the African continent from colonialism (Boafo, 1988). Later on, the School of Communication Studies was also established. Courses taught by these institutions included print and broadcast journalism, mass communication, communication research methods and public relations/advertising. Currently, there is a massive explosion of communication training institutions in Ghana (Coker, 2018). There are accredited public and private communication institutions like GIJ and African University College of Communications, respectively. Also, there are Communication Departments in most of the accredited public and private universities in the country. These institutions run full-time undergraduate and post-graduate programmes as well as the weekend, sandwich and top-up programmes in journalism. Like other countries in Africa, Ghana has not been immune to the challenges of confronting communication education in Africa. Boafo (1998, p. 70) posits that communication education in Ghana failed to anchor its curricula on “specially recognised state policy [that is] integrated into national development planning” after Nkrumah’s overthrow. Also, dependence on western models persist in communication education in Ghana. For instance, upon examining the trending approaches to communication theories and methods of inquiry in Ghana, Ansu-Kyeremeh (2014) advocates the integration of the African ontologies, epistemologies and hermeneutics into communication education in Ghana. Besides, James (1990) avers that the quality of language education students in communication institutions in Africa—and in Ghana—are exposed to needs to be reconsidered. The author further adds that an examination of the syllabuses of communication schools reveals that much of the language proficiency of journalists is invariably left to general studies programs and writing skills and allowed to blossom through the writing of news and feature articles for the schools’ newspapers or magazines which are issued at predetermined intervals. (p. 10)

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An examination of the syllabi of communication education in Ghana affirms this assertion. Also, the focus is often on competence in the English language than in the indigenous languages. It must be noted that other courses that relate to ethnic cultures are taught. For instance, courses like African Studies, Liberal Studies, and Media and Society, which have some topics relating to ethnicity and the Ghanaian culture, are offered in the universities. Hence, there is the need for communication education in Ghana to not only aim at improving the indigenous-language competence of students to master issues with register, style, structure and tone, but also encourage students’ proficiency in local languages. Effective teaching of ethnic journalism in the Ghanaian universities also depends on the pedagogy employed. In this regard, insights from the engagement theory need to be considered. The engagement theory is on the premise that students should be meaningfully engaged in learning activities to yield desirable outcomes. It focuses on the extent to which students are engaged in a range of educational activities. The Higher Education Funding Council of England has also defined engagement as the process whereby institutions and sector bodies make deliberate attempts to involve and empower students in the process of shaping the learning experience (Little et al., 2009). Based on these definitions, there is the indication that interaction is pivotal to engagement and successful learning (Joo et al., 2014). Finn and Zimmer (2012) aver that engagement does not only increase learning but minimises educational risks like dropout because students’ participation in the engagement process is a form of investments in learning activities. Three basic principles that relate to the engagement theory are related, created and donated. These principles increase students’ collaborations and interactions as they engage in group interactions to enable them to develop rapport and relationships; control how assigned tasks are carried out; and contribute towards completing the assigned task. McConnell (2006) avows that students can master information, develop reasoning and transfer knowledge through collaborative groups. Swan (2002) indicates that higher peer interaction results in higher levels of learning because the sense of connectedness that develops from peer interaction encourages students to share their experiences and contribute more on a group project. Though “technology can facilitate engagement in ways which are difficult to achieve otherwise”, it must be noted that “in principle, engagement could occur without the use of technology” (Kearsley & Shneiderman,

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1998, p. 20). This is because the “fundamental idea underlying engagement theory is that students must be meaningfully engaged in learning activities through interaction with others and worthwhile tasks” (p. 20). This approach to teaching ensures shared activities in the classroom because instructors encourage learners to engage, interact and collaborate more while they (instructors) assume a supportive role. In this chapter, the theory allows for the examination of how ethnic journalism is taught in journalism schools in Ghana. It suggests one of the effective ways of teaching ethnic journalism. This allows the researcher to determine how ethnic journalism is integrated into journalism training in Ghana. Ethnic Journalism and Its Relevance in Ghana To Matsaganis et al. (2011), ethnic journalism is concerned with the production of media content for ethnic and linguistic minorities and indigenous populations in the country. However, ethnic journalism has been conceptualised and defined differently around the world. It is used interchangeably with terms like minority media, community media, immigrant media, local media and diasporic media in the literature (Matsaganis et al., 2011). For a definition that caters for the variants of ethnic media, the authors outline eight characteristics of ethnic media that can be uniquely combined to suits different contexts. These are the producers, the funders, the size of the organisation, its location, the target audience, the language used, the focus of the content and the medium of distribution. Based on the characteristics by Matsaganis et  al. (2011), it can be argued that ethnic journalism in Ghana fits into the type of media that is commonly referred to as community media. This is because they are small media organisations that are usually located within the ethnic communities. Members produce their contents within the community in their ethnic languages for the audience within the same community. Also, these organisations are funded by members within the community (and sometimes donor agencies), and they distribute through independent electronic media. For instance, funding from UNESCO contributed to the establishment and operations of Radio Ada, Radio Velvet, Radio Peace, Radio Builsa among others. In Ghana, minor ethnic communities depend on community media to have the voice to speak to issues of concern at the community and national levels (Faisal & Alhassan, 2018). Most community media outlets in Ghana

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have affiliations with some mainstream media organisations, hence, the main bulletin and popular programmes of such mainstream outlets are also transmitted concurrently by community media organisations. During the phone-in segments, the community members are also allowed to call and express their views on the national issues being broadcasted by the mainstream organisations via the community media. Sometimes, community media gives more meaning to decentralisation and local governance because they sometimes call and interview local authorities to explain some government policies of concern to the audience. Also, the community members have the opportunity to make key inputs on the programming and programmes of the community radio stations. In Northern Ghana, for instance, communities listening to Simli Radio have formed listening clubs which track and evaluate the programmes from the stations so that they make inputs on which programmes or aspects of programmes that should be changed or maintained. Aside from the preceding, education from the programmes aired on community radio stations also educate and improve the livelihoods of their audiences. For instance, the School for Life literacy programmes on Simli Radio have enlightened the youth in the listening communities on the dangers they are likely to encounter—becoming victims of prostitution, drug abuse among others—when they migrate to urban centres to seek better opportunities, hence, the trend of unplanned migration to the cities has reduced. Also in Winneba, experts from Fisheries Commission and Agriculture Extension Services are invited by Radio Peace to use their platform to educate the community members (whose main occupation are fishing and farming) on modern and better fishing and farming practices that produce better yields. Ethnic media plays a critical role in ensuring that indigenes and ethnic and linguistic minorities exercise their rights as citizens of a country (Rigoni, 2003). This is because ethnic media does not only promote the community rights and manage the collective action of the indigenes and the ethnic and linguistic minorities (Shi, 2009), but also serves as an information source, a mobilising force and indicators of social change (Matsaganis et al., 2011; Rigoni & Saitta, 2012). In Africa, ethnic media has facilitated development and participation in minor ethnic communities (Ojebode, 2013). Thus, ethnic media disseminates media content in languages other than English, so they play the critical function of providing information in native language on the rights, services as well as the

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political, economic and social developments in the regional and national contexts for ethnic and linguistic minorities. To address issues about ethnic diversity, universities are modifying their curricula (Matsaganis et al., 2011). Citing Matsaganis et al. (2011) avow that university faculty around the country are rethinking and changing their curricula to address issues about ethnic diversity. Instructors are participating in programs to learn how to create more inclusive classrooms and how to tailor the content they teach to the needs of an ethnically diverse student body” (p. 20). They further add that a “recent survey conducted by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) yielded a database consisting of approximately 460 scholars, researchers, and investigators of diversity issues in media and mass communication courses in U.S. colleges and universities” (p. 20). Therefore, there is a need for journalism institutions in Ghana to do the same. This is because ethnic media affords minor ethnic groups the mechanism that does not only facilitate participatory democracy but also plays a vital role in promoting rural development at the grassroots level (Ojebode, 2013). Thus, the ethnic media platform enables members of minority ethnic groups to create their content and to share their opinions and experiences on issues of national interest. Also, the focus of their programming addresses issues that enhance the livelihoods of their audience.

Materials and Methods This study employed the qualitative approach because it permits a more detailed and in-depth engagement with the subjects under study (Brennen, 2017) to gather and work with non-numerical data on the issue under investigation. This enabled the researcher to interpret the phenomenon through the meanings subjects of the study ascribe to that phenomenon based on their experiences, expertise and perspectives (Creswell, 2014). Also, the study employed a case study design. This allowed the researcher to gather corroborated data from multiple methods to gain insights into the integration of ethnic journalism in journalism education in Ghana. The approach and design enable the researcher to triangulate gathered data. Data triangulation ensured that data from different sources were cross-checked to enable the researcher assess the validity of data gathered in all the phases of the study (Patton as cited in Hayashi et al., 2019).

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Multiple methods—FGDs, document analysis and in-depth interviews—were used as data collection methods via virtual mode. FGDs were carried out to solicit for the perspectives of undergraduate and post-­ graduate students on the issue under investigation. A document analysis of journalism course outlines was carried out to affirm or refute the FGD findings. Afterwards, in-depth interviews were employed to probe for more data on the issue under investigation. For the online FGDs, two focus groups consisting of 11 informants—5 for the undergraduate group and 6 for the post-graduate group—were purposively selected and used to conduct two sessions (one session per group) on the issue under investigation. The first session consisted of purposively selected Level 400 students of full-time and weekend undergraduate journalism programme at Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) while the second session were post-graduate students from both GIJ and University of Education, Winneba (UEW). The institutions were selected because they are the only accredited public universities that run full-time journalism programmes at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels. A moderator led each session, and averagely lasted for 25 minutes. Responses from the informants were thematically analysed. For confidentiality reasons, names of the first-session informants were replaced with U1 to U5 and that of the second session with P-G 1 to P-G 6. Triangulation of FGD findings necessitated the need to purposively examine the content of journalism course outlines in the universities. The course outlines for journalism programmes at the undergraduate and post-­ graduate levels in GIJ and UEW were examined to determine whether ethnic journalism was taught as a significant course or topic under other journalism courses. This phase of the study enabled the researcher to “corroborate findings across data sets and thus reduce the impact of potential biases that can exist in a single study” (Bowen, 2009, p. 28). The outcome of the FGDs and the document analysis informed the designing of an interview guide which was used to probe for more data from lecturers and practising journalist to explain outcomes of the FGDs and document analysis. Through purposive sampling, ten interviews with four journalism lecturers, six journalists with over five years of experience from leading local-language media organisations. Questions from the interview guide as well as follow-up questions were used when necessary. Averagely, each interview lasted for 25 minutes, and the interviews were recorded, transcribed and cleaned for analysis.

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The interview and FGD data were thematically analysed (Bowen, 2009). Using the objectives of this chapter as a guide, major thematic areas were deduced from the transcribed data collected from the FGDs and the interviews after identifying, analysing and categorising patterns within the data. In agreement with ethical standards, the consent of the participants was sought before the interviews, and the names of the interviewee were replaced with numbers due to the assurance of confidentiality. Due to the assurance of confidentiality to the interviewees, the names of participants are replaced with P1 to P10 in the study.

Findings and Discussion Relevance of Ethnic Journalism in Ghana Ethnic journalism is of much relevance in Ghana. All the participants of the two FGD sessions unanimously admitted to its importance. One of the reasons for this assertion was due to culture preservation. All the 11 informants agreed that ethnic journalism is pertinent because content from ethnic media focuses on the issues and way of life that are peculiar to a particular ethnic group. Therefore, it promotes and preserves the culture of the community they serve. This prevents the extinction of the unique and diverse cultures distinctive to the various ethnic groups even if the mainstream and significant ethnic media fail to project issues and culture of minor ethnic communities. For instance, informant U3 notes: Ethnic journalism is vital in our media landscape because it is the type of media that deal with the people, their traditions and culture. We know that culture can make one person distinct from another. Promoting ethnic media in our media landscape will help promote our culture and preserve our traditions. The media serve as an agent of socialisation; therefore, through the work of ethnic media, the norms, values and traditions of an ethnic group can be transferred to the younger ones. (U3)

Also, majority of the informants (9 out of 11) attributed the relevance of ethnic journalism in Ghana to its ability to inform and educate members of an ethnic community in a language that they can understand or relate to. For instance, an informant noted that the illiteracy rate was high in Ghana. Therefore, ethnic journalism was relevant in promoting better

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understanding among its target audience (P-G 1). Also, another informant discloses: I think ethnic journalism is relevant, especially in developing countries. We all know that journalism seeks to inform, educate, entertain and now to persuade—according to some scholars. To achieve them [stated objectives], language is critical. It is a key to a vehicle of communication. The media are also expected to aid in national development with their contents and other initiatives. Hence, in a country where multiple dialects are used, ethnic journalism becomes crucial in reaching out to the masses. (P-G 4)

Another theme under the relevance of ethnic journalism was ethnic representation in the media landscape. The informants noted that the media landscape had been dominated by the mainstream media, which produces content in English language or other major ethnic languages to the disadvantage of minor ethnic languages. Therefore, ethnic media ensures the inclusiveness of minor ethnic groups. For instance, an informant posits: Ethnic journalism is essential because it enhances ethnic representation and a sense of belongingness in the media. People from various ethnic groups may feel represented and have a sense of belongingness when various media content are presented in their local languages. (P-G 3)

The interview data affirmed the previous findings from the FGDs. All the journalists and the lecturers also approved that ethnic journalism was relevant. For instance, participant 8 notes: [O]f course, community journalism is essential in Ghana. It is the means for the marginalised to have access to the media and express their views. They also have the right to be informed and educated by the media, and that is the duty of community media.

Closely linked to the theme of ability to inform and educate adequately is contextualism of national issues. Thus, developmental or health issues of national interest, often in the English language, are re-organised and presented in the language of the ethnic communities to enable the target audience to appreciate the intended implications of such issues. Apart from outlining some of the findings from the FGDs (culture preservation, informative and educational roles), majority of the

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participants (6 out of 10) established that healthy audience participation was another justification for the relevance of ethnic media in Ghana, especially with regard to gender issues. It was also discovered from the interview data that ethnic journalism could ensure participation of the marginalised within the minor ethnic group. In this regard, another lecturer advances: Ethnic journalism is basically for the marginalised ethnic groups or communities. There is the likelihood that the patriarchal norms in our society will further add to the challenges of empowerment of women, disabled and children in such communities. With community, media comes the chance to gradually orient people in such a community to understand and appreciate the need to address the empowerment of the marginalised individuals. (Participant 7)

The above findings point to the relevance of ethnic media in serving the informational and educational needs of ethnic communities. This supports the assertion that ethnic media serves as an information source, a mobilising force and indicators of social change (Matsaganis et al., 2011; Rigoni & Saitta, 2012). Thus, dissemination of information in the ethnic language of the communities plays the critical function of providing information in the native language and educating them on the political, economic and social developments in the regional and national contexts. Though Matsaganis et al. (2011) also posit that “ethnic media can raise awareness about issues not addressed in mainstream media” and “can offer people who do not belong to the intended and ethnically defined audience insights into changes that are taking place around them” (p. 17), findings did not establish these assertions. This may be due to differences in settings. Teaching of Ethnic Journalism in Ghana Findings from the analysis of the FGD data on the teaching of Ethnic Journalism in the universities were mixed. While 4 out of 11 participants claimed that ethnic journalism was taught in their institutions, another four admitted that it was not taught and the remaining three were not forthcoming with their stance on this topic. Also, three out of the four averred that it was taught as part of a course (partial) while the remaining one noted that it was taught as a full course. An informant, for instance,

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declares that “I do not know about others, but I had a training in ethnic journalism as a course” (U2). Another informant from the undergraduate session noted that he “never had a course only dedicated to ethnic journalism”. He added that “although [he] had taken some courses that focused on ethnic media”. He avowed that “training in ethnic media was low” (U5). However, P-G 6 suggests: All my years in GIJ, I never took any course in or related to ethnic journalism. Local language users are sometimes bastardised as if it is evil. I do agree that though sometimes how issues are presented in the local dialect can be problematic, it is so because it is not taught. Nonetheless, it is relevant. (P-G, 6)

To affirm these assertions by the informants of the FGDs, contents of purposively selected course outlines for the journalism programmes were examined. Document analysis of the course outlines for the 2019/2020 academic year was carried for triangulation of FGD findings. The examination was to determine whether ethnic journalism was taught as a required course in the curriculum of the Journalism Departments of the universities. The review established that each institution offered 48 undergraduate and 10 post-graduate journalism courses. The credit load for each course is three hours. It also revealed that GIJ and UEW had two and six courses, respectively, that were essential to ethnic journalism. Data established that some courses had topics that relate to some aspects of ethnic journalism; therefore, students were indirectly taught about culture and ethnicity aspects of ethnic journalism. Such courses dominated in the curriculum of the universities than full courses on ethnic journalism. It was discovered that at GIJ, the undergraduate level had one full course on ethnic journalism (known as Community Journalism). All journalism students study this one-semester course at Level 300. The course aims at exposing the students to the rudiments of the principles of ethnic journalism as well as equip them with necessary skills of news writing and production, packaging and presentation in ethnic journalism. Another course is known as Media and Society is studied at Level 200 and it contains topics on Ghanaian culture. However, the post-graduate level at GIJ had no full course on ethnic journalism; neither did other courses had topics that focused on aspects of ethnic journalism. In the case of the UEW, ethnic journalism was not taught as a full course at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels. However, six

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courses (consisting of four courses at the undergraduate level and two courses at the post-graduate level) had topics that relate to culture and ethnicity aspects of ethnic journalism. Two undergraduate courses taught in the two semesters of Level 100, Indigenous Language I and Indigenous Language II, are designed to enable students to develop language competence in Twi. Some topics under African Studies (studied at Level 100) and Media and Society (studied at Level 300) also had topics that related to some aspects of ethnic journalism. For instance, the African Studies course had topics on the diverse and complex issues about and relating to Africa/Ghana and appropriate home-grown strategies to understand and solve these problems. The focus of the Media and Society Course is similar to that of GIJ. For the post-graduate level, two courses (Introduction to Broadcast Journalism, and Media and Society) also had topics that related to ethnic journalism. The Introduction to Broadcast Journalism course had a topic on traditions of broadcasting in Ghana and community broadcasting was one of the sub-topics. The focus of Media and Society is similar to that of the undergraduate, but it has a broader and more in-depth focus than the undergraduate course. The outcomes from the review of the course outline affirmed the claim that ethnic journalism was fully and partially taught in the universities, hence, affirmed findings that it was taught as a course or part of a course then refuted the claim that it was not taught. The interview data revealed that theory and practice were employed in the teaching of the Community Journalism course at GIJ. Both lecturers and resource persons teach the rudiments of the principles of ethnic journalism and the necessary skills of news writing and production, packaging and presentation in ethnic journalism. Also, through group project approach, students put the theoretical aspect of the course to practice by adopting minor communities and producing community newspaper. It must be noted, however, that contents of the newspapers are produced in the English language but not in ethnic languages. Further probe revealed that students produce the newspaper in the English language because a vast majority of them cannot write in their ethnic language and local languages are not taught at GIJ. Findings established that ethnic journalism is given some attention, but there is a need for more attention to be given to it at GIJ and UEW. This is because while it is taught as a full course in GIJ, the indigenous-­language component is lacking. However, the indigenous-language component is taught at UEW without equipping students with the rudiments of the

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principles of ethnic journalism and the necessary skills of news writing and production in ethnic journalism. There is the need for journalism education at GIJ and UEW to concurrently teach the indigenous-language aspect and the rudiments and skills of the principles of ethnic journalism. This is because Ansu-Kyeremeh (2014), argues that communication education should be situated in African ontologies, epistemologies and hermeneutics. Also, the teaching of Community Journalism at GIJ conforms to the relate, create and donate principles of the Engagement theory by Kearsley and Shneiderman (1998) due to the group project approach used. In addition, Salawu (2004) avows that the useage of the African indigenous language by the media plays a crucial role in the survival of the African languages (as cited in Salawu, 2017) so journalism curriculum must be tailored towards the training of the media practitioners to use the indigenous language (Salawu, 2017). Modification of Existing Journalism Education The outcome from the FGDs indicated that majority of the informants (9 out of 11) supported the modification of journalism curriculum to give more attention to the teaching of ethnic journalism in the universities, but the remaining two felt otherwise. The majority avowed that ethnic journalism should be taught as a full course because it will equip students “to tell their local stories in a more impactful manner” (U2). Another informant added: I support it 100% because that is the best way to go for the benefit of both the journalists and the audience. Much professional attention is given to journalism training in the English language, leaving the ethnic ones not attended to. Students need more training in ethnic media. (U3)

Another informant also admits: If we agree that ethnic journalism is relevant, then we need competency in it. Most of us speak our local dialects but are not literates in it. Ethnic journalism will allow local language experts to teach the proper way of communication in these languages to promote understanding. (P-G 1)

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However, two of the informants avowed that the journalism curriculum should not be reviewed because the existing model of training is enough. For instance, P-G 5 postulates: [I]t [ethnic journalism] does not require any specialised training. The current courses offered at various training institutions should be enough because ethic journalism is not entirely different from the demands of journalism as a whole. It is the language teachers who should look at the language aspect.

The interview data predominantly supported modification of the journalism curriculum. All the six participants from industry argued for the need for journalism education to offer training in ethnic journalism (especially those who will want to work in ethnic media organisations) because of the trend in the job market. This will equip them to write and present media content in ethnic languages. They added the principles and dynamics of local languages are different from the English language. For instance, a participant from the industry reports that the curriculum of journalism schools in Ghana should consider emerging trends. They should train students to meet the needs of the job market. According to NMC [National Media Commission of Ghana], about 70% of radio stations in Ghana broadcast in local languages. So, I believe journalism schools should tilt their training in this direction because there is a demand for such journalists in the job market. (Participant 3)

Another journalist mentions: Considering the role local media organisations play in Ghana, it is a big disappointment that journalism schools seem to have neglected training in ethnic journalism. The language dynamics and demands of ethnic journalism differ from the existing model of training even though most of the students they train will end up working with local language media organisations. They need to train their students to know these dynamics and demands. (Participant 7)

The lecturers also admitted to the need for modification. However, while the UEW lecturers supported the introduction of an ethnic journalism course, the GIJ lecturers also considered the modification from the

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indigenous-language competency angle. Hence, a lecturer from UEW perceives: The pervasiveness of ethnic journalism and its practice cannot be underrated as it caters for the communication needs of ethnic groups. Its practice, unlike mainstream journalism, centres on a particular group of people. Therefore, the culture, traditional practices, and perspectives of such groups should be understood and studied. It is, therefore, essential to find a place in journalism education for ethnic journalism. (Participant 8)

However, another lecturer from GIJ observes: We do train then in community journalism, so modifying our curriculum so far as ethnic journalism is concerned is not necessary. Maybe, we must look at indigenous language competency instead. However, the challenge is which ethnic language should be selected over others in a multi-linguistic classroom.

Another lecturer from GIJ also suggested that modification could be done via specialisation of the Ethnic Journalism course and the study of some foreign languages so that students who are interested in ethnic journalism will specialise. He also added that this would ensure that the media needs of minor ethnic communities as well as immigrant communities in Ghana will also be catered for. Unlike the mainstream media, the practice of ethnic journalism demands that journalists respond to the needs and expectations of the ethnic community (Matsaganis & Katz, 2014; Skjerdal, 2011). Therefore, there is a need for journalism training at GIJ and UEW in particular and Ghana, in general, to be tailored to meet such demands and expectations. It calls for community journalism model—one of the models of teaching journalism in Africa proposed by Skjerdal (2012). This model not only is rooted in the community and its core values, but also appreciates that journalists are members of the local community and that their professional identity is second to their communal identity. This can be possible if the local-language competency aspect of ethnic journalism is addressed by journalism education than general language programmes in the universities (James, 1990).

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Conclusion and Future Research Directions In conclusion, the chapter established that ethnic journalism is of much relevance in Ghana due to its ability to address the informational needs of the numerous ethnic communities in Ghana. It also ensures ethnic representation in the media landscape even when the mainstream media fails to give coverage to issues of interest to the minor ethnic communities. Besides, ethnic media preserves the unique culture of the minor ethnic groups in Ghana because it focuses on their peculiar needs and culture. This chapter also argued that journalism training at GIJ and UEW is giving some attention to ethnic journalism but it needs to give more attention to the teaching of ethnic journalism as a full course with a focus on both indigenous-language competence and the principles and necessary skills of news writing and production in ethnic journalism. This is because training from each institution is focusing on one aspect of the course at the expense of the other. GIJ equips students with the principles and news writing and production skills in ethnic journalism but falls short with regard to indigenous-language competence. UEW, on the other hand, focuses on indigenous-language competence and culture without equipping students with the principles and news writing and production skills. Hence, journalism education in the institutions needs modification so that ethnic journalism in Ghana can fully meet the informational needs of the ethnic and immigrant communities. Both components of the course should be taught by each institution. This study originates new paths for future research into journalism training and ethnic journalism in Ghana. Future research into the integration of ethnic journalism in private universities in Ghana is recommended. Also, a comprehensive audit of ethnic journalism and its related courses in all the journalism departments of the private and public universities in Ghana should be carried out to fully determine the extent journalism education in Ghana is integrating ethnic journalism in the journalism curriculum in Ghana. Other possible areas of research include, but not limited to the study of professional practices of ethnic media journalists, challenges facing ethnic media organisations, ethnic media for immigrants and transnational ethnic media organisations in Ghana.

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Shi, Y. (2009). Re-evaluating the ‘Alternative’ Role of Ethnic Media in the US: The Case of Chinese-language Press and Working-class Women Readers (p. 599). Sage Publications. Simons, G.  F., & Fennig, C.  D. (Eds.). (2018). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twenty-first Edition. SIL International. http://www.ethnologue.com Skjerdal, T.  S. (2011). Journalists or Activists? Self-identity in the Ethiopian Diaspora Online Community. Journalism, 12(6), 727–744. https://doi. org/10.1177/1464884911405471 Skjerdal, T. S. (2012). The Three Alternative Journalisms of Africa. International Communication Gazette, 74(7), 636–654. Steyn, E., & De Beer, A. S. (2004). The Level of Journalism Skills in South African Media: A Reason for Concern Within a Developing Democracy? Journalism Studies, 5(3), 387–397. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670042000246124 Swan, K. (2002). Building Learning Communities in Online Courses: The Importance of Interaction. Education, Communication & Information, 2(1), 23–49. UNESCO. (2007). Model Curricula for Journalism Education for Developing Countries & Emerging Democracies. UNESCO. Wall, M. (2017). Pop-up Newsroom: Liquid Journalism for the Next Generation. In R. S. Goodman & E. Steyn (Eds.), Global Journalism Education in the 21st Century Innovations and Challenges. Knight Center for Journalism.

CHAPTER 4

Mapping Ethnic Media in Egypt: An Examination of Counter-Publics, Reality, and Challenges Sara S. Elmaghraby

Introduction The Bedouins, the Nubians, and the Siwis are the three most significant ethnic minorities in Egypt. They have ongoing conflicts with the Egyptian government and have suffered from economic challenges such as inadequate housing and low wages, along with mis- and underrepresentation in the mainstream media throughout the years. Ethnic minorities in Egypt vary on several overlapping religious, lingual, tribal/nontribal, and geographical dimensions. They are numerically fewer as compared to the rest of the population (estimated between 5% and 0.3%); they are in a nondominant position, less powerful, and suffer unfavorable social conditions compared to the majority.

S. S. Elmaghraby (*) Faculty of Mass Communication, Journalism Department, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_4

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This chapter discusses the main features of ethnic media in Egypt by focusing on the production process, the content, and the dynamics that shape the ethnic minorities’ media in Egypt. The chapter examines the relation between ethnic media and the state, the economy, the journalistic profession, and civil society in Egypt. It also explores how ethnic minorities use their media to self-represent, to define their cultural and ethnic identity, to mobilize, to express their citizenship, and to produce content to communicate amongst themselves and with the surrounding community. The analysis of ethnic media in this book chapter is based on Habermas’ “public sphere” and Nancy Fraser’s “counter-publics” (Fraser, 1990). Some call the ethnic media in Egypt “Geo-ethnic” (goghrapheyaithneya) to refer to media produced by Nubians, Siwis, and Bedouins in Egypt as it serves residents of geographical communities and, therefore, becomes part of the residents’ communication ecologies (Matsaganis et al., 2011). This media could also be described as community media as it gives voice to the locals who otherwise cannot reach the big Cairo-based media and is strictly limited in circulation and broadcasting to the local community. This chapter focuses on three ethnic minorities. Bedouins, the largest minority group in Egypt, are Arabic-speaking Muslim nomads located in the Western and Eastern deserts and the Sinai Peninsula. The Egyptian media portray them as drug dealers, terrorists, spies, or smugglers (Ahmed, 2019). Bedouins have suffered from a long history of governmental neglect and, consequently, unemployment; substandard healthcare, education, and housing; extreme poverty, illiteracy, and economic and social exclusion. Nubians, residing in southern Aswan, have been Islamized and Arabized in religion and culture, although they traditionally speak the Nubian language, Nobiin. With no official statistics available on the Nubian population in Egypt, they are estimated to be around four million. Before the 1950s, Nubia had autonomy. Nevertheless, the construction of the Aswan High Dam flooded the Nubians’ residences. Approximately 50,000 Nubians were resettled by the government on new land and received financial support. The resettlement conditions led to the dissatisfaction of the Nubians who decided to abandon the government’s concrete-built homes to construct their villages building traditional homes. Although in 2014, the Egyptian Constitution guaranteed Nubians the “right to return” to their homelands, the government confiscated their historic

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lands for development and tourism, further displacing their population. To date, Nubians have led several protests for their right to return (Egypt Detains Nubians during a Peaceful, Singing Protest, 2017). Residing in the Siwa Oasis and the surrounding Oases of the Western Desert along the borders of Libya, Berbers or Siwis are still a tribal community. They maintain their style of governing as each tribe has its Sheikh who constitutes the Council of Elders that resolves the different tribal problems. Using thematic analysis of ethnic media outlets, and 10 semi-structured in-depth interviews, four main factors are analyzed: firstly, the managerial level of the ethnic media; secondly, their constraints and challenges; thirdly, their content; and fourthly, opinions of the ethnic media producers and local journalists. Three of the ethnic media news websites that have Facebook pages were analyzed during January–March 2020. A thematic analysis was conducted by the author with the aim of determining the main themes, actors and issues published in the sample.1

Counter-Public Sphere and Ethnic Media Based on Jurgen Habermas’ “public sphere” and Nancy Fraser’s “counter-­ publics” concepts, this chapter seeks to answer whether the ethnic media in Egypt generates a public sphere of resistance or dissent within Egypt’s sociopolitical reality. As suggested by Habermas (1962), a democracy needs a public sphere where modern societies interact, and civic discourse is enabled given freedom of media and opinion. Eley (1990) explains that the public sphere is a platform for competing political claims held by different publics, including various ethnic minorities. However, a single, overarching public sphere will ignore social complexity; hence, Fraser (1990) suggested a model of counter-public spheres with counter-­discourses that challenge the dominant public understanding of social issues. Applying this concept in Egypt, one could consider ethnic media as a counter-public that emerged within a dominant public sphere that excludes them. This counter-public reconnects with the communicative flows of 1  The Siwis ethnic media outlet Martuh Lana (Matruh is ours) ‫—انل حورطم‬Home, the Nubian ethnic media outlet Sout Al Nuba (Voice of Nubia) https://www.facebook.com/ sot.elnoba/, and the Bedouins’ NabdSainaa (The Pulse of Sinai) https://www.facebook. com/groups/nabdsinai/.

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multiple public spheres and resists sidelining those ethnic minorities (Asen, 2006). The Egyptian media environment is an excellent example to analyze the discourses of alienation, invisibility, and misrepresentation of the Egyptian ethnic groups within the public sphere (Aly, 2011). In order to penetrate this dominance, different counter-publics emerged, such as citizen journalism, including news websites, ethnic newspapers, or blogs that represent a plethora of otherwise underrepresented voices (Radsh, 2008). According to Jakubowicz (2007, p. 137), the public sphere in Egypt could be viewed as an “appearance of alternative and opposition public spheres.” It reflects different currents of thoughts, including leftists, secularists, Islamists, and feminists, as well as ethnic minorities. Hence, a “dual media system” is created where state-controlled media coexists with minority media (Vartanova, 2008, p. 24). The domination of the media by the state is a historically a tradition in Egypt that started in the 1950s when Egyptian media was highly censored (Rubin, 2015). Decades later, the media remained highly polarized and suffered from a lack of regulations that resulted in debts, corruption, nontransparency, and nonaccountability (Soliman, 2018). The change of the political scene in Egypt since the 2011 Arab Spring held hopes for liberalization, social equality, and a consequent change in the media landscape. However, the state and a group of pro-government businessmen still dominated the media, producing content that legitimized the exclusion discourse (Hodge & Kress, 1988). Badr (2020) explained that, in Egypt, the state still has a firm grip over the media. It owns about 37 broadcasting outlets as well as 44 print outlets within the seven publishing houses it owns. Although digital media, especially after 2011, gave voice to political groups, it did not help diversity in ethnic representation (Abdulla, 2015). Moreover, researchers agreed on a severe underrepresentation of minority groups in Egyptian mainstream media. Badr (2020) noted that the representation of Christians and females generally lacked in comparison with the predominance of Muslims and males. Abdulla (2015) concluded that ethnic minorities, such as Bedouins or Nubians, are almost rarely featured and practically nonexistent in the media. A possible explanation could be a media in a society dominated by men and Islam in Egypt that refuses to give voice to the Other.

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Mapping Ethnic Media in Egypt Broadcast media started in Egypt in the era of former president Gamal Abdel Nasser with an entertainment radio station, Eeza’et al Askandareya (The radio of Alexandria), in 1955. The radio was not used for political mobilization until 1980 when Ezael Al Sha’ab (The Radio of the People) was built and changed its name to Ezaet al Qahira al Kobra (The Radio of Great Cairo). Then other local radio stations were launched one after the other. The media’s main aim during the rule of former president Hosny Mubarak was to deliver the state’s voice to the locals and make them feel connected to society. In 1964, the first ethnic newspaper, Garidat Al Askandareya (Alexandria Newspaper), was published monthly by the Chamber of Commerce in Alexandria in the Arabic language to address locals of northern Alexandria and inform them about trade and economics. It was then followed by the Al Kanal weekly newspaper in 1961 from Al Ismaliya governate, followed by Al Giza monthly newspaper. Most local newspapers have names starting with “Voice of” (sout) or “News of” (akhbar) or carry names of locals such as al sawaysa or the locals of Suez (Kamal, 2018). The most common language used in Egyptian media is Arabic, accounting for 86% of the broadcast content (Allam, 2018). The local languages and dialects of the ethnic groups are very rarely used in any of the ethnic media outlets. When mapping the Egyptian media landscape, I find that ethnic media varies between tabloids, sophisticated newspapers, and online websites and Facebook pages that may be in Arabic or a local dialect. Residents can also listen to radio stations or access local terrestrial or satellite television channels targeted to their ethnicity or their local areas. Following Georgiou’s (2017) characteristics relevant for ethnic media, the ethnic media in Egypt includes commercial and community outlets and is mainly information and entertainment centered. The ethnic media addresses locals like Nubians, Siwis, and Bedouins, whether nationals around Egypt or transnationals like in the case of Nubia, where outlets target all Nubians regardless of their place of residence. The content of the ethnic media is mostly in Arabic, the language of the country of the settlement, and not the native language of the ethnic group. Ethnic journalists explain that each tribe has its native language and it will be impossible to reach them all if native languages are used in the media. The Arabic language is understood

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by all ethnic group members and would grant a connection between the ethnic group and most of the society. The analyzed media address the different generations of the ethnic groups primarily through social media platforms. Mapping all local media in Egypt (TV channels, radio stations, newspapers, and magazines), the north holds first place with 18 outlets, the South with 15, the Capital with 13, the east with 3, and the west with only one outlet. In Fig. 4.1, the red dots indicate the distribution of ethnic media in Egypt. The local newspapers take the lead with a total of 28 newspapers,

Fig. 4.1  Distribution of ethnic media in Egypt. (Source: Author)

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followed by nine radio stations, seven local TV channels, four magazines, and three news websites. This disproportion of media outlets numbers across Egypt could be due to the political attention given to northern Egypt historically compared to lower and southern Egypt. Latest statistics published by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics CAPMAS in Egypt point out that people living in southern Egypt constitute only 38.1% of the population, that the poverty rate reaches 52% among locals, and the illiteracy rate is31% (https://www.capmas.gov.eg/ HomePage.aspx). In the east, South Sinai has NabdGanubSainai (Voice of South Sinai newspaper) and EzaetGanubSinaa (South Sinai Radio), and in North Sinai, there is Ezaat Shamal Sainaa (North Sinai Radio). In the west, there is one outlet, Eza’etMatruh (Matruh Radio Station). As for the south, there is a total of 15 media outlets (10 newspapers, 3 TV channels, and 2 Radio Station). The coverage of ethnic newspapers includes a wide variety of minorities-­ related issues such as employment, cultural identity investment, and politics. The analysis of the three ethnic media between January and March 2020 revealed focus on stories about health, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also featured news about the local community, in particular success stories of locals, formal stories of the governor, and stories about education, local sports, cultural heritage, and touristic places. NabdSainaa (The Pulse of Sinai) focuses on news of the military, the police, and terrorism. Matruh Lana (Matruh is Ours) focuses on the weather and the mosques and churches in the cities. Sout Al Noba (Voice of Nubia) is the most notable of the three in covering local corruption and problems among the local community as well as the local economy, jobs, and business. Furthermore, it is concerned with the Nubian heritage, culture, and gender differences. As Arabic is the commonly spoken language across the MENA region, regardless of diverse ethnic or tribal origins within the region, the language of the three websites is Arabic and the news sources are mainly the locals, whether representatives of the local government or the people. The analysis of the ethnic media outlets concluded that the leading role they play in Egypt is in public representation. The locals construct meanings about their identity in comparison with the majority. Notably, the Nubians use their media for cultural preservation and for maintaining the Nubian language, heritage, and culture.

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The results show that the design of the analyzed news websites and its layout, are recalling motives and symbols from the local culture, the “personality,” the “ethnic pride,” and “ethnic performance” of the ethnic group. According to Ramasubramanian et al. (2017), ethnic media is very concerned with stories about dress code, local celebrations, and local food. Sout El Nuba is one undeniable example of ethnic performance presenting the culture and heritage of Nubians. Political mobilization is also practiced by the ethnic media but on a shallow profile. Sout Aswan has helped, through its editor-in-chief’s viral opinion article “Without Harm,” to uncover multiple cases of corruption in the local government, leading to some public figures being put in jail. The media and journalism embody unaddressed topics and problems of the ethnic groups in the mainstream media and the news industry. Members of ethnic groups create in their media content that emphasizes their issues and sympathizes with their position. Websites such as Welad El Balad play a significant role in keeping minorities informed with the latest news about their local community. In Eza’at Shamal El Saiid (Radio Station of Northern Upper Egypt), one of the most popular shows is Fi Rehab Al Badeya (In the light of Bedouins), because the Bedouins are very keen to listen to content relating to their culture and their heritage and wait for this weekly show to participate enthusiastically (Khalaf, S. personal communication, 2019). Through the storytelling of local news and events, the ethnic media in Egypt help to keep the locals connected and interacting. They help link ethnic minorities inside and outside the country and create a connection among all the ethnic group members around the world. Sout El Nouba has even succeeded in launching the first online Nubian TV funded by Nubians to achieve global reach (Ismail, A. personal communication, 2020).

Challenges of Ethnic Media in Egypt State Dominance and Centralization As explained earlier, the ethnic media in Egypt function in a state-­ dominated environment and face centralization (al-markazeya). The long history of centralization in Egypt led to a rooted centralization of the media. Consequently, the major media outlets are Cairo-based, and their coverage is centralized on certain governorates while neglecting the issues

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of the people living in the west and the east (Tonsy, 2017). Badr (2020) notes that apart from the Capital, many regions remain highly underrepresented. Abdulla (2015) added that, there is an unequal geographical coverage with Cairo getting notably more coverage than any of Egypt’s 26 other governorates. Hardly any ethnic minorities were featured in the coverage analyzed in their study (Abdulla, 2015). The 2018 Law of Journalism, Media, and Supreme Council for Media Regulation has resulted in multiple legal constraints being faced by local media producers (“The Supreme Council for Media Regulation,” 2019). Content launched on smartphones is controlled, records of all media content are required to be sent to the Council, and any advertisement or commercial services needs to be approved. To avoid this, newspapers’ producers get a license of publication from Cyprus or get a license as a private sector company from the Ministry of Investment. There is also a role played by security forces in ethnic media. Sinai-­ based journalists explained that the military highly controls the region due to possible terror attacks. They require national, as well as ethnic media to only publish the formal press releases of the Ministry of Defense or news after being approved by the military (A local journalist, personal communication, 2019). Furthermore, journalists of Welad El Balad (Sons of the Country) are in full control of their content, but they steer clear from politics. The constraints this platform faces are from the local community that is sensitive to issues related to religion, pride, identity, tribal struggles, and culture (Farag, F., personal communication, 2020). In more general terms, there is a lack of a unified group with one specific spokesman or leader within the different tribal leaders and subgroups who could represent the group in the media. Economy Economic and financial challenges are one of the most significant burdens to ethnic media in Egypt. The number of newspaper titles in Egypt is going down drastically (CAPMAS, 2017) State-owned TV and radio stations had to be downsized after the January 25 Revolution. It is not easy for the counter-publics to create a voice while searching for funding, in an understaffed structure and with poor content that is dependent on external material. Welad El Balad is one example of how the economic challenges have forced newspapers to change their platforms

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from print to online (Farag, F., personal communication, 2020). Competition from social media and mainstream media continues to affect ethnic media significantly (Budarick, 2017). It was difficult for ethnic media outlets to afford printing in the state-owned print houses as well as transport the issues from the Capital to their local communities. An exception was Sout El Nuba, which was an online forum for Nubians, and because of its popularity (36,000 members) it was turned into a monthly print newspaper in 2013 that has never stopped since. After the state declaration to cut expenses, all state-owned TV and radio stations were left suffering from poor infrastructure and aged staff (El-Issawy, 2014). Sout Shamal El Saiid is a case in point, with its youngest anchor being 46 years of age, making it hard to create young, creative, and fresh content, leading to a decline in audience and advertisements. Furthermore, newspapers do not own an Internet cable, and ethnic journalists use their personal mobile data connection for their work (Khalaf, S., personal communication, 2019). When it came to seeking aid, private organizations were not able to receive any funds according to the law. They could only sign service agreements (e.g., training, and technical support) with some organizations interested in minorities and local development (Farag, F., personal communication, 2020). For the state-owned media, the only hope is advertisers, who would instead invest in SNS and mainstream media rather than ethnic low-quality outlets.  thnic Journalists and Producers E Counter-publics are created by producers, journalists, and reporters that seek to maintain their ethnic identity, counter the negative representation, offer an honest self-representation, and impact the mainstream public sphere. They find themselves motivated by a need to “counter a robust mainstream media environment” that is often guided by a market rationale of being appealing to many readers and that articulate symbolic borders of inclusion and exclusion (Budarick, 2017). Ethnic journalists in Egypt have a general feeling of sociocultural marginalization. They suffer from the centralization of media education in the Capital, a high turnover of staff and unstable work. Most ethnic journalists have received their education either at the Faculty of Mass Communication in Cairo or in media departments in local universities. Others that work as journalists do not hold a bachelor’s degree in journalism and have studied literature, art, or other fields not related to the media. They mainly rely on

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self-learning or on being taught by professional older journalists within the newspaper. Especially in times of crisis like COVID 19, their careers are precarious. “We know that this organization can close down anytime and declare its bankruptcy. We are not like Al-Ahram and Al Akbar that will be here forever because of the governmental fund” (Mohamed, S., personal communication, 2020). During the interviews, the primary concern of journalists was their image among colleagues and peers. They explain that they are viewed as “less professional,” “volunteers,” and “poor,” who have fewer resources than the “big journalists” in the Capital (Mohamed, S., personal communication, 2019). Because of low wages and lack of local funds, they are perceived as “poor.” The fact is that ethnic journalists are underpaid and mostly rely on a second job to support their families using their profession of journalism as a source of social prestige. They lack training from international organizations or local NGOs and excellent writing skills, resulting in low-quality productions. They also suffer from a lack of digital training, rarely owning a computer or a digital camera. The digital divide is seen clearly when these journalists are compared to journalists in the Capital especially in large news organizations and print houses. While Internet access in rural areas is minimal as compared to urban areas (Mapping Egypt’s Media, n.d.), local journalists do have limited access to cover stories in the Capital, have a hard time reaching sources from the government, celebrities, and public figures who prefer talking to the mainstream, most-viewed media. Although ethnic journalists have easier access to local sources from tribes and groups, these are not as appealing to the ethnic community as the public figures. Matsaganis et  al. (2011) explained that ethnic journalism faces challenges not only related to journalists but also related to the consumer and the producer. The producers of ethnic media “do not want to create stories about the locals; they want the locals to create stories about themselves” (Farrag, F., personal communication, 2020). Most of the time, it is impossible to find highly qualified journalists located in governorates. Moreover, the producers have to face massive requirements regulated by the law. According to the 2018 Law on the organization of Press, Media, and the Supreme Council of Media, it is obligatory that the Supreme Council for the Media approves producing a local or regional media outlet followed by approval of the National Authority for Communication Regulation (Part 4, Chapter 2, Article 59). After having to undergo a list of bureaucracy, the law forces the producer to place a

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considerable amount of money in a bank that ranges between the 60,000 USD for a daily local/regional newspaper, 25,000 USD for a weekly, 12,500 USD for a monthly newspaper and 6,000 USD for an e-newspaper (Part 3, Chapter 1, Article 35). Although the law regulates local TV and radio channels, in reality, they are matters of National Security, and no individual can launch one, and it is required that the government should own more than 51% of the shares. (Khamis, 2011) There is, however, an exception made for “Nogoum FM,” a music radio station that is privately owned by a pro-regime businessman (Hassan, M., personal communication, 2019). While the ethnic media are becoming more and more influential in political, social, and cultural discourses, serving audience interests, challenging cultural stereotypes, and providing space, local journalists must face many challenges. Most interviewed ethnic minority members have a general feeling of being marginalized by the state and the media. Egypt is a linguistically, culturally, and religiously homogenous state whose citizens are mainly descended from Arab settlers who followed the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. There are no formal numbers about the ethnic minorities, though, and statics vary between 0.3 and 5% (Assessment of Media Development in Egypt Based on UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators— UNESCO Digital Library, n.d.), (Egypt Demographics Profile, 2019, n.d.). Representation of ethnicity, for example, gender, age, geography, class, and nationalism, has been heavily regulated in Egypt, which has resulted in a subjective and hegemonic discourse. The term Al Shakhsiyya Al Masriya or the quintessential Egyptian Character promoted a subjective and simplified representation of Egyptians and became a tool of power to a unified and fixed drawing of Egyptian society. The mass media had a massive role in the reproduction of an authentic Egyptian personality, a reproduction that led to making minorities invisible or to misrepresenting them within the national public sphere. Established cultural norms prevented the media from seeing Nubians, Bedouins, and Berbers as of equal importance to the nation as the Capital. Scholars agree that after a long history of media content that enhances the idea of an exclusive and unrepresentative public sphere, the society might think that these groups have no legitimacy within the state. Despite being a “post-racial society” and a “formal discourse of the Egyptian unity” in place, there is evidence that the media content shows the complexities of covering race, immigration, and cultural diversity. Some consider that the

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press coverage of racial and ethnic groups and issues has improved; others do not. Discussions are held on the Egyptian unity and national security debate, the existence of ethnic harmony in Egypt, and the role of the media in nationalism and cultural imperialism. While some of the ethnic groups, especially Nubians, are advertised as part of Egypt’s tourist attractions, other ethnic groups barely exist in any of the media coverage. Observing the media one sees a clear stereotypical depiction of ethnic or geographical groups like the southern Saiiddis and rare attention to minorities on national TV (El-Nahass, 2016).

Conclusion This chapter explored the role of the ethnic media in creating a counter-­ public. Before 2011, most Egyptians were denied political participation and forced into one inclusive public sphere. The 2011 Arab Spring provided the promise of a fundamental cultural reimagining of the nation, of difference, inclusion, and citizenship (Aly, 2011). Following the uprisings and the convergence of digitalized technologies, marginalized people moved from the sidelines to reach the media primarily through Facebook. Several alternative ethnic media platforms were established, providing news on politics, social cohesion, cultural adaptation, democratic representation, and political participation. This enabled conversation on common issues and experiences that do not find their way into mainstream discourse (Avison & Meadows, 2000). In Egypt, ethnic media mediates between the minority and the dominant groups. It serves as a communicator between the Egyptians in general and the interests of the local community. It aims to corroborate that different minorities are part of Egypt and to encourage peaceful coexistence with the state. Furthermore, changing negative stereotypes promoted by popular culture is another significant role of the ethnic media. In times of disasters and significant political events, ethnic media have served the minority by informing and mobilizing them. All analyzed ethnic media outlets encouraged the local community to send stories and opinions, especially during the COVID-19 crisis. While political content dominates the mainstream media, ethnic media have taken up issues of heritage preservation, culture, and sports. Also, ethnic media began to play a role in  local development by advertising training and job opportunities to the locals, empowering local women,

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and upholding environmental development (Ismail A., personal communication, 2019). Matsaganis et  al.’s book (2011), Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers, and Societies, explains how the ethnic media could promote local issues through fostering civic engagement with the residents and the local organizations. In Egypt, we see examples during COVID-19, where ethnic media played a vital role in informing the locals about nearby hospitals, new cases, names of doctors, possible precautions, and stories of recovery and hope. Some of the activities of the ethnic media in Egypt go beyond that of a publication and resemble that of a development organization instead. Sout Al Nuba, for instance, was enrolled in a project that records Nubian folklore songs and arranges events to celebrate prominent locals. There may be possible limitations in this study, primarily the lack of willingness on the part of journalists to conduct interviews due to political constraints. Also, it was quite time consuming to conduct in-depth interviews with reporters from ethnic media outlets. Although this chapter has resulted in drawing the main characteristics of ethnic media in Egypt, we still need to explore this phenomenon further. A more comprehensive sample of other ethnic media in Egypt should be included. For a better understanding of minority media in Egypt, research on the Copts, Jewish, and other religious groups could be included in future studies. The data on the media of Sinai, Nubia, and Bedouins could be utilized in future research to help conduct a comparative analysis between the ethnic minority and the mainstream majority media. Furthermore, conducting surveys on the audiences of the ethnic media would reveal whether the audiences of these media think they are genuinely presented and given a voice. The data of this chapter have been extracted from the past two years in Egypt. To reach a deeper understanding of ethnic media, a more extended period and a more extensive region could be included to expand the analysis and reveal similarities and differences throughout history across different countries.

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References Abdulla, R. (2015). Media Diversity in Egypt: Monitoring Newspapers and Talk Shows During the First Post-Revolution Parliamentary Elections. In P. Valcke, M.  Skids, & R.  G. Picard (Eds.), Media Pluralism and Diversity: Concepts, Risks, and Global Trends (pp. 226–236). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi. org/10.1057/9781137304308_13 Ahmed, M. (2019). The Image of Bedouins in Egyptian Drama and its Relation to Their Image in the Minds of Egyptian Adolescents, Unpublished Master Thesis, Department of Media and Child Education, Ain Shams University. Allam, R. (2018). Egypt-Media Landscape. Retrieved July 2, 2020, from https:// www.researchgate.net/publication/326572199_Egypt-­Media_Landscape Aly, R. (2011). Rebuilding Egyptian Media for a Democratic Future, Arab Media & Society. “Rebuilding Egyptian Media for a Democratic Future,” Retrieved June 28, 2020. https://www.arabmediasociety.com/ rebuilding-­egyptian-­media-­for-­a-­democratic-­future/ Asen, R. (2006). Seeking the “Counter,” in Counter Publics. Communication Theory, 10, 424–446. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-­2885.2000.tb00201.x Assessment of Media Development in Egypt Based on UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators—UNESCO Digital Library. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2020, from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000220742 Avison, S., & Meadows, M. (2000). Speaking and Hearing: Aboriginal Newspapers and the Public Sphere in Canada and Australia. Canadian Journal of Communication, 25. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2000v25n3a1163 Badr, Z. (2020). Effects of Concentration of Ownership on Content Diversity in the Egyptian Media (Unpublished Master’s Thesis). Cairo University, Egypt. Budarick, J. (2017). Ethnic Minority Media and the Public Sphere: The Case of African Australian Media Producers. Journal of Sociology, 53(2), 303–317. Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistisc Official Website. (2017). Retrieved July 4, 2020, from https://www.capmas.gov.eg/HomePage.aspx Egypt Demographic Profile, 2019. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2020, from https:// www.indexmundi.com/egypt/demographics_profile.html Egypt Detains Nubians during a Peaceful, Singing Protest, (2017). https://www. post-gazette.com/news/world/2017/10/01/Egypt-detains-Nubiansduring-a-peaceful-singingprotest/stories/201710010136 Eley, G. (1990). Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/ 51184 El-Issawy, F. (2014). Egyptian Media Under Transition: In the Name of the Regime…In the Name of the People? POLIS Report. http://eprints.lse.ac. uk/59868/1/El-­Issawi_Egyptian-­Media-­Under-­Transition_2014_pub.pdf

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El-Nahass, N. (2016). Framing of Political Forces in Liberal, Islamist and Government Newspapers in Egypt: A Content Analysis, Master’s Thesis, American University in Cairo. http://dar.aucegypt.edu/ handle/10526/4801 Fragile State Index. https://fragilestatesindex.org/ Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text, 25/26, 56–80. https://doi. org/10.2307/466240 Georgiou, M. (2017). Mapping Minorities and Their Media: The National Context—The UK. 64. Habermas, J. (1962) Öffentlichkeit. In M.  G. Durham, & D.  Kellner (Eds.) (2006), Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks (Rev. ed). Blackwell. Hodge, R., & Kress, G. (1988). Social Semiotics. Cornell University Press. Jakubowicz, K. (2007). Public Service Broadcasting in the 21 st Century. What Chance for a New Beginning? In J. Bardoel & G. F. Lowe (Eds.), From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media. Nordicom. https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publikationer/public-ser vice-broadcasting-publicservice-media Kamal, A. H. (2018). The Regional Newspapers: An Approach for Developing the Governates. Al Bawaba News. https://www.albawabhnews.com/3159386 Khamis, S. (2011). The Transformative Egyptian Media Landscape: Changes, Challenges, and Comparative Perspectives. International Journal of Communication, 5, 19. Matsaganis, M., Katz, V. S., & Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (2011). Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers, and Societies. Sage. Radsh, C. (2008). Core to Commonplace: The Evolution of Egypt’s Blogosphere. Arab Media and Society. [online]. http://www.arabmediasociety. com/?article=692 Ramasubramanian, S., Doschi, M., & Saleem, M. (2017). Mainstream versus Ethnic Media: How They Shape Ethnic Pride and Self-esteem among Ethnic Minority Audiences. International Journal of Communication, 11, 1879–1899. Rubin, B. (2015). The Middle East: A Guide to Politics, Economics, Society, and Culture. Routledge. Soliman, E. M. (2018). Media Reform in Egypt Posts Jan.25th, 2011 Revolution: A Study on Elites and the Political System Practices (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Cairo University, Faculty of Mass Communication. The Supreme Council for Media Regulation: A Reading into the Competencies and Practices. (2019, April 22). AFTEEGYPT. https://afteegypt.org/en/ media_freedom-­2/2019/04/22/17432-­afteegypt.html

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Tonsy, S. (2017). Territory and Governance: The Arab Republic of Egypt between Two Historical Political Actors. L’Année du Maghreb. http://journals.openedition.org/anneemaghreb/3001; https://doi.org/10.4000/ anneemaghreb.3001 Vartanova, E. (2008). Russian Media Model: Agents of Continuity and Change. A paper presented at the “Media Systems in Comparative Perspective Workshop”. University of California at San Diego.

CHAPTER 5

Ethnic Journalism in Russia: Between Profession and Social Mission Anna Gladkova and Elena Vartanova

Ethnic Journalism and Its Social Mission According to the Russian census of 20101 there are over 190 ethnic groups within the territory of the Russian Federation, speaking more than 170 languages. Among the biggest ethnic groups, except for ethnic Russians, according to the data of 2010, are Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvash and Chechens. For 138 of the 142.9 million people living in the territory of Russia, Russian is their mother tongue. Other widely used languages are Tatar, Chechen, Bashkir, Ukrainian and Chuvash. Oftentimes, people speaking these languages, and others, which are less frequently used, speak Russian too, thus being bi- or even trilingual (Chislennost i razmeshchenie naseleniya, 2010). What is unique about Russia is not just its linguistic and ethno-cultural heterogeneity but also its historical past as a culturally, linguistically, 1  The next all-Russia census is planned to be conducted in April 2021, so we use the data from 2010 as the most recent.

A. Gladkova (*) • E. Vartanova Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_5

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religiously and ethnically diverse state—starting from the early years of the country and continuing through the Russian Empire, USSR, post-Soviet and contemporary Russia. In the past, however, the status of ethnic groups living in Russia was somewhat different: the population of the Soviet Union included many ethnicities and indigenous groups traditionally based in other lands, outside the territory of Russia, which became Soviet republics during 1920–1940s and returned their status of independent states after the USSR break up in 1991. As Zorin and Abramov (2018) note, keeping ethnicities, their languages, cultures and traditions has always been a ‘mega-trend’ of the long history of the Russian state which certainly remains acute nowadays too. Ethnic groups living within the territory of Russia have always had different languages, cultures, lifestyles, religion and other factors that contributed to their unique character. In the multicultural Russian setting, tensions on ethnic or religious grounds are still present, as recent studies on social media show (Bodrunova et al., 2015). This fact makes fostering linguistic and cultural pluralism in the Russian media sphere particularly important, from both historical and modern perspectives. It should also be added that in the multiethnic and multicultural Russian society, ethnic media contribute to linguistic and cultural pluralism in the media sphere and foster mutual understanding across ethnicities. In this context, ethnic journalism and media/communication field in general should be approached not only through their industrial structures and professional practices but also—in a broader sense—through the social mission they perform. Ethnic groups residing at the territory of the Russian Federation have their own cultures, traditions, values and beliefs, which need to be protected in the modern globalized world. Following Cultural Discourse Studies’ approach here, we believe that the support of ethnic and cultural diversity contributes to intercultural-intellectual dialogue and debate, enhancing human cultural coexistence, harmony and prosperity (Shi-xu, 2006). When representatives of different ethnicities know about the cultures, ways of living, traditions of other ethnic communities, misunderstandings and clashes on ethnic grounds occur more rarely, and the intercultural dialogue between people belonging to different ethnic and cultural communities becomes easier. The social mission of ethnic journalism has been in the spotlight of many academic studies. Scholars have discussed the role of media in breaking stereotypes that can lead to interethnic conflicts and miscommunication across nations (Malkova, 2005), focused on in-group and out-­group

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trust and the impact of trust and other psychological phenomena upon interethnic relations (Bahry et al., 2005), identified social prerequisites for interethnic confrontation, such as the degree of media diversity and pluralism (Gladkova, 2015; Vartanova, 2012), or analyzed the role of language and linguistic means in the media, including hate speech, in affecting attitudes toward ethnic groups (Shulumba, 2013). However, scholars note that one of the biggest challenges to ethnic journalism and its social mission/social responsibility is the remaining inequalities between Russian regions. Regions of the country differ from each other economically (average salaries rate, GDP, size and efficiency of economy, etc.), geographically (territorial differences, distance from the large cities and the two main megapolises, Moscow and St. Petersburg, etc.), socially (population density, size of urban/rural population, etc.), as well as ethnically and linguistically (the number of smaller ethnic and cultural groups). Exploring differences in technological advancement of the Russian regions, Gladkova and Ragnedda (2020) note that ‘some of the regions (i.e. Central and Northwestern federal districts) are the country’s leaders by digital access and/or digital literacy numbers (Internet penetration rate, speed, cost, number of users, digital literacy rate, etc.), while others (i.e. Far Eastern and North Caucasus federal districts) are sometimes lacking behind’. Reasons for this technological inequality according to Vartanova (2013a) are manifold: uneven connection of Russia by transportation and ICT infrastructures, first and foremost due to the extraordinary scale of the country; distance/isolation and urbanization level; availability of infrastructure and costs for building new infrastructure in regions with harsh climatic conditions; specific regional policies and public activism in place, and much more. Digital inequalities across Russian regions are an important problem by themselves but they get extra importance if we look at multiethnic and multicultural character of the Russian society. Many indigenous groups are traditionally based in regions that are less economically advantaged (e.g. North Caucasus federal district) or have harsh climatic conditions and low urbanization level (e.g. Far Eastern federal district or Northern Siberia), which affects cost and speed of connection, as well as availability of infrastructure and ICTs to a broad population in those regions. As Helsper (2008) notes, technological forms of exclusion are a reality for significant segments of the population, and for some people they reinforce and deepen existing disadvantages. This is particularly true for Russia, where small ethnic groups are often underrepresented in online space in general

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and in online media environment in particular due to lack of access, skills, motivation or even technical abilities (low availability of telecommunication infrastructure, lack of computer software or coding systems for some extinct languages), and therefore are missing benefits—both professional and personal (Ragnedda, 2018)—from online engagement. Recent studies (Gladkova & Cherevko, 2020) prove it by showing that despite federal and regional governmental politics aimed at supporting media in the languages of ethnic communities in Russia, the number of online media in ethnic languages is relatively low today. Among all officially registered online media outlets in eight national republics (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Chechnya, Mordovia, Dagestan, Udmurtia and Crimea), roughly 10% only provide content in ethnic languages, while the rest use Russian to reach out to a broader Internet audience. The number of online media using ethnic languages as main languages in electronic communication and having their home pages in languages other than Russian is even lower: scholars managed to identify only seven websites of this kind (ibid.). This shows that only a few resources are oriented upon ethnic groups as their main target audience, while the rest are focused primarily on Russian-speaking Internet users that dominate in Runet (a part of the Internet that uses the Russian language). The reason for that might be unprofitability of such web-sites, including for instance challenges with having web-sites in less widespread languages effectively indexed by search engines compared to Russian-language ones (which in its turn makes ethnic media less attractive for advertisers or investors), or salaries for additional staff members, who are fluent in ethnic languages. As the research showed (ibid.), this problem can be solved by increasing financial support from the state: all analyzed media outlets belong to the state, while the scholars failed to come across any ethnic media owned by private companies or individuals, presumably because of low profitability of non-Russian media. Another issue here is a low level of digital media literacy among Russian journalists and the decreasing interest of young audience in ethnic media (Svitich et al., 2015). Scholars showed that the number of ethnic media differs significantly depending on the republic and possibly the audience’s access to digital technologies there, as well as the size of indigenous ethnic population and their digital literacy, which might also affect the number of electronic media in languages other than Russian (Gladkova & Cherevko, 2020). Tatarstan is thus a leader in terms of the number of online media in ethnic languages, representing the biggest ethnic group in Russia and the area

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with rapidly growing Internet penetration in recent years. At the same time, Dagestan and Chechnya, for example, despite being home to numerous ethnic and cultural communities, have less developed (and more expensive at the same time) Internet connection compared to Tatarstan, which is likely to influence the number of ethnic media produced in those republics: the worse the Internet connection, the fewer are the online media in those areas. In this context, overcoming digital inequalities in terms of access and skills—both for the professional journalistic community and the audience, stimulating communication in ethnic languages online, supporting traditional and new media outlets in ethnic languages, both state and non-state ones, could help ethnic journalism perform its social mission. Therefore, in the new digital environment more attention by both academic and policy-­makers should be given to digital inclusion of all ethnic groups through media and communication digital platforms, giving them opportunities for professional and personal growth, enhancing their own identity, networking, self-representation, etc., thus contributing to social inclusion of ethnic groups and overall social harmony in the multiethnic and multicultural Russian society.

Ethnic Media and the State Developing the idea of inclusion and overcoming inequalities in multiethnic Russian society, one particular feature of the Russian media system bears mention. The state has traditionally played an important role for Russian media and journalism, being an owner, regulator and funder of media (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Vartanova, 2012). The role of the state during the USSR was particularly pronounced, with state (and party) ownership, centralization, Communist party journalism and ideological censorship being characteristics of the Soviet media model. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian media system underwent substantial transformations under a changing political, social and economic environment; growing commercialization of media, introduction of a market economy and new business models; changes in national identity; the spread of digital technologies and new media and other factors (Vartanova, 2012, 2013a, 2013b). The influence of the state on media in Russia after the Soviet Union breakup remained quite strong. According to some scholars, post-Soviet Russian media model either falls within a variety of the European model

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(Sparks, & Reading, 1998) due to a relatively high degree of government intervention and regulation in contrast, for example, with the commercial approach of the United States or is seen as a semi-authoritarian or authoritarian (Toepfl, 2014) and neo-Soviet model (Oates, 2007). Current studies look at the state/media relations in a broader context of economic and legal conditions in Russia (Vyrkovsky & Makeenko, 2014; Lehtisaari, 2015), the changes that Russian media have undergone under current political and social developments (Rantanen, 2002; Dunas, 2016), the development and implementation of public policy by the state in respect of Russian media (Vartanova, 2019). Taking into account an important role of the state in Russia, scholars also attempt to foresee the future of the state/media relations as seen by media owners, managers and journalists (Vartanova et al., 2016). While relations between media and the state have been thoroughly examined before, little attention has been given to ethnic media, that is, media in languages of Russian ethnic groups covering various aspects of their lives and aimed primarily at representatives of those ethnicities (Blokhin, 2008). Moreover, this research mostly originates from ethnological, anthropological or sociological fields of study (Malkova & Tishkov, 2002; Tishkov & Malahov, 2002) rather than from communication or journalism fields. Several case studies, for example, on Bashkir (Magadeeva, 2017) or Chuvash (Danilov et al., 2016) media are helpful in understanding how ethnic media are supported by the state in Russia but still call for a more detailed and multilevel approach. For deeper understanding of relations between media and the state in Russia, a number of fundamental documents in the sphere of Russian media policy (both in relation to mainstream and ethnic media) should be listed. Among them are the following key documents: • Constitution of the Russian Federation (1993)—main legislative document of the country. • Federal law ‘On Mass Media’ (1991)—determines the rights and duties of journalists, and sets constraints for mass information spread. • Federal law ‘On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection’ (2006)—underlines state regulation of information technologies in the country on both federal and regional levels. • ‘Bloggers Law’ (2014–2017)—stipulates that owners of websites and/or webpages that are visited by more than 3.000 users daily are

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considered bloggers, and such bloggers must observe legislative requirements. • ‘Law Against Anonymizers and VPN’ (2017)—stipulates that the use of technologies enabling access to blocked websites, also known as anonymizers is prohibited. • Law ‘On the Protection of the Religious Feelings of the Citizens of Russia’ (2013)—protects the religious feelings of Russian citizens against insults or malicious acts. • Federal law ‘On Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation’ (1991)—underlines that all languages of the Russian peoples should be equally protected, respected and developed. • Federal law ‘On Securing Rights of Small Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation’ (1999)—states that ethnic groups have a right to create their own media outlets. • The State National Policy of the Russian Federation (1996)—underlines that all Russian citizens, regardless of their region of living, have a right to create federal, regional or local media in a set order, as well as to receive and distribute information in their native languages. • Presidential decree from July 2015 (2015)—outlines several strategic initiatives, that should be implemented by the Russian government to ensure ethnic languages and cultures are fully protected. One of those initiatives focuses on supporting online and print media in indigenous languages of Russian ethnic groups. • Federal state program ‘Strengthening of the Unity of the Russian Nation and the Ethno-cultural Development of the Peoples of Russia (2014–2020)’ (2014)—emphasizes an important role of mass media in building intercultural dialogue and communication across nations and ethnicities. The program states that creating new media outlets (print, audiovisual, online) in languages of Russian ethnic groups and in several languages would allow for better understanding of people sharing different views, traditions and beliefs while living in the same country. • The Strategy of National Policy in Russian Federation up to 2025 (2012)—names strengthening of national identity and mental unity of multiethnic nation of Russia, securing and fostering ethno-­cultural diversity and harmonizing multinational and multiethnic relations in the country among the goals of state national policy. An important role in the strategy is given to informational support of these initia-

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tives, including publications in mass media, both mainstream and ethnic ones. The Russian state has a significant influence not only on the media regulation sphere, but also on the media ownership sector, controlling a number of influential media in the country. A good example in this regard is All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company VGTRK, which is a 100% government-owned corporation. Part of the VGTRK broadcasting in the national republics of Russia is in languages other than Russian (Tatar, Bashkir, Yakut and others), contributing to pluralism and diversity in media environment. The Russian government also controls the central Russian news agencies TASS, Russia Today and Rossiya Segodnya, incorporating the former RIA Novosti news service and the international radio service Voice of Russia. One of the biggest federal print media, the newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, which was in the top-three by citations in Russian media in August 2020 (Top-10 SMI—Avgust 2020, 2020), is also state owned. State-owned media outlets usually reflect the interests and goals of the country, publishing government-related affairs such as official decrees, statements and documents of state bodies, Presidential decrees, making government announcements, and contributing to implementation of the state policy. An important part of Russian media policy is media subsidizing. In 2020, the Russian government spent 101.2 billion rubles on media funding (RBC, 2020). According to The Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, local media also are recipients of budget support. These data show that budgetary support is provided generally to state and municipal media: in 2016, for example, they accounted for about 82.4% of total funds that regions spend on media supply (about 12 billion rubles) (Rekomendatsii Soveta ‘O sovershenstvovanii mekhanizmov podderzhki regionalnykh i munitsipalnykh SMI’, 2016). Media funding in 2021 is expected to reach 103 billion rubles, which is higher than in 2020 and much higher than in several preceding years (RBC, 2020). It should be added that regional political authorities today fully understand the importance of ethnic media not only in regard to successful implementation of the state policy and regulation mechanisms, but also in regard to the broader societal role of ethnic media. The latter includes safeguarding a pluralistic media environment in multiethnic regions, securing equal self-expression of ethnic groups living there, reducing

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ethnic stereotypes and subsequently stabilizing interethnic relations in place. Although the support of ethnic media does not guarantee harmonious interethnic relations in national republics, it can contribute to this process as well (Gladkova et al., 2019). In addition to being the owner and legal regulator of ethnic media, the state often acts as a funder of ethnic media. The state in Russia regularly gives grants, on a competitive basis, to support the production of programs, websites, print media outlets, and more, aimed at the promotion of public values. These values include patriotic upbringing of the young generation, spiritual-moral and cultural values of Russian people, protection of the minorities, fostering tolerant interethnic relations in multiethnic Russian society and much more (FAPMC, 2020). Such grants are awarded annually by the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation (FAPMC) and can be used to cover different types of expenses, including production and distribution costs, salaries and benefits for editorial staff and freelance journalists, publishing costs, etc. In May 2020 it was announced that 245 regional and local print media, including 67 print media outlets in the languages of Russian ethnic groups would be subsidized by FAPMC (FAPMC, 2020), with the total sum of 160.4 million ruble funding. Altogether, 370 regional and local media issued in 61 subjects of the Russian Federation, plus 67 federal media received financial support from FAPMC in 2020 (ibid.). Noncommercial organizations in Russia can also apply for presidential grants, which are awarded to the projects, events and publications aimed— among other things—at harmonizing interethnic relations in the country and fostering linguistic and cultural pluralism in Russia. In the first round of the 2018 contest, for example, 80 applications out of 1,551 supported by the Presidential grants were devoted to interethnic relations and received different amounts of funding of a total 3.15 billion ruble fund (V konkurse prezidentskikh grantov pobedili bolee 80 natsionalnykh proektov, 2018). Moreover, many print media outlets in ethnic languages are subject to lower distributions costs by the Russian Post, which can be considered another form of state support and a means of stimulating subscription to ethnic media in the regions. In addition to the federal grants, subsidies and financial support from the target programs, regional governments can also finance ethnic media. In the Republic of Tatarstan, for example, the regional budget for the support of state media reached 1.18 billion rubles in 2016 (Tatarstan potratit na podderzhku gosudarsvennykh SMI v 2016 godu pochti 1,2 mlrd.

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rublei, 2015). Regional budgets are used not for the support of ethnic media but for the Russian language media produced in the regions as well. The budget for the support of so-called specialized media in the regions— which includes among other types media in ethnic languages—is 8.3% of the total state support of media in the federal subjects of Russia (Rekomendatsii Soveta ‘O sovershenstvovanii mekhanizmov podderzhki regionalnykh i munitsipalnykh SMI’, 2016). Finally, the majority of ethnic media in Russia are owned by the state, which is represented in national republics by various regional bodies—the Agency for Press and Mass Communications; Ministry of Education (Republic of Bashkortostan), Ministry of Chechen Republic for National Policy; Information and Press (Chechen Republic); Government of the Republic of Dagestan (Republic of Dagestan); Cabinet of Ministers, Ministry for Information Policy and Mass Communications (Chuvash Republic) to name just a few (Gladkova et al., 2018). Although a number of print, audiovisual and online media outlets are owned by public organizations or private companies, including for example Udmurt Union of Writers (Udmurt Republic) or LLC Balkantau (Republic of Bashkortostan), the absolute majority of media in ethnic languages is state owned. In general, state ownership and financing of ethnic media outlets are important aspects contributing to ethnic journalism development (and overall existence of this type of journalism) in Russia. Still, active involvement of the state in the ethnic media production process can have some back-sided effects too, leading to a situation when ethnic media are being used for the promotion of the state policy or even self-promotion of some regional or federal state authorities. In this context, there is a need for a variety of media outlets, including non-state owned or as scholars call them ‘alternative’ (Gladkova et al., 2019), covering different perspectives and being sometimes more free in choosing topics and opinions to present. Raufa Rakhimova, director of Bashkir media holding that includes ProUfu.ru and Bonus online media outlets, says that ‘our media are not oppositional: they are independent’ (ProUfu, 2018). We believe that for further development of ethnic journalism in Russia a balance of state-­ owned and ‘alternative’ ethnic media outlets is truly important.

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Ethnic Media Systems in the National Republics of Russia Previous research on Russian ethnic media (Gladkova et al., 2019) examined the systems of ethnic media outlets (print, broadcasting and online) produced and disseminated in several national republics of Russia (Republic of Tatarstan, Republic of Bashkortostan and Chuvash Republic2) in languages of the biggest ethnic groups living in those areas (Tatar, Bashkir and Chuvash). Given the significant influence of the state upon interethnic relations and media in Russia in general, scholars discussed to what extent ethnic media are controlled by the state and whether there are any ethnic media outlets in Russia today that represent a so-called alternative (non-­ state) group (ibid.). Approaching ethnic journalism as a professional domain, let us focus on several aspects that we analyzed in our previous studies (Gladkova et al., 2019) such as number of ethnic media outlets in national republics of Russia, funding sources, ownership models, etc. and illustrate them with recent data, numbers and examples. The Republic of Tatarstan is one of the leaders in Russia in terms of the number of ethnic media outlets produced and distributed there. The total number of print media (newspapers and magazines) in Tatar, Russian, Udmurt and Chuvash languages officially registered in the republic in 2018 was 561 (V Tatarstane za 2017 god zaregistrirovano 96 novykh SMI, 2018). The state is a clear leader on the republican print market: among 65 Tatar language newspapers and 17 Tatar language magazines, 47 and 13, respectively, are owned by the state. The situation with TV and radio stations in Tatarstan is quite the opposite—the majority of Tatar language TV and radio stations are in private hands. Among them are TV stations Maidan and TMTV, radio stations Tatar Radiosy and Kurai, online Gong-TV, and others. At the same time, regional authorities own the republican branch of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK)—GTRK Tatarstan, which broadcasts TV and radio programs in both Russian and Tatar. Tatarstan—Novyi Vek, a large regional media holding, is partially controlled by the state as well. All state-owned media outlets in Tatarstan are grouped together under Tatmedia—the biggest regional media holding in Russia, which owns 98 newspapers, 14 magazines, 17 TV stations, 10 radio stations, 80 electronic 2  Official names of the republics are often shortened to Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Chuvashia.

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media, as well as information agency Tatar-inform. Among them 43 newspapers are published in Russian, 49 in Tatar, 5 in Chuvash and one in Udmurt language. The total circulation of newspapers owned by Tatmedia in January 2020 was 230.570 copies. However, regardless of the dominant position of Tatmedia on the republican media market, the number of private media outlets (newspapers Irek Meidany, Akcharlak, Beznen Gezhit and others) in the last few years has been growing. The main source of income for the state-owned media outlets under Tatmedia—print, audiovisual and online—is federal and regional state funding in forms of grants and subsidies, which can reach 22 million rubles per media outlet (for newspaper Vatanym Tatarstan in 2017, for example) and more. State newspapers and magazines also enjoy reduced distribution rates (with a discount up to 30%) provided by the Russian Post. In addition, as Dovbysh (2016) notes, Tatarstan is a good example of ‘alternative or parallel state financing model’, when in order to fulfill the function of social responsibility, the state contracts media companies and orders ‘social’ content (ibid., p. 66). The number of such contracts constituting in fact an important part of media companies’ income grew in Tatarstan rapidly in 2011–2013 (ibid.:, p.  73), with Tatmedia and Tatarstan—Novyi Vek receiving almost 90% of the total amount of money distributed in contracts in this region (ibid., p. 78). On the other hand, the main revenues for private print media come from subscription (90–95% of the total revenues), with advertising revenues constituting 5–7% of the total revenues. The low share of advertising revenues in print sector is partially explained by the fact that the subscribers of Tatar language newspapers and magazines primarily live in the countryside and have low incomes, which does not make them attractive for advertisers. At the same time, TV and radio stations with private ownership are financed primarily from advertising (around 70% of the total revenues). A small share of the total revenues for private TV and radio stations also comes from the provision of special services, such as the production and broadcasting of personalized video clips, sharing birthday greetings, etc. (Gladkova et al., 2019). Private TV and radio stations in Tatarstan do not have free access to the republican TV and music archives from the Soviet times, which are monopolized by Tatarstan—Novyi Vek. Journalists working for private media outlets can find it hard to receive accreditation for the events organized by the state companies and are less likely to be presented state awards than those working for state media.

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The Republic of Bashkortostan, like Tatarstan, accounts for many officially registered media outlets in both the Russian language and the languages of other ethnic groups (Bashkir, Tatar, Chuvash, etc.). In January 2018, the total number of media outlets registered by Roskomnadzor in Bashkortostan was 603, including 364 newspapers and magazines, 165 TV and radio programs and 63 electronic media. The state is the main player on the republican media market, being represented first by the republican branch of VGTRK—GTRK Bashkortostan, which broadcasts TV and radio programs in both Russian and Bashkir, and second by two large media holdings—broadcasting company Bashkortostan and publishing house Republic of Bashkortostan. The broadcasting company Bashkortostan operates three TV channels (Bashkir satellite TV, a 24-hour TV channel with 50% of content produced and broadcast in the Bashkir language; a music TV channel Kurai, which streams music and video clips in the Bashkir and Tatar languages; and the TV channel for children Tamyr, which offers a number of Bashkir language programs created by the children themselves, including the TV series Bireshma, for example) and three radio stations (Yuldash; Sputnik FM; Ashkadar—all of them use Bashkir and/or Tatar in their radio programs). The main source of income for media outlets grouped under the broadcasting company Bashkortostan is state funding. Another source of income for the TV and radio channels in Bashkortostan is commercial activities, such as organizing concerts, festivals, contests and other social events, which are quite popular in the republic. Among them are the dance contest Baik organized by Bashkir satellite TV, a children’s concert organized by the TV channel Tamyr, and others (Gladkova et al., 2019). The Publishing house Republic of Bashkortostan was established in 2015 to optimize the budget funding allocated for state print media in the republic. It currently consists of 68 branches, which produce 153 newspapers and magazines in total (86 of them are published in languages other than Russian). The publishing house advocates for the support of ethnic media, which is reflected in the proportion of Russian and non-Russian print media outlets it produces: out of 11 all-republican newspapers, for example, three are in the Bashkir language, two in Tatar, one in Chuvash, one in Mari, one in Udmurt, while only three are in Russian. State newspapers and magazines owned by the publishing house Republic of Bashkortostan are generally funded by the state. In 2017, for example, 15.5 million rubles were allocated to the print media in Bashkortostan from FAPMC federal grants (Khakimova, 2018). Furthermore, the

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republic annually allocates around 200 million rubles for the Chuvash support of print media in ethnic languages (Khakimova, 2017, p. 243). Like the broadcasting company Bashkortostan, publishing house Republic of Bashkortostan receives significant revenues from non-state sources: in 2017, 249 million rubles came from subscription and 176.4 million rubles from advertising (Khakimova, 2018). The number of non-state media in Bashkortostan is much smaller compared to the state ones. The most popular are electronic media ProUfu.ru (65.611 unique visitors in October 2020); the free weekly newspaper Bonus; the 24-hour TV channel Tugan Tel that broadcasts in the Bashkir language; and the 24-hour radio station Roksana, which broadcasts programs in Russian, Bashkir and Tatar. Non-­ state media in Bashkortostan are sometimes owned by local businessmen: ProUfu.ru and Bonus for example are owned by Raufa Rakhimova, who worked in the past for the LLC Komsomolskaya Pravda in Bashkortostan and later on founded a media holding that ProUfu.ru and Bonus are a part of. Like in Tatarstan, non-state media are financed primarily from advertising (around 70% of the total revenues), plus a small share of the total revenues comes from the provision of special services, such as the production and broadcasting of personalized video clips. The number of officially registered media outlets in Chuvash Republic is lower compared to Tatarstan and Bashkortostan—there are 157 media outlets in total, 122 among them are newspapers and magazines. Out of the total 157 media outlets, 38 are in languages other than Russian (37 are in Chuvash and one is in Tatar) and 11 are non-state ones. The biggest publishing house in the republic is Khypar, which belongs to the state. It has been producing newspapers and magazines in ethnic languages since the beginning of the twentieth century when Chuvash-­ language publications Khypar (1906), Tantash (1931) and Samant (1931) started their work (SMI Chuvashii, 2018). The audiovisual sector in the republic is primarily controlled by the National Chuvash Broadcasting Company, which has state ownership. The company includes a TV station National Chuvash TV—Chavash En, and two radio stations: National Chuvash radio—Chavash En, and Tavan radio. The TV and radio programs created by the National Chuvash Broadcasting Company are normally available in Chuvash and Russian. Both Khypar and National Chuvash Broadcasting Company have state funding, which constitutes around 60% of their total budgets and comes in a form of grants and direct financing from regional budget (in 2017 and 2018, e.g., Chuvash language media were awarded 5 million in FAPMC grants) (Podvedeny itogi

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respublikanskogo konkursa sotsialno znachimykh proektov SMI 2018 goda, 2018). The remaining 40% comes from advertising, subscriptions and personal donations. Furthermore, like Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, Chuvashia has the republican branch of VGTRK—GTRK Chuvashia, which broadcasts TV and radio programs in both Russian and Chuvash languages and is funded from the state budget (Gladkova et al., 2019). The non-state ethnic media in Chuvashia are represented by the newspapers Salam, Samana, Khreschen sassi-KIL, and Chanlakh; magazines Asamat & Shevle and Panulmi; broadcasting company UTV, Kanash TV, Radio Krasnye Chetai, and others (Danilov et al., 2016). All these media are available in Chuvash and often in Russian as well.

Ethnic Journalists and Their Work: Insights from a Series of Expert Interviews In summer/autumn 2020, we conducted a series of expert interviews with journalists working for ethnic media outlets in three national republics of Russia—Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Sakha (Yakutia). The study was a part of the bigger research project conducted with grant support from the Presidential Council for the state support of the young Russian scholars.3 In a series of expert interviews with 20 ethnic journalists we asked about the main challenges journalists working for ethnic media outlets—print, TV, radio and online—face in their professional routine (technological, economic, social and other challenges), and the new demands digital environment poses to ethnic journalists in Russia. Due to the lockdown, all interviews were conducted either by phone or online; for the sake of objectivity all responses are anonymized. All interviews were conducted in Russian. Our study revealed several main problems ethnic media in Russia face today, as seen by journalists themselves. First, it is a lack of specialists (correspondents, producers, editors, etc.) speaking fluent ethnic language(s). Many journalists working for ethnic media outlets in Russia speak only Russian, while their knowledge of the language of the national republic they are based in is limited or nonexistent: There are very few qualified journalists who know the language. Our media is aimed at young people (12+ years old), you need to communicate with them in 3

 Project number MK-795.2020.6.

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their language, understand trends and react to them. The Tatar language is not compulsory for teaching at schools and universities, so most young people do not know it.

Another issue is lack of digital skills, which are getting more important as all media are gradually shifting to online. For ethnic media, this trend is specifically important due to a number of advantages online version can bring. This includes, among other things, broadening the audience by reaching out to young people who are active online media users, trying out new platforms for communication, using visualization and multimedia instruments in content production, and much more. Still, as current research shows (Gladkova & Ragnedda, 2020), digital divide, not only at the first access-determined level, but also at the second skills-oriented level remains a serious problem in the Russian regions. Many people working for ethnic newsrooms and editorial offices, particularly the elderly, are not able to use digital technologies and are not confident Internet users either: We do not have a technical support department, we have just one trained colleague, he helps with all the issues related to online. There are not enough specialists for working with social networks and promotion. Today, with digitalization, the workload on journalists in the editorial office has grown significantly, still we do not have any trained SMM specialists or web-editors among our staff members. Same people have to work in the paper version of the publication, and in the electronic one, as well as maintain accounts in social networks.

Some challenges noted by journalists have remained problems for a long time already, for instance, a decrease in print copies circulation. Quite often, ethnic newspapers and magazines close due to lack of funding, lack of professional staff members willing to work in ethnic newsrooms, full shift of media to online or other reasons: Digitalization has forced newspaper circulations to decline. Our circulation has dropped to 60,000 copies, and we expect the newspapers to stop being published in a couple of years. But we also see the pluses: older people are starting to explore the Internet and read news on the website of our news agency. We believe that this is part of the educational work of journalists.

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When asked about the advantages active use of ICTs can bring to journalistic work, most respondents mentioned new opportunities for making content in ethnic languages available to a broader audience, also with the help of social networks. This is particularly important in Russian regions where the audience of ethnic media is usually the elderly, often living in rural areas, and not young people (Gladkova & Cherevko, 2020). Social networks can therefore help ethnic media outlets attract new viewers/ readers and increase their profitability on the media market. We are focusing on social networks. We actively run our Instagram and YouTube accounts and are currently trying to explore TikTok. We are happy with the current audience growth. If our audience is active in new social networks, we will learn how to use them. Today it is difficult to keep the audience, you have to be flexible and learn new things We highly value our experts, but don’t mind getting content from bloggers. They work efficiently, the quality of shooting and information presentation is often really high.

The last thing that should be mentioned here is that ethnic journalists fully understand the importance of the state support of ethnic media in the form of grants, subsidies and other financial instruments that we have briefly discussed earlier in the chapter. Given numerous challenges ethnic media face today (lack of additional/non-state financing, lack of professional journalists with fluent ethnic language(s), remaining digital divide in the Russian regions, which affects the work of newsrooms, and many other things), state support of ethnic media is exceedingly important: The advantages of being a journalist/editor of ethnic media are that the media is supported by the state and receives subsidies

Concluding, we assume that the interviews with ethnic journalists to a large extent proved the challenges ethnic media and ethnic journalism in Russia face these days and that have been noted previously by academics (Malkova & Tishkov, 2002; Magadeeva, 2017; Gladkova et al., 2019). We believe also that more attention on the part of state officials, educators and policy-makers should be given to providing opportunities for digital engagement of ethnic journalists. This gets specifically important in the current digitalization context when in order to increase its profitability (and in case of ethnic media sometimes simply to survive) media need to

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be actively present in online space. Another important issue here is providing more opportunities for education/training/retraining of ethnic journalists, since work in ethnic media outlets requires special competences and skills, as well as the knowledge of ethnic languages, which as our study showed is not always the case in ethnic newsrooms. Special educational programs at graduate or undergraduate levels, as well as special projects such as School of Interethnic Journalism run by the Guild of Interethnic Journalism in Russia since 2010 can be a very helpful initiative here.

Conclusion In this chapter, we showed that the role of ethnic journalism in contemporary Russia is very important—both in regard to its social mission and professional/industrial dimension. Both aspects are crucial in the Russian context, given unprecedented number of ethnic groups living in the country, an important role of ethnic media in securing ethno-cultural diversity, pluralism, multicultural understanding, equality and inclusion and the fact that minor ethnic groups in Russia are often underrepresented in public space, both offline and online. Scholars note the complexity of the ethno-­ cultural and linguistic structure of Russia’s population, and substantial financial investments into the regular production of print and audio-visual media content in the languages of the peoples of Russia is something that is typical for the country and contributes to its national specifics (Vartanova, 2019, p. 5). Like a few other multiethnic states located in large territories, Russia aims at keeping the unity of the nationwide communication system and integrity of the regional media markets to guarantee not only the nationwide news agenda (Prokhorov, 2011, p. 33) but also profitability for regional, national, and global advertisers. Case studies from the republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Chuvashia show that contemporary ethnic media are developing regardless of various economic, professional and technological challenges ethnic media experience today. Among those challenges are lack of additional funding sources (advertising, donations, etc.) in addition to the state funding; remaining digital inequalities in terms of access to ICTs/Internet and digital skills required in modern digital newsrooms, which is still an important problem in Russian regions; generation gap, as a result of which many ethnic media are targeted toward the elder generation and are not popular with young ‘digital natives’; low level of ethnic languages and/or

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lack of motivation to speak them among ethnic media audience; and other issues. The study of ethnic media in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Chuvashia shows that the role of the state in Russia as a regulator, legislator, owner and financial supporter of ethnic media is extremely important. This is reflected in the extensive number of legislative documents advocating for the support of ethnic media in multiethnic Russian society and regulating the work of such media, the proportion of state-owned and non-state media in the national republics (with the state-owned ones clearly dominating), and the amount of the state funding of ethnic media allocated on both federal and regional levels. Multiethnicity and multiculturalism of the Russian media landscape, together with other features typical for the country (territorial/regional diversity, unevenness of economic development, etc.) (Vartanova, 2013b, p. 12) emphasize the important role of the state in helping ethnic journalism to develop and in some cases simply to survive. In this context, we believe it is essential for the state to continue supporting ethnic media and ethnic journalism in Russia, not only in regard to its industrial/professional dimension but, more importantly, in regard to its social mission in protecting ethnic cultures, languages and identities in multicultural and multiethnic Russian society. At the same time, more attention should be given to the support of non-state-owned ethnic media in Russia, to avoid a situation when ethnic media ‘serve the interests’ of the state and promote the national state policy, and also to ensure pluralism and diversity in Russian media environment.

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Rantanen, T. (2002). The Global and the National: Media and Communications in Post-Communist Russia. Rowman & Littlefield. RBC. (2020). https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/17/09/2020/5f6 1f7899a7947687f22edc1 Rekomdatsii Soveta ‘O sovershenstvovanii mekhanizmov podderzhki regionalnykh i munitsipalnykh SMI’ [Recommendations of the Council ‘On Improving Mechanisms of Regional and Municipal Mass Media Support’]. (2016). Retrieved from http://president-sovet.ru/presscenter/news/read/3092/ Shi-xu. (2006). A Multiculturalist Approach to Discourse Theory. Semiotica, 158(1/4), 383–400. Shulumba, B. (2013). SMI i etnichnost: ot yazyka vrazhdy k yazyku tolerantnosti [Mass Media and Ethnicity: From Hate Speech to Tolerance Speech]. Sotsialno-­ gumanitarnye znaniya, 5, 56–63. SMI Chuvashii [Chuvash Mass Media]. (2018). http://gov.cap.ru/SiteMap. aspx?gov_id=243&id=1257750&title=Sredstva_massovoj_informacii Sparks, C., & Reading, A. (1998). Communism, Capitalism and the Mass Media. Sage. Svitich, L., Smirnova, O., & Sidorov, O. (2015). Ulusnye (raionnye) gazety respubliki Sakha (Yakutia): funktsionalno-soderzhatelnaya struktura (po rezultatam oprosa zhurnalistov) [Ulus (local) Newspaper in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia): Functional and Content Structure (Results of the Journalistic Survey)]. Vestnik Severo-Vostochnogo federalnogo universiteta, 3, 163–179. Tatarstan potratit na podderzhku gosudarsvennykh SMI v 2016 godu pochti 1,2 mlrd. rublei [Tatarstan Will Spend Almost 1,2 bln. Rubles on the Support of the State Media in 2016]. (2015). http://prokazan.ru/business/view/71991 Tishkov, V., & Malahov, V. (Eds.) (2002). Mul’tikul’turalizm i transformatsiya postsovetskikh obshchestv [Multiculturalism and Transformation of Post-­Soviet societies]. Institut etnologii i antropologii imeni N.N. Mikluho-Maklaja RAN. Toepfl, F. (2014). Four Facets of Critical News Literacy in a Non-democratic Regime: How Young Russians Navigate Their News. European Journal of Communication, 29(1), 68–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323113511183 Top-10 SMI—Avgust 2020. (2020). https://www.mlg.ru/ratings/media/ federal/7750/ V konkurse prezidentskikh grantov pobedili bolee 80 natsionalnykh proektov [80 National Projects Won in the Presidential Grant Contest]. (2018). http:// nazaccent.r u/content/27378-­v -­k onkurse-­p r ezidentskih-­g rantov-­ pobedili-­bolee.html V Tatarstane za 2017 god zaregistrirovano 96 novykh SMI [96 New Media Outlets were Registered in Tatarstan in 2017]. (2018). https://www.tatar-­ inform.ru/news/2018/01/29/595147/

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Vartanova, E. (2012). The Russian Media Model in the Context of Post-Soviet Dynamics. In D.  C. Hallin & P.  Mancini (Eds.), Comparing Media Systems beyond the Western World (pp. 119–142). Cambridge University Press. Vartanova, E. (2013a). Postsovetskie transformatsii rossiskikh SMI i zhurnalistiki [Post-Soviet Transformations of Russian Mass Media and Journalism]. MediaMir. Vartanova, E. (2013b). Constructing Russian media system in the context of globalization. World of Media. Yearbook of Russian Media and Journalism Studies, 1, 9–36. Vartanova, E. (2019). Russian Media: A Call for Theorizing the Economic Change. Russian Journal of Communication, 1, 22–36. Vartanova, E., Vyrkovsky, A., Makeenko, M., & Smirnov, S. (2016). The Russian Media Industry in 10 years: Industrial Forecasts. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 11(1), 65–84. https://doi.org/10.16997/ wpcc.221 Vyrkovsky, A. & Makeenko, M. (2014). Regionalnoe televidenie na poroge tsifrovoi epokhi [Regional Television on the Threshold of the Digital Age]. MediaMir. Zakon o sredstvakh massovoi informatsii [The Federal Law ‘On Mass Media’]. (1991). http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_1511/ Zakon o yazykakh narodov Rossiiskoi Federatsii [The Federal Law ‘On Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation’]. (1991). http://www.consultant. ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_15524/ Zorin, V., & Abramov, A. (2018). Gosudarstvennaya natsionalnaya politika, konsolidatsiya obshchestva i politicheskaya nauka v sovremennoi Rossii [State National Policy, Consolidation of the Society and Political Science in Modern Russia]. Vestnik Moskovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Oblastnogo Universiteta, 1, 1–22. https://evestnik-­mgou.ru/ru/Articles/Doc/861

CHAPTER 6

‘Misafir Media’: Domopolitics and Securitization of Displaced Syrian Ethnic Groups Recep Gülmez

The media as a fourth branch of government has played an important role in the securitization of the Syrian refugee crisis, specifically in the protection of ethnic identities, cultures and languages such as Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs as well as religious identities such as Yezidis and Alawites. In this study, we draw on the research related to securitization and domopolitics theory and the media’s role in the protection of the Syrian ethnic groups in the diaspora and their cultural rights. The research corpus consists of top mainstream newspapers ranked by web ranking system based in France, United Kingdom (UK), United States and Turkey. The corpus was analyzed by the NVIVO 11 software program in terms of ethnicity, refugees, integration, outsider sentiments, securitization, migrancy and war.

R. Gülmez (*) Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University, Erzincan, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_6

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We conclude that the media should focus more on the complexities of integration and on the cultural adaptation of the Syrian refugees in the diaspora into the host countries rather than problematizing their displacement. We use the term “misafir media” for the media to integrate the Syrian refugees in the diaspora. Since Syrians have been dispersed into different societies like Turkey and Lebanon, they have not been able to create their own media in the host countries. We suggest that the mainstream media could function as a transitory media to ethnic media until the refugees create theirs. This would encourage those who are settled in the host countries to be less regarded as “guests”, “immigrants” and “foreign” and can help prevent various expressions of xenophobia and islamophobia.

Introduction The Syrian refugee crisis which broke out in 2011 has dramatically affected the whole region and the world alike. The crisis created not only millions of asylum seekers, many of whom have lost their lives attempting to flee to safer regions, but it also created a range of political, judicial and social challenges for the states that have been hosting millions of these displaced people. The political policies used to manage these issues inside one country are often called domopolitics (Walters, 2004). In addition, the refugees living in limbo have not been particularly welcomed by many of the host countries. Furthermore, the complex dynamic between the refugees and/or asylum seekers and the host states has also been influenced by what many call the fourth estate, the mass media. The aim of this work is to shed light on certain types of “ethnic media” that appear to be securitizing the Syrian refugee crisis. The securitization of the Syrian refugee crisis has been under close inspection but very few studies have focused on the relation between the ethnic media and the securitization of the refugee crisis. Instead of “ethnic media” that media outlets tend to refer to “minority, immigrant, diasporic and community” (Matsaganis et al., 2011), we will coin the term “misafir1 (Guest) media” 1  The term “misafir” was used for Syrian refugees by the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan first to show generosity of the Turks toward Syrians and due to the lack of legal basis for the Syrian ethnic groups in Turkey as refugees (https://t24.com.tr/haber/ erdogan-­200-bine-yakin-suriyeli-kardesimizi-misafir-ediyoruz,218698) (Accessed on 04.08.2020).

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as a more inclusive and integrative word. The language used in the integration of refugees is crucial in understanding the perception and approach of people toward the problem. The term in the literature is new within the context of refugee involvement and resettlement. In order to better understand and support our argument that the media securitize the issue of immigration, we will draw on the research related to securitization theory and media relations. We will use the Nvivo 11 software program to analyze data collected from the mainstream media that has been published in France, United States, UK and Turkey. Since no Syrian ethnic media exist or are broadcasting in the languages of Syria or by Syrians in the diaspora, we will analyze the news on Syrian refugees that are broadcast by the mainstream media, which particularly address the refugee crisis.

Conceptual Background Media have historically been regarded as a fourth estate and as an unofficial branch of government and controversially have taken a role at times of influencing or prioritizing certain government agendas (Nwokora et al., 2020; Van Aelst et al., 2008). The reality of the media’s intersection with politics has therefore become a vibrant topic of political science, law and international relations (Keane, 2013) and its impartiality has been debated in various political contexts. A frequent point of research discusses what the media should say, how they should say it and why they do not say other things. These questions are to be answered more properly through a careful analysis of the media and the tools it uses. When we are analyzing media, we also examine the types of media and their target audience. Understanding why some media focus on football, for instance, while others concentrate more on ethnic conflicts or war demonstrates media priorities that a careful analysis cannot neglect. On the other hand, free and independent media is a sign of liberal democracy and therefore an expression of human rights. Democratically, media’s vertical function is to disseminate information to as many people as possible while its horizontal function is to protect diverse ideas and tolerance for diverse cultures and identities (Müller, 2014, p. 35). Ethnic media, in particular, often give minority groups within a society a sense of belonging and a platform to voice their problems to the host country. From a judicial perspective, the media can be a powerful tool for people to seek their rights, protect their identity and voice their problems. For a government in a democratic country, the media have become both a place

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to express freedoms and a warning or a check on the government itself (Schudson, 2008). It is like the sword of Damocles that keeps those in authority under a measure of fear. Therefore, in democratic countries, media are an intermediary between the government and the rights and identities of minority groups. For this reason, the freedom of the press is emphasized in important conventions such as the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under the title of “freedom of expression”. Independent organizations such as Freedom House2 draw attention to the level of freedom of the press to actually determine whether a country is authoritarian or democratic. Such criteria are widely used to identify and spread democracy in the world. Media groups are also social and political agents by which people differentiate themselves from other groups (mainly from the majority) and shed light on their identity (Berry & Mitchell-Kernan, 1982). Thus, media have five major roles to promote democracy: information, interpretation, control and communication, providing platforms of debate and surveillance (Şahin, 2016, p. 276). In this study, we would ascribe one additional function to the media: the integration of disadvantaged groups specifically immigrants and refugees to the majority within a country. We think that mainstream media typically defer and accommodate to elite groups, while ethnic media can play a weaker role in voicing the problems of minorities. From a Marxist perspective, the weak section of the society is that which has not been integrated and whose rights are not fully recognized. Even if their human rights are de jure implemented, they are de facto regarded as others. For instance, the mainstream media are defined frequently as “the media of the society in which ethnic and racial origins have at most minor impacts on their life chances and opportunities” (Matsaganis et  al., 2011, p. 10). Ethnic media are media through which people from different ethnic backgrounds living in a country can make their voices heard and supported by state or non-state actors. For example, in Russia, ethnic media are supported by the state (Gladkova et  al., 2019). But in Turkey and France, where secularism and a citizenship-based structure dominate, ethnic media are not state-owned. Nevertheless, in Turkey the state channels still have programs that broadcast in ethnic languages such as Kurdish, Arabic and Zaza. Variations of the term ethnic media are frequently used 2

 https://freedomhouse.org/issues/media-freedom (Accessed on 25.07.2020).

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in different contexts depending on the type of ethnicity. For example, as mentioned “minority, immigrant, diasporic and community” are some of the various terms used along with or instead of the term “ethnic media” (Matsaganis et  al., 2011). Therefore, ethnic media can be an umbrella term to include media resources and platforms used by or available to ethnic groups. Ethnic media generally cover the three primary topics of assimilation, integration and segmentation (Budarick, 2019, p. 29). Some of these concepts may contain pejorative meanings while others are used descriptively to address the adaptation of immigrant communities to the host society. The use of the concept “ethnic media” depends also on the political and constitutional structure of a country. For instance, France bases its multicultural society on citizenship and avoids using the word “ethnic” and prefers “minority” to reference ethnicities within its frontiers, while Germany insists on using migrant media for the “Auslander” (foreigner). In Europe, “minority media” is a concept generally and commonly preferred (Deuze, 2006) while in the United States, “ethnic media” began to be used in the second half of the twentieth century by politicians and the population in a way that did not carry negative connotations. (Browne, 2005). We hope to enrich the conceptual background of research related to immigration issues and media by suggesting the concept “Misafir media”. This is a term used for either ethnic or mainstream media that are holistic in characterizing the experience of immigrants, who otherwise are viewed through a negative lens. “Media have a tendency to consider the event from their own glasses of their particular field and select subjects according to their worldview” (Christoph, 2012) and the interests of their society. The issues journalists and mass media see as important or worth focusing on often become overstated or more often restated with levels of partiality. From a journalistic perspective, it is in fact quite difficult and rare to find novel pieces of news. So, journalists often mediatize the news disseminated from other newspapers and media sources, which often leads to a less systematic process of verification of the news and its details. Images are particularly susceptible to engineering and reinterpretation as they are quickly disseminated and filtered through diverse media outlets, which in turn can create misleading information. Ethnic and migrant problems can often be created or accelerated in a society by the way immigrants are portrayed and the type of visibility they are given. Furthermore, the way they are depicted can also directly influence the local perception of migration negatively or positively (Bourdieu,

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1999). Media do not have a role in the integration of the refugees or migrants of course, but they highlight certain aspects of these issues that are chosen as newsworthy. Nevertheless, the integration of the refugees, migrants, asylum seekers and different ethnic groups specifically in the diaspora is always important for the welfare of a society. In this chapter, we will focus on the concept “misafir” (Dağtaş, 2017) and how certain media groups use this to characterize Syrian refugees (Baban et al., 2017; Toğral Koca, 2016). From Syria to Turkey and on to Europe, the Syrian diaspora have minimal legal rights in the countries where they have settled. The Turkish word “misafir” literally means “guest” in English. It describes someone who stays in a country or a home with someone until he/she feels the need to leave. “Misafir” is a more inclusive and integrative word than refugees and asylum seekers. In this study, we will draw on the securitization theory to better understand the role of the media in the integration of Syrian refugees. Then we will focus on data from the top-ranked newspapers published in France, England, United States, and Turkey, which have been the four main destinations for Syrian refugees between 2012 and 2020. In the final section of the chapter, we will further concentrate on the concept of “misafir media” and offer suggestions for how the media can meaningfully contribute to this area given its unofficial yet significant political role.

Theoretical Framework: Securitization, Domopolitics and Ethnic Media Today, the influx of the refugees, specifically Syrian refugees, into Europe has resulted in large sections of society feeling threatened. The refugees in a sense have forced open the doors to Europe as they migrate north through Turkey, Greece and the Italian sea borders (Triandafyllidou, 2014). These realities have alarmed many Europeans and the mass media have tended to report the issues related to these refugees in a manner that securitizes the issues. Securitization is the process of redefining normal political issues as existential threats to one’s life or one’s welfare. Buzan et al. (1998) state that “securitized issues are regarded as being existential threats needing extraordinary precautions”. Securitization is most commonly connected with studies related to speech act and critical discourses that are conducted and supported by the Copenhagen School and are based on the poststructuralist theory. A discourse analysis is a frequent

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means of analyzing the concept. Securitization in recent years has become “mainstreamed in the fields of security and foreign policy analysis”. In particular, much of the research on refugee issues, terrorism and climate focus heavily on its security effects, especially in the countries where an increase in the number of refugees is observed. Whether the security is constructed from the bottom-up socially or from the top-down politically, securitization has been ontologically discussed for years following a wealth of publications on security (Balzacq, 2005, 2015; Balzacq et al., 2016; Buzan et al., 1998; Floyd, 2007, 2016; Huysmans, 1998, 2011). For the securitization of an issue, some conceptual building blocks are necessary: the referent object, speech act, securitizing actor, functional actors, language, framing and audience (Shipoli, 2018). A referent object is an “object that has the right to survive and the object that should be defended by all means” (Shipoli, 2018), whereas a speech act needs an actor with “political authority to declare a threat to a referent object in front of an audience of “functional actors” (Fermor & Holland, 2020). A speech act is a performed action and it is final when it is said or declared (Austin, 1975). Securitizing actors are those conducting the speech act and emphasizing the centrality of the issue regarding the referent object. As “individuals or groups, they must be influential, mainly political leaders, government, lobbyists, interest groups and bureaucrats” (Buzan & Hansen, 2009). Functional actors, however, are the ones that directly affect the process of securitization (Buzan et al., 1998). In security studies, language is one of the most significant tools used to securitize an issue. The language used about the referent object is in fact the primary method of securitization. It is a symbolic power that is given to the securitizing actors in a social environment (Bourdieu, 1991). Framing can be used by the media to substitute the direct use of the word securitization for an alternative. One does not need to utter the word security to securitize an issue. To indirectly guide the issue toward security, framing the topic is necessary and quite common. More specifically, “framing is a construction process that involves entertainment, news, headlines, pictures, and the words that are used in media” (Vultee, 2011). For example, a simple image of refugees or immigrants shown by the media can speak volumes. For instance, an image of the Syrian refugee child, Aylan Kurdi, who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while trying to cross the sea to reach Europe was a powerful image that communicated both the tragedy and the political priorities of segments of the media.

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Shipoli (2018, p. 76) states that “media can also be used to address different types of audiences, the public, the political establishment of the country, the international leaders, and other audiences, who are addressed differently because the support they give to the securitizing actor is different”. Thus, the media can be a tool for securitizing the refugee crisis in the relevant literature. “Securitization is a process which shifts issues and problems (mostly already politicized) into a position where they become existential threats for the referent object, be it (depending on the sector) a state, a sub-state entity, ideology, economy, environment” and even media (Dolinec, 2010). As in most cases, refugee issues are securitized in the media by means of speech acts and discourses that affect not only the politicians and citizens but also public policies and social life. For example, even the term refugee crisis “is strongly ideologically charged and has been developed in media and political discourse mainly to legitimize the alleged urgency, including various” special measures, “that were or were supposed to be taken in recent months and years” (Krzyżanowski et al., 2018). To better understand the role of media in the securitization of the refugees and asylum seekers in the diaspora, Esser (2013) states: The media and mediated communication are of central relevance for contemporary societies due to their decisive influence on and consequences for political institutions, political actors, and individual citizens. Political actors have learned to accept that their behavior to a significant extent is influenced by the rules of the game set by the mass media. … Politicians have grown to rely on the mass media for gauging public opinion (using media coverage as a proxy for public sentiments) and for generating attention, acceptance and legitimation of their actions (using media channels for public presentation of politics).

Politicians, government and the people have expectations about what they will see or hear on mass media that colors the content that is often broadcast. For example, after the 9/11 attacks, right-wing populism had been on the rise and the security of the borders from “outsiders” became a live issue. Following the breakout of the war in Syria and Afghanistan, millions of refugees flooded across borders. Media have played an effective role in displaying these refugees under surveillance along the borders of Greece, Turkey and Italy (Triandafyllidou, 2018).

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People are informed by what is shown by the media. The borders have been featured as the frontlines of a “we” against “them” mentality characterized as the “topos of opposite” (Wodak, 2015). Refugees have been regarded at times as those breaking apart the borders of national unity and the welfare of the people. Such discourses are produced by the media as a sign of securitization. The “homeland media” as it were have become an obstacle that stands in the way of priorities leading toward healthy integration of refugees in diaspora (Smets, 2018). The borders are seen by some as translocalities (Appadurai, 1996). These translocalities are “the production of local places determined by interacting and mobile communities cross-cutting the borders of existing nation-states” that are then turned into a place of security in that they symbolize an arena of contest, prejudice and a standoff between hospitality and hostility. Securitization is closely linked with the domopolitics of a state, where internal affairs are taken into consideration. Ethnic media play a role in the politics followed by the government. Colombo states for example that in Italy thousands of Syrian refugees flow into a situation where “securitarian and humanitarian discourses both contribute to support the logic of domopolitics, which in turn legitimizes an erosion of refugee protection and asylum-seeking rights”(Colombo, 2018). Seeing that there is a “security continuum” ranging from refugees, asylum-seekers, illegal immigrants to terrorists (Bigo, 2000), a country’s domopolitics is shaped by the ethnic media that concentrate on the perception of refugees and immigrants as outsiders or insiders. In his study, Taylor (2020) argues that hospitality as part of the domopolitics of France “rationalises processes of classification and identification that determine which mobile presences in the home are least disruptive to its social and moral order”. A warm welcome from the citizens to the outsiders determines the way the government follows its domopolitics. Whether a government is populist and right-wing also affects the integration or exclusion of the refugees. The concept “domopolitics” was first coined by Walters (2004, p. 241) for “a reconfiguring of the relations between citizenship, state, and territory. At its heart is a fateful conjunction of home, land, and security. It rationalizes a series of security measures in the name of a particular conception of home … it has powerful affinities with family, intimacy, place … the home as our place, where we belong naturally, and where, by definition, others do not”. In most countries, instead of viewing refugees as helpless, homeless, and disadvantaged, immigrants are considered to be homoeconomicus, sources for manpower and labor or homopoliticus, sources

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for political votes (Kofman, 2005). In this case, the media contribute to the assimilation or dissimilation of the refugees into the society. Titley (2012, p. 818) suggests that: Media research provides an interesting space for examining the relationship between the structuration and culturalization of legitimate migrant presence …. Public service media in Europe have been charged with and have adopted ambivalent roles in relation to the contemporary governance prerogative of integration. Media work is not only institutional, it is also the work of situated sense-making. For migrants, this involves working with the multiplicities of media in contexts of constraint, imbalances of power, and where boundaries are made and re-made in relation to their identities and presence.

One can argue that perceptions of a pending threat from immigration to the homeland is an outcome of the news media, which explore the role of integration policies such as language requirements, biometrics, and marriage for immigrants. Highly developed immigrant programs followed and required by countries like the UK, Canada and the United States are other examples of immigrant integration put forward by media. “Domopolitics denotes a governmental alignment of security, territory and nationhood in a way that asylum seekers and refugees become framed by securitization” (Darling, 2014). In his research on gendered domopolitics, Lonergan (2018) states that immigrants integrate into the society by means of pregnancy and bearing children in the countries to which they have immigrated. However, the pregnancy of noncitizens is considered by a large number of media sources, particularly right-wing media, to be a threat to the society. Biomedia, which explores areas where physical bodies can be instrumentalized or remade, can even be reported in a way that contributes to the securitization of refugees. Furthermore, in countries where the Jus Soli rule is effective, immigrants and refugees seek citizenship via the birth of their children. Media play a crucial role in securitizing the immigrant community’s efforts for living in their host country. Anderson (2013) points out that “domopolitical regimes seek to discipline migrants into behaving as ‘ideal citizens’, and in doing so, contribute to wider discourses about belonging, identity and citizenship”. Unless they become “ideal citizens” in a certain respect, they are either deported or forced to leave their host country. Media exposure is decisive in the

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acceptance and understanding of “outsiders” in the society and even in turning them into “ideal citizens”.

Method In this research, we collected data by investigating the top mainstream newspapers based in the UK, France, United States and Turkey according to statista.com.3 We examined the mainstream media’s focus on the Syrian refugee crisis rather than Syrian ethnic media as there is not yet any explicit newspapers directed specifically to the Syrian diaspora. For example, in France the top newspaper is Le Figaro with 313.837 or 333.057 subscribers4; in the UK, Metro with 39.6 million subscribers of print and online media; as of January 2019, the USA Today is the leading newspaper in print in the United States with a daily circulation of over 1.6 million and finally in Turkey Hurriyet seems to be the leading newspaper. Since media in Turkey are mostly controlled by the government and Hurriyet is a newspaper published by an organization closely connected with the current government, we do not have objective data about the number of subscriptions of Hurriyet. However, according to four international media sources and newspapers,5 the leading newspaper in Turkey is Hurriyet as of 2019. We limited the number of newspapers to four from four countries since we do not know other languages besides French and English. While there are newspapers published in English in other countries, we limited the number of countries to France, UK and United States since these are the three countries that make crucial policies regarding the Syrian crisis.

Data Collection and Data Analysis We collected data by searching for certain parameters that are helpful with accessing the news reports on Syrian ethnic groups, the refugee crisis and integration issues between 2012 and 2020. Parameters such as refugees, integration, Syrian war, Syrian refugee crisis, outsider, guest, immigrant and Syrian refugees were used to assess data for these newspapers. The 3  https://www.statista.com/statistics/784974/paid-circulation-volume-national-dailies-­­ by-publication-france/ (Accessed on 25.06.2020). 4  https://www.acpm.fr/Support/le-figaro (Accessed on 25.06.2020). 5  https://www.4imn.com/tr/ (Accessed on 25.06.2020).

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news and statements are categorized by means of giving a code to each piece of news such as integration, ethnicity, Kurd, Arab or refugee and war. Any news related to these parameters was collected, organized and analyzed in terms of content according to their level of importance and frequency. The software we used is Nvivo 11, which is commonly employed for a qualitative analysis. Due to page and word-count restrictions, we are not able to give all the news found related to the ethnicity and integration of the Syrian refugees. Instead, the top and most frequent news headlines are outlined.

Findings The findings of our study show that the leading newspapers in four countries have news and data on the Syrian refugees who fled from Syria to Turkey, UK and France since 2011. Due to word constraint we are unable to explain all the similar results but the main findings are given below. France—Le Figaro The newspaper Le Figaro generally categorizes the problems of the Syrian refugees as part of foreign affairs rather than internal affairs. The news focuses mostly on the approach and policies of other countries to the Syrians arriving in Europe rather than on their integration in France. For instance, the news headlines and their content center on news related to the Syrian refugee crisis on the borders. Some of the top frequent news headlines in Le Figaro are as follows: “Des médecins syriens au chevet des Européens (Syrian doctors at the bedside of Europeans); “Les réfugiés syriens vulnérables et démunis face au coronavirus” (Syrian refugees vulnerable and destitute in the face of the coronavirus); “Un réfugié syrien tué à la frontière grecque—sources turques” (Syrian refugee killed at Greek border—Turkish sources); “Avec des legos, un réfugié syrien fabrique un robot distributeur de gel hydroalcoolique” (A Syrian refugee makes a robot dispenser of hydroalcoholic gel with legos); “La CEDH déboute des réfugiés syriens à qui la Belgique avait refusé un visa humanitaire” (The ECHR dismisses Syrian refugees to whom Belgium had refused a humanitarian visa); “Syrie: avec les réfugiés dans le piège d’Idlib” (Syria: refugees in Idlib trap); “Crise migratoire: quelle réponse à Erdogan?” (Migration Crisis: Which response to Erdogan?)

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Le Figaro mentions the problems of refugees as deriving from the policies followed by other countries and rarely mentions the integration of refugees in France. This may be due to the fact that it is a center-right newspaper, which in itself is a paradox for “impartial” media. We are also of the opinion that Le Figaro implements its vertical duty as mentioned to disseminate information. United States—The USA Today In the United States, a country of immigrants, ethnic media is an integrative term used instead of immigrant or minority media commonly employed in Europe, although “ethnic minority was not seen in American English until the second half of the twentieth century” (Budarick, 2019, p. 28). However, no specific Syrian media have been reported so far in the United States but media in Arabic language are commonly seen and employed in the United States. Therefore, this work takes into consideration the top popular newspaper, the USA Today, which publishes news on the Syrian refugee crisis by focusing mostly on the Syrian Kurds and their displacement. While some pieces of news are about the integration of the Syrian refugees, the news is mostly about the foreign affairs of the United States and Trump’s policies about immigration and the war in Syria. The USA Today is a leading newspaper highly focused on Syrians’ lives in the United States and in Syria. By showing humanitarian images of Americans helping disadvantaged Syrian diaspora, the USA Today contributes to the integration of the refugees since it leans more moderate6 rather than conservative or liberal. Some of the headlines in the USA Today that illustrate further the approach of the newspaper to Syrian refugees are as follows: Pope Francis welcomes migrant children by offering joyride in popemobile; Ben Stiller shares his passion for Syrian refugees; We need to help each other; As a Syrian refugee in America, I watched my country collapse. But there is a path to hope; These are the countries with the largest refugee populations; On Syria, Trump is right to ignore failed foreign policy elites who embroiled us in Iraq.

The USA Today has an integrative and emphatic approach toward Syrians although American foreign policy and American government show 6

 https://library.bu.edu/c.php?g=617120&p=4452935 (Accessed on 25.06.2020).

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reverse. For instance, only 110.000 refugees were resettled throughout the United States during the Obama administration and the Trump administration stopped refugees’ entering into the United States.7 The newspaper has always been critical of the US administration toward Syrian refugees.8 Since ethnic media is counter-hegemonic, the newspaper seems counter-hegemonic too by criticizing the Trump administration for its negative attitude toward the refugees. On the other hand, the newspaper is conciliatory between the American administration and the world by giving examples of the refugees’ success in the United States in realizing the “American dream”.9 By putting forward American values and refugees’ integration into the society, the newspaper encourages acceptance of more Syrians. UK—The Metro The Metro according to The Economist10 has the highest circulation in the UK. The Metro in the UK has news on the integration of the Syrian refugees giving life examples of the Syrian refugees living in the UK.  This newspaper “claims that it takes a neutral political stance to the events”11 and therefore publishes cases, images and news on the integration of the Syrian refugees. Some of the frequent headlines on the integration of the Syrian refugees are as follows: Turkish bride and groom donate food to 4,000 Syrian refugees; They decided to donate all the food planned for themselves and the guests at their wedding to 4,000 Syrian refugees living in poverty nearby; I will not stop until Syrian refugees are reunited with the beloved; The government doesn’t support animal rights; perhaps if they did, people would be more inclined to treat them well. Years before I fled Syria; 11,000 Icelanders have offered to take Syrian refugees; More than 10,000 ordinary Icelanders have spoken 7  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/refugee-muslim-executive-­ order-trump.html (Access on 21.01.2021). 8  https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2019/09/04/syria-civil-war-­ liberia-refugees-program-trump-cuts-column/2196996001/ (Access on 22.01.2021). 9  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/humankind/2018/06/22/syrian-refugees-­ path-american dream/722344002/ (Access on 23.01.2021). 10  https://www.economist.com/britain/2018/03/22/the-sun-is-toppled-as-britainsbiggest-newspaper (Access on 23.01.2021). 11  https://www.economist.com/britain/2018/03/22/the-sun-is-toppled-as-britainsbiggest-newspaper (Accessed on 25.06.2020).

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out on Facebook saying they will welcome Syrian refugees into their homes; 15,000 Syrian refugees fleeing fighting gather on Turkish border; Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomes Syrian refugees.

The results of our data analysis show that the Metro is the most integrative newspaper among others to horizontally and vertically disseminate news on Syrian refugees. Since it is an apolitical and free newspaper, the Metro has an integrative and emphatic approach to Syrian refugees and encourages the acceptance of innocent civilians into the country. Turkey—Hurriyet Hurriyet has also published news at the foreign affairs level concerning Syrian refugees. It mostly consists of relations with the European Union (EU) and other Middle Eastern countries in the MENA region with regard to refugees. According to Hurriyet, Turkey is a safe shelter for asylum seekers from most of the countries in the Global South and the government’s focus is to protect the displaced Syrians as guests. Hurriyet in some news reports asserts that Turkey calls the EU and the United Nations for collaboration and cooperation to heal the wounds of the Syrians together. For the Turkish government, Syrian refugees are regarded as guests (Toğral Koca, 2016) but in 2020 the government ended the open-door policy as the people have gradually taken issue with the increase in refugees. Interestingly, national policies also required the government to take precautions for people to limit conflict with the “guests” (Abdelaaty, 2019). In general, our findings have a level of similarity with the relevant literature (Sunata & Yıldız, 2018) in terms of the mainstream media’s focus on humanitarian aid and the efforts to receive aid from international organizations.

Conclusion In 2011, when the war in Syria broke out, millions of refugees, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmens and religious groups like Yezidis, Sunnis and Alawaites fled to bordering countries. The influx of these desperate people who have lost their children and assets into these new countries have resulted in extensive political debate and controversy. While hoping for a new life in developing and developed countries, the media have also diverted their lenses toward these “outsiders”, “immigrants”, “threats” or “foreigners”. Not finding a legal status for these refugees in Turkey, they were labeled as

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“guests” (“misafir” in Turkish). The term carries a more welcoming connotation where guests can leave whenever they wish, and also a “connotation that their stay would be temporary” (Sert & Danış, 2020). Such a situation has led to the emergence of an ethnic media, which we would rather designate as “Misafir media”, whose view of displaced Syrians as “guests” is in line with the government’s view, whereas others have seen them as “victimized guests” (Ensar and Muhacir Dichotomy) (Gülmez, 2019). Rather than using exclusionary connotations toward immigrants such as “foreign”, “outsider”, “diasporic” or “minority” media, “Misafir Media” is a new concept to be developed for integrating displaced ethnicities. Further research on media and Syrian refugees is necessary since there are limited academic studies on the issue. Media can play a role in dealing with this issue as an opportunity, a threat or a challenge. Studies have been reported on the relation between social media and immigration, which focus on the problems of asylum seekers, while mainstream media in some countries such as Spain, France and Germany (Holmes & Castañeda, 2016) use discriminatory language toward these ethnic groups. Instead of securitizing migrant issues and repositioning a country’s domopolitics, ethnic media can play an important role in the integration and accomodation of displaced people in the world. From a psychological perspective, identity is affected positively when a person is welcomed by the host country. Social identities are in harmony when people regard themselves as united and are aware of cultural diversity as social integration in order to avoid ethnic conflict. In their study, Sunata and Yıldız (2018) point out that the mainstream media in Turkey have four different perspectives on the Syrian refugees: “(1) Refugee as a receiver of humanitarian aid, (2) Refugees as victims, (3) Refugees as criminal, (4) Refugee as a role model”. Unfortunately, no media produced by Syrians themselves have been reported. Such different perspectives of the issue depend on the partiality/impartiality of the media. In one study on the media and the different frames or components of the refugee crisis, Heidenreich et  al. (2019) mention there is an “Economy frame (e.g. migrant workers’ impact on the job market), the Welfare frame (i.e. migrants’ impact on the welfare system), crime and security-related perspectives and an emphasis on political and legal processes”. The media focus on such themes of integration like “achievement and access across the sectors of employment, housing, education and health; assumptions and practice regarding citizenship and rights; processes of social connection within and between

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groups within the community; and structural barriers to such connection related to language, culture and the local environment” (Ager & Strang, 2008) would help integrate the displaced ethnic groups. Ethnic media are also intrumentalized (Yu, 2016) in the mainstream media to acknowledge the need for the production of more ethnic media for underrepresented or misrepresented groups. Syrians that are misrepresented by the mainstream media, if given a chance, will definitely create their own ethnic media. However, the constitutional structure and the level of democratic freedom in the countries where they reside will influence the process and the timeframe for the creation of their own ethnic media. France, for example, does not allow the use of ethnic media produced by immigrants, while Germany regards immigrants as “guestworkers” as in the case of the Turks. Therefore, the creation of ethnic media depends on how multicultural a society is and how unitary or federal a state’s structure is. In federal countries like Russia (Gladkova et al., 2019) and Canada (Yu, 2018), the use of ethnicity or “ethnic” is not regarded as pejorative while in unitary states, ethnicity is an irritating term that is seen to undermine the unity of the state. When Syrian groups such as Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens flooded into Turkey, naming them has actually become a question for the following reasons: 1. In international law, Turkey only accepts refugees from Europe while other asylum seekers are given “temporary protection”. Therefore, about 3.600.000 displaced Syrians are settled in Turkey and are given temporary protection but their status has turned into “Misafir” (guests) instead of refugees. 2. Turkey is a unitary state where citizenship is based on ethnicity. Therefore, Turkey is far from naming media as “Kurdish”, “Arab” or “Yezidi” like ethnic media in France. However, news can be found in Arabic or Kurdish. 3. Sociologically, although different ethnicities live in Turkey, “ethnic” media are mostly controlled and securitized by the Turkish state as a form of domopolitics. 4. In the unitary states like France and Turkey, anything that starts with “ethnic” provokes and is securitized by the state so it is not possible to talk about “ethnic media” but rather media in different languages.

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The domopolitics of ethnic media is connected to the political regime of a state and the sociological structure of a country. In Greece there is only very limited access to Turkish media12 although Turks are regarded as official minorities due to the treaty of Lausanne signed in 1923. Ethnicity and ethnic media are generally securitized by politicians as part of their political agenda specifically in the unitary states. In our study, we propose an integrative and apolitical term “Misafir Media” as an alternative ethnic media term, to describe the news in the language of the host country. The mainstream media that mediatize the refugees and asylum seekers like the Syrians in the diaspora who have not created their own media in the states they receive refuge are also suggested to be “transit” to ethnic media. That is, since the asylum seekers and diaspora are unable to create and fund their own media, mainstream media can be instrumental and directive until their ethnic media are created, which is closely related with the domopolitics of the host states.

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CHAPTER 7

“Aquí no hay negros”: Policies of Invisibilisation and the Impact on Afro-­Descendent Media in Argentina Suzanne Temwa Gondwe Harris

Para la argentina blanca, las personas argentinas negras no existen. Asi que no tenemos entidades que nos respalden verdaderamente porque se nos borro de la historia y se nos borra hasta el dia de hoy institucional y estructuralmente. —Translation: “For White Argentina, Black Argentine people don’t exist. So we do not have entities that truly support us because we have been erased from history and we are erased until this day institutionally and structurally.” (Afro-descendent Community Member 2)

In contrast to its racially diverse neighbours, Argentina has been defined as somewhat of a racial outlier (Alberto & Elena, 2016). Since the arrival of Spanish conquerors in the sixteenth century, Argentina has cultivated a long-standing discourse in socio-political and cultural spaces as being a

S. T. G. Harris (*) University of the Arts London, London, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_7

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homogenously White, European, and Catholic nation (Cottrol, 2007). The title of this chapter, which translates as “There are no Blacks here”, is a quote by former President Carlos Menem, which reflects this deep-­ seated sentiment among the political elite against Afro-descendants.1 Continuously endorsed by Argentina’s political elites (Adamovsky, 2017), who have the power to shape policy, has resulted in the decisions over who is included and who is excluded in public spaces. Delrio et  al. (2010, p. 139) define these as “policies of invisibilisation”. Used to focus specifically on current cultural policies of interculturality, plurality, and diversity; these policies have simultaneously contributed to the invisibilisation of Indigenous people in Argentina. Using this concept to understand the invisibilisation of Afro-­ descendants and their media in Argentina, this chapter explores a number of subtle, yet important ways in which exclusion and invisibility are transmitted through public policies that have been detrimental to the presence and sustainability of this ethnic minority media. Driven by an exclusionist agenda, Argentina is awash with such policies that are solidified by law and naturalised by dominant group narratives, making visible the existing power relations and present conflicts of interest within the country (Segura et  al., 2019). Drawing from the works of Frantz Fanon, and utilising aspects of social exclusion theory from a macro-level perspective, this chapter takes a chronological look at Afro-­ descendent media and the interplay between public policies and media laws since independence in 1816,2 to pull together a collection of public policies and narrative accounts to explain how racial and ethnic disparities, which figure prominently in Argentina, have shaped the country’s ethnic minority media landscape. In doing so, attention is drawn to the way in which the habitual denial of Afro-descendants and their media is not unintentional, but rooted in historical circumstances and structural conditions: which begs the question—how can ethnic minority media exist if ethnic diversity is not recognised?

1  An alternative term commonly used is Afro-Argentinos, but I have opted for using the term Afro-descendants because Afro-Argentinos “inaccurately presupposes that cultural difference can be contained within the homogenising boundaries of the concept of national identity” (Peñaloza, 2007, p. 211). 2  However, the Argentine War of Independence ended in 1818.

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Where Ethnic Minority Media, Social Exclusion and Ethnic Erasure Meet Before discussing specific policies of invisibilisation, it’s important to note some of the terminologies used in this chapter. The first being, the use of the term ethnic minority media, rather than minority media. Unlike minority media, ethnic minority media places stronger emphasis on and interrogation of minority-majority group relations (Riggins, 1992). Furthermore, the term ethnic media tends to be used in European debates and often relates to a simplified binary between “migrants” and “locals”; whereas in some South American countries such as Argentina, ethnic minorities are “locals” yet historically have been treated as “immigrants”. Therefore, in order to be culturally sensitive to these nuances, we must go beyond analysing ethnic minority media through the perspective of immigration alone (cf. Yu & Matsaganis, 2018) and seek meaning from within specific cultural contexts. Afro-descendants, for example, currently make up 0.37% of the population3; however, they have been creating ethnic minority media since the 1800s. Operating within predominately White political and media spaces, Afro-descendants and their media have been active since the nineteenth century, and were previously referred to as the Afro-Porteño4 Press (Geler, 2008; Yao, 2015). The Afro-Porteño Press was created not only to champion the rights and interests of the Afro-descendent community (Yao, 2015), but to have their identity recognised and request equal treatment in political and media spaces. In this present era, Afro-­ descendants are creating media to call for an end to this habitual denial of their identity in an effort to become visible, and to safeguard the plurality of the country’s media system. This inherent tension is indicative of the fact that there continues to be a lack of clarity in defining the different types of media within the country (see Cerbino & Belotti, 2018). Argentina’s current media system is split between State and non-State (public), and profit and non-profit (private). With State-owned media becoming less and less influential, and many smaller media outlets shutting down due to the high concentration of the private sector and cross-media ownership, Afro-descendent media is 3  This is according to the last national consensus in 2010. However, many discrepancies, as will be revealed, exist in the actual figures. 4  Porteño is a term commonly used to refer to a person who is from or lives in a port city of Buenos Aires.

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grouped among those that are classified as private non-profit, or community media, alongside the growing number of self-owned and self-­managed news cooperatives (see Reporters Without Borders & Association Tiempo Argentino, 2019). However, unlike some liberal democracies where public State media doesn’t have any political agenda, in “Latin America […] broadcasting has been developed as a fundamentally commercial project” (Hallin & Mancini, 2008, p. 93), and in Argentina more specifically, has developed alongside strong political ties (Liotti, 2014). Even the AfroPorteño Press was not excluded from this political project. In fact, political parties used to subsidise certain Afro-Porteño newspapers as a means of gaining political votes indicating that there was in fact a significant Afrodescendent population despite claims of the opposite (Andrews, 1979). Although Argentina has been branded as a homogenously White, European nation, the country has irrefutably witnessed and experienced the immemorial settlement of people from different corners of the world: from the Spanish invasion of the Americas over Indigenous populations5 and the arrival of over 20,0006 Africans from the seventeenth-century Slave Trade,7 to the arrival of Cape Verdeans at the beginning of the twentieth century, followed by Afro-Uruguayans, Afro-Ecuadorians, and Afro-­ Brazilians; Argentina has always been diverse. According to the official census of Buenos Aires in 1778, Africans made up 29.7% of the 24,362 inhabitants however, by 1887 the population had dropped to 1.8% of 433,375. Through a number of differing explanations, official discourses proclaimed that this reduction in the Afro-descendent population was due to yellow fever and those serving in the Paraguayan war (Andrews, 1980). According to the last census in 2010 the percentage is now as low as 0.37% of the total population of 40  million (INDEC, 2020). However, as historian George Reid Andrews (1980) argues, such data does not reflect the racial realities of Buenos Aires, nor the country overall due to the ambiguousness of racial terminologies and other mechanisms that have intentionally and unintentionally underestimated the amount of Afro-­ descendants and Indigenous people. 5  While language may not be a central focus among the Afro-descendent communities and their media, which is solely in Spanish, it is an essential aspect of ethnic media consumption by 39 indigenous groups that do exist (Conicet, 2019). 6  Andrews (1980) argues this is likely to be a fraction of the total number as historical records are host to a number of multifarious reasons and the contraband nature of the trade. 7  However, Andrews (1980, p. 23) informs us that “African slaves came as early as 1595, and the first permit to import slaves was granted in 1534”.

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Nevertheless, with multi-ethnic diversity being a “longstanding facet of civilization” (Karim, 2011, p. 276), Argentina is clearly indicative of what critical cultural theorists Stuart Hall (1996) and Homi Bhabha (1996) have long argued: that homogenous cultures no longer exist. Within this framework of thinking, the relationship between ethnic diversity and the media is an important policy question when exploring ethnic minority media, as public policies are often shaped by ethnic diversity and visa-versa. For example, in order to promote an inclusive media system, the country needs to first recognise its own diverse cultural milieu, not systematically denying or excluding it from public debates or media spaces. Therefore, the discourse around exclusion serves as an important focal point to “make visible” a broad set of political, cultural, and structural factors that have influenced patterns of invisibility. While invisibility is not used as a metaphor for exclusion (Cheng, 2000), invisibility is, as we shall now see, a consequence, manifested in a continuum of exclusionary mechanisms. Namely, policy mechanisms that provide us the necessary opening to understand the aforementioned power relations and conflicts that have impacted on the visibility and sustainability of ethnic minority media in Argentina. Much of the discussion in this chapter is centred on exclusion, however the author only uses a conceptual understanding of exclusion, rather than wholeheartedly adopts social exclusion theory,8 which like minority media, has been grounded in British and European conceptualisations and experiences of exclusion and therefore cannot be transferred to the complex forms of race and exclusion that exist in Argentina. A key concept within exclusionary discourse is the concept of erasure, which has often been defined as, “the act of neglecting, looking past, minimising, ignoring, or rendering invisible an other” (Allahar, 2005, p. 125). Since the Spanish invasion of Argentina from the sixteenth century until independence in 1816, various forms of ethnic erasure transpired through the elimination, concentration, deportation, enslavement, identity cleansing, and cultural destruction of Indigenous and minority groups across the Americas (Delrio et al., 2010). Automatically creating a void in the

8  It should be noted that social exclusion theory is “embedded in conflicting social science paradigms and political ideologies” (Silver, 1994, p.  536) and thus contextualised appropriately.

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knowledge and records of ethnic minority communities and their media,9 various forms of erasure from stereotyping minorities, to a complete “symbolic annihilation” of a minority groups (Behm-Morawitz et  al., 2017, p.  284) have become a by-product of these actions to ensure they are erased through other means. Nevertheless, as a consequence of these processes of silencing, discriminating, and invisibilising ethnic minority groups, the emergence of ethnic minority media took place. While such media “did not develop at the same time and at the same pace in every part of the world, [due to] different social, political, and economic conditions” (Matsaganis et al., 2011, p. 25), it is important to recognise the specific historical and egregious policy responses which countered against their development. For Afro-descendants and their media, this was centred on the systematic denial of their identity or what is known as ethnic erasure. The intention to create a homogenous culture, which in Argentina was the prevailing racial ideology that the country is predominately White, European, and Catholic, serves as an important reminder of how, historically, societies have been fragmented by systems of power and domination. Solidified by legal frameworks to strengthen political or economic control (Preece, 1998), discriminatory processes and exclusionary structures have been naturalised by dominant group narratives and propagated through dominant media spaces to safeguard their own interests. Without legal recognition, Afro-descendants only had the media as a way of entering these public spaces and debates. Political philosophers such as Frantz Fanon (1967, 1990) are among those who have invited us to reflect on questions of identity, culture, ostracism, and invisibility, beyond the framework of the powerful and the powerless to include the ways in which policies affect marginalised groups. Well known for his analysis and treatment of the socio-political with the psychological in his book Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon reminds us how race has been historically constructed, and how racially discriminatory practises have been incorporated into public policy for political or social means through a platform of unspoken invisible superiority (Spencer, 2006). For example, by positioning European Whiteness as the default or normative ideal of a given society, deleteriously discriminatory practises of social exclusion will not be challenged as they become widely customary. As will be discussed in the following section, the establishment of the 9  In conducting this research, historical records and data relating to Afro-descendants in Argentina are scare (see Cirio & Cámara, 2014).

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Constitution of Argentina, and the body of laws and principles that have espoused from it, have been made to invisiblise and erase the country’s racial differences and divisions through dominant White narratives. Racial divisions that Fanon (1967) argued were cemented through a national culture to suppress the visibility of the other. Constitutions often lay the groundwork of a national culture, which for Fanon is a “whole body of efforts made by a people in the sphere of thought to describe, justify, and praise the action through which that people has created itself and keeps itself in existence” (ibid.., p. 188). Both the mainstream media and ethnic minority media could be seen as playing similar roles. However, there is a clear distinction between those who use it to maintain their existence and superiority, and those who use it to simply have their existence recognised.

The Birth of Structural Invisibilisation and the Afro-Porteño Press Article 14 of the Argentina’s first Constitution in 1853 stated that “all the inhabitants of the country shall enjoy, among other individual rights, the right to publish their ideas in the press without prior censorship” (Harvey, 1979, p. 37). The presence of the word “all” in this Article was significant as it allowed Afro-descendants and their Afro-Porteño Press to emerge. Many Afro-Porteño newspapers like La Broma (1873–1882), owned by Dionisio García, re-represented a “Black middle class intensely desirous of escaping the stigma of its racial status and being accepted as equals by the white middle class” (Andrews, 1980, p.  194). However, as history has shown, the journalistic boom had been dominated, and predominantly written by “educated, wealthy, mostly white, and predominantly male elites [that] reflect the specific interests of the privileged sectors of society” (Susen, 2011, p. 53), and Argentina was no exception. In her study of the Afro-Porteño Press in the late nineteenth century, anthropologist Lea Geler (2008, 2016) discovered how the Afro-Porteño Press was predominately run by and for the Afro-descendent community in the capital Buenos Aires, and stylistically replicated some of Argentina’s first newspapers such as Telégrafo Mercantil, El Correo de Comercio and La Gazeta (Becerra et al., 2012): Telégrafo Mercantil, which was founded by Spanish solider Francisco Cabello and Italian descendant Manuel Belgrano, who was a military leader. Other Afro-Porteño newspapers such as La Raza Africana in 1858; La Igualdad (a political journal which circulated

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between 1873 and 1874 by Máximo Corvera and Pastor Gutiérrez); La Juventud (which circulated between 1876 and 1879 by Gabino M. Arrieta, Juan Pablo Balparda, Rómulo J. Centeno, and Gabino Ezeiza); La Perla (1878 to 1879); El Unionista (1877 and 1878); La Luz, El Aspirante, and others such as El Látigo, El Obrero, El Deber, La Razón, El Artesano, and La Regeneración10 (Geler, 2016; Platero, 2004; Andrews, 1980) were all recognised for their oppositional or alternative role within the nation (Browne, 2005). Although there was a significant Afro-descendent population during this time, their circulation was relatively small. Restricted to the Afro-descendent community, many of whom lived outside the capital city and those who had limited surplus income (Chamosa, 1995), these newspapers could not compete against the dominant White owned media. As written by La Broma in 1881: Who, besides us, reads … the columns of our humble newspapers that never go beyond our own social circles? (La Broma in Geler, 2016, p. 5)

Therefore, among the 345 newspapers that existed in 1895 Argentina (Fox, 1988), the Afro-Porteño Press was short lived and occupied a socially subordinate position (Geler, 2008, 2016). Unable to influence public policy by compelling political actors to respond to popular preferences (see Koch-Baumgarten & Voltmer, 2010), or halting public debate (Jakubowicz et al., 1994; Husband, 2005; Waller et al., 2012), the Afro-­ Porteño Press found itself at a disadvantage. One reason could have been related to the country’s Constitution. Revered as a momentous legal framework within which the country operates, Argentina’s first Constitution11 laid the foundations for all laws and policies of, and for, the population. The ideas embodied in the Constitution were influenced by political philosopher Juan Bautista Alberdi, who was well known for his association with European romanticism, and connections to President Domingo Fausto Sarmiento (1868–1874) (Andrews, 1980): a president who “admired the fact that North America segregated indigenous people 10  Geler also pointed out that some the Afro-Porteño newspapers mentioned above but have not been identified as belonging to and representing the Afro-descendent community, which is not only contributing to the invisibility and denial of this social group, but making it highly challenging to research. 11  Previous attempts were made to create a constitution following independence in 1816 and in 1826, but these were never fully established. Moreover, the 1853 Constitution has since been revised in 1949 and 1994.

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and marginalised Black people [and for not permitting] these groups to participate, genetically, socially, or politically in the nation’s formation” (Molina & Lopez, 2001, p. 342). Sarmiento followed “the successes of the United States [which he believed] was due to its predominantly European population” (Andrews, 1980, p. 104), a sentiment that became enshrined in Article 25 of the 1853 Constitution: The Federal Government shall encourage European immigration, and it may not restrict, limit, or burden with any tax whatsoever the entry into Argentine territory of foreigners whose purpose is tilling the soil, improving industries, and introducing and teaching the sciences and the arts.

This “deeply Eurocentric thought” by Sarmiento and Alberdi (Yao, 2015, p. 140), which encouraged White European immigrants, was later reflected in Sarmiento’s official policies of whitening or what is locally known as políticas de blanquemiento (Cupples, 2013). As a politically conservative Unitarian politician, Sarmiento’s policies were notorious for orchestrating the invisibility of Black and Indigenous communities from Argentina, and also, where the ideological construction that Argentina is a White European nation emerged (Quijada, 2008). His insistent advocacy for European immigrants, mainly those from Italy, was seen by Sarmiento as the means for achieving modernity and the replacement of African slaves, local Indigenous communities and Mestizos.12 Although such public policies could be viewed as purely economic, Constitutions are indeed a “product of design, not by chance” (Tarr, 2005, p. 45). Therefore, implying that immigration of this type was intentional, and therefore based on “racist or ethnocentric attitudes and beliefs, [but also] the source of social and civic ostracism” (Mendoza, 2014, p. 68). In short, it reflects who gets to be included, and who is excluded (Abrams et  al., 2005). Constitutions are similar to modern day walls (Trump’s “Mexican Wall”, Israel’s West Bank) that overtly define group interests between the excluder and the excluded. And it is often the role of an ethnic minority media to ensure that such forms of structural discrimination are exposed, and if possible, broken down. However, given the fragility of their peripheral position in society, many Afro-Porteño newspapers used methods of “self-censoring” (Afrodescendent Community Member 8). Even though slavery was declared 12   A person of mixed heritage, namely, between Indigenous South Americans and Europeans.

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illegal and all citizens were affirmed equal under the law, despite this abolition, those who were defined as a citizen, or visible in the eyes of the law, remained highly questionable. As explained here in La Broma in 1881: What does it matter if the Constitution says that in the Argentine Republic there are no nobles, nor hierarchies, that all citizens are equal before the law and admissible in public office (…) if in practice it doesn’t observe the Constitution at all when it comes to the rights of the Black, the South American outcast. (La Broma, 20/3/1881 in Platero, 2004, p. 14)13

Fanon (1967) articulates how dominant White narratives reinforce these inherent racial hierarchies, which in turn become the dominant public discourses. While he was not speaking of the media per se, he draws us into thinking about the symbolic dominance (linguistic and written), and the calculative logic of the unspoken invisible superiority. The media has, and continues to remain a public instrument that disseminates what Foucault (1977) called, the “politics of truth”. Yet, questions have always remained open as to who are the power holders of truth (see Fairclough, 2001). Even with media freedom supported by Article 14 of the Constitution and the libertad de imprenta (the freedom of the printing press) (Cane, 2011), those who owned the 345 newspapers in Argentina at that time were the visible majority with an unspoken invisible superiority. Those who had capital and power in the 1800s were predominately White European descendants whose “politics of truth” were considered normative within the national culture, while “the information disseminated by the Afro-Porteño Press remained within the confines of the Afro-­ descendant community” (Former Afro-descendent Media Owner 2). And with the “tendency to downplay a significant portion of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Argentine history, in which [B]lacks were major factors” (Lewis, 1996, p. 4), it was clear that “the marginalization of Afro-­ Porteño newspapers did not happen by chance” (Geler, 2016, p. 5). This exclusion from dominant public spaces was characteristic of the public policies that marginalised their owners, their editors, and their journalists, all of whom were of African descent: this was also prevalent in other areas of cultural policy. For example, Black children were sent to separate schools and “Afro-Argentineans were barred from theatres and other public venues” (Molina & Lopez, 2001, p.  335). With public policies such as  Translated from Spanish.

13

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these embedded in the public’s social consciousness, there would be little, to no interest, in supporting the Afro-Porteño Press, which often “published information about cases of discrimination or abuse” (Geler, 2016, p. 5). Following the validation of the Constitution, the nineteenth century was a time of nation building and rooting its Eurocentric ideologies, thus exposing contradictions in the Constitution would be seen as an attack to the founding principles of the nation. Therefore, acts of erasure and marginalisation were crucial to ensure the dominant narrative remained dominant and for others to be silenced. For some, the connection between policies of invisibilisation and the lack of recognition of ethnic minority media often comes down to discrimination and alienation, as disclosed during an interview with one Afro-descendent community member: We suffer from constant racism. In Argentina there was a process of invisibility of the Afro-descendant community since 1810. That is why the belief that there are no Black people in Argentina is so strong. Discrimination is permanent in the way people have to relate to us Afro-descendants, either by constantly alienating, differentiating and excluding us. (Afro-descendent Community Member 3)

Through the historical propagation of excluding Afro-descendants (see Sutton, 2008), the effects of Sarmiento’s blanquemiento policies become increasingly evident. Linked to issues of identity, Stuart Hall (1996) reminds us that we must “situate the debates of identity within all those historically specific developments and practices which have disturbed the relatively ‘settled’ character of many populations and cultures” (ibid.., p. 4). Based on this perspective, hierarchical relations and structures such as Whiteness were perceived to be legitimate and unyielding. Bound by political and economic gatekeepers, Whiteness proved to be an effective framework for exclusion: Since the first census, Blacks, Afro-descendants and indigenous people were never written into the national censuses as a racial category. Argentina wanted to be seen as White, European and Catholic. I believe this was a deliberate attempt by the government during the implantation of the blanquemiento policies. (Afro-descendent Community Member 1)

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Unable to fit into standard definitions of Whiteness under the national census, which the State used to define the nation (Otero, 2006), was another public policy mechanism to exclude Afro-descendants at that time. However, the Constitution and the national census were, and to some extent continue to be, the ultimate embodiment of invisibility for minority groups in Argentina. For Delrio et al., (2010, p. 139), these were forms of “political and cultural homogeneity of the country [that] constituted a political goal for the governing class in the nineteenth century”. With dominant groups having large control over public policy, the media, as well as material wealth, they had the necessary mediums at their disposal to enforce their ideologies that perpetuated their deeply entrenched view of a homogenously White Argentina. As brought to light by Marx and Engels (1846/1972, pp. 64–65) in The German Ideology: The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class, which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.

While it is true that Afro-descendants were subject to ruling class ideas and policies, the Afro-Porteño Press struggled to secure the means of material production: The fundamental reasons for the lack of financial or advertising support, was undoubtedly the short scope of the publication itself […] and no doubt there was a racist motive in that lack of publicity: the readers were mostly Black and poor, what could advertisers sell them? A subliminal racism, which without being explicit, was evident. (Former Afro-descendent Media Owner 1) Advertisers and newspapers have always been mutually interdependent on one another since advertising has long been the main source of income for many media outlets (see Wharton, 2015). Therefore, without such revenues, invisibility of the Afro-Porteño Press became more probable.

Consolidating Invisibility They [the White majority] keep pretending that we don’t exist. (Afro-­ descendent Community Member 3)

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While the nineteenth century laid the foundations for Argentina’s dominant political and cultural ideologies and policies to invisibilise the Afro-descendent community, the twentieth century continued to witness a new wave of Afro-descendent media. Also owned and produced by members of the Afro-descendent community, newspapers, and magazines such as Mandinga (which was published between 1976 and 1980 by local Afro-descendant Miguel Mbumbele Ríos) and Raices (produced by the Casa de la Cultura Indo-Afro-Americana, a non-governmental, non-­ profit organisation for and by Afro-descendants based in the Santa Fe province in the early 90s) continued to actively use these mediums to counter their invisibility both within the public and in the wider mainstream media. While other newspapers such as: Panorama Africano (published during the mid-1970s); Tambor (1984); the Soweto Informa (which was established in the late 80s); Caco (a monthly bulletin that started in the late 80s/early 90s by the Comite Democratico Haitiano, but stopped after many Haitians left Argentina); and Benkadi (established by Côte d’Ivoirean Baltasar Akas but only published between 2000 and 2001), reflected the wider Afro-descendent community which formed cross-­ continental linkages with Africa. Dedicated to keeping the Afro-descendent community abreast of, and show support for, matters such as the colonial independence of African countries and the fight against Apartheid in South Africa, these forms of Afro-descendent media were also small in number and remained within the communities that it served. While this media continued to be supported by Article 14 of the Constitution, the Afro-descendent newspapers had “little to no economic support available” (Former Afro-descendent Media Owner 2). Often established from their own pockets and through subscriptions, newspapers such as Mandinga had a monthly print run of only 700–800 copies. Delivered by hand to local news-stands, this newspaper, among others was unable to compete with the large dailies that held the dominant position and narratives: It was impossible to compete from our place against the great mediums that form opinion […] We could never have competed with newspapers that had a daily circulation of 3  million copies. (Former Afro-descendent Media Owner 2)

With high daily circulations such as this, the twentieth century became known as “the era of the commercial press” (Cane, 2011, p. 17): an era

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that gave rise to not only powerful press barons, but also powerful opinion makers. In Argentina, one of the most powerful press barons is former government minister Roberto Noble who owns Clarin (now the largest newspaper in Argentina). Powerful dailies like Clarin have long been criticised for not only “telling people what to think, but what to think about” (Vialey et al., 2008, p. 28). And given Noble’s political ties and views, his newspaper became known as the “enemy of the working class” (Kandell, 1974, para 7), which in Argentina comprises of a complex set of racial, ethnic, and economic characteristics. In black-and-white terms, Clarin was against Peronist14 ideologies, which became a symbol of the poor working classes, in particular, those with Black and Indigenous ancestry (Turner & Miguens, 1983). Clarin ensured that clear distinctions were made, which split the media along these political and ideological lines. Terms such as “cabecitas negras” (little black-headed ones)15 were also constructed and disseminated by powerful dailies such as Clarin and the dominant elite to describe the poor working classes (Grimson, 2007), and in doing so, strengthened the Argentine imaginary that the country was homogenously White (see Courtis et  al., 2009). As a consequence, the Afro-descendent identity was reduced to nothing more than the state of being poor, further erasing their visibility and existence: Argentina is complicated, they use phrases such as “negros de mierda” (black shit, “negros de alma” (black soul), “negros de mente” (black mind), not only towards us but to each other, and in some obscure way diluting the meaning of Black […] and the worst part is that you see our journalists using it on TV. (Afro-descendent Community Member 9)

Studies conducted by Dovidio et al. (2012) view this method of exclusion as a way for the dominant group to preserve an advantageous system. This involves “recategorizing individuals formerly seen as members of different groups within a common, superordinate group identity” (ibid.., p. 245). Nevertheless, countering such exclusionary acts was one of the Afro-descendent media’s objectives. As social identity theory posits, groups make every effort to achieve and maintain a sense of positive distinctiveness (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), while striving to maintain a common 14  A political movement based on the ideologies and legacy of former Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón, who ruled the country between 1946–1952 and 1973–1974. 15  Other names found in Argentina to describe people with darker complexion are poncho, gaucho, and morocho.

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national identity, which for Afro-descendants is African as well as Argentinean. Powerful mass circulation dailies like Clarin controlled not only the dominant narrative to marginalise others, but also the market. In 1977, Clarin16 bought Papel Prensa, the only company in Argentina that produced paper for newspapers (Sel & Gasloli, 2014). This “impunity of concentrated economic power” (ibid.., p. 85) facilitated the growth of large media companies, thus marginalising all others. Afro-descendent newspapers such as Mandinga had to print through the resources of Página/12, a Buenos Aires-based newspaper, which at the time, received substantial State advertising under the Kirchner governments, who were known for their Peronist position. Nevertheless, this relational dynamic between the State and the media was permissible due to the lack of regulatory media policies, in particular, a lack of control over commercial oligopolies and the protection of smaller media outlets: They [ethnic minority media] are not protected in this country, like many others [countries], they only care about those in power, those with money, that’s how it all works here. (Afro-descendent Community Member 8)

Although the concept of political power is not often used in the theory and concept of exclusion, despite the fact that it has become ambiguous and multidimensional (Silver & Miller, 2003), it does provide us with an understanding that invisibility can serve political goals. For example, during Argentina’s “Dirty War” (1976–1983), which was led by a US-backed military junta to overthrow the Peronist government, this continent-wide campaign to “eliminate Marxist subversion” called Operation Condor17 resulted in the disappearance of up to 30,000 people. With censorship imposed, journalists were suspected dissidents and subversives, and given the connections between Peronism and Afro-­descendants, some of their newspapers were labelled as “communists or troublemakers” (Former Afrodescendent Media Owner 2), which put them under surveillance by the security forces. In so doing, meetings were prohibited which consequently

 Together with other dominant newspapers La Nación and La Razón.  A covert US-backed campaign of political repression that enabled the Latin American military states to kidnapped, tortured and execute political adversaries. In Argentina this led to the overthrowing of populist president Juan Perón and Peronism. 16 17

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limited the distribution of their newspapers, thus furthering their invisibility. However, in 1980, in the middle of this distressingly turbulent period, the military coup introduced Broadcasting Law No. 22.28518 to “promote diversity and universality in access and participation […] for the entire population of the country” (UNESCO, 2012, para 1). Although this law focused primarily on television and radio, the Afro-descendent newspapers would indirectly benefit from a legal framework that placed diversity19 at the centre of its mandate: The broadcasting services must collaborate with the cultural enrichment of the population, as required by the objectives assigned by this law to the content of broadcasting broadcasts, which should aim at raising the morale of the population, thus also the respect of freedom, social solidarity, the dignity of people, human rights, respect for the institutions of the Republic, the strengthening of democracy and the preservation of Christian morality. (Article 5 replaced by Article 1 of Decree No. 1.005/99 BO 27/9/1999)

This new law represented a shift from the political tendencies that favoured homogeneity and exclusionary policies. Yet, under the Presidency of Carlos Menem (1989–1999) Argentina became heavily influenced by global politico-economic trends, namely, the neoliberal prescription of privatisation (Bambaci et al., 2002; Levitsky & Murillo, 2005; Romero, 2013). The result was “a legal framework that no longer put limitations on ownership concentration or vertical media integration” (Vialey et al., 2008, p.  13). This profound transformation of the media sphere in Argentina helped dominant groups in society, namely large media companies and oligopolies, “to construct, legitimise and naturalise powerful political structures, social relationships and cultural practices” as they pleased (Phelan, 2014, p. 59). Moreover, they used this power to “erase the presence and memory of the African-descendent populations while valorising whiteness in Argentina” (Demissie, 2014, p.  87). This denial  General Videla, de facto President of the Junta, who argued for a return to democracy following Peron’s administration supported the idea of a “free press” but “prevented private capital and foreign investors from holding shares in broadcast media” (Vialey et  al., 2008, p. 14). 19  It’s important to point out here that the term diversity, or more specifically media diversity, is often employed loosely, thus leading to a lack of clarity (Valcke et al., 2015). However, for the purpose of this study, it has been used to express the diversity of ethnic minorities who have a voice in the media, as well as the diversity of media companies under matters of media concentration. 18

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and refusal to acknowledge the Afro-descendants was deeply ingrained into the national consciousness (Peñaloza, 2007). As discussed at the beginning of the chapter, this denial permeated throughout the dominant classes and even presidents such as Menem, who stated in 1996: “There are no Black people here, Brazil has that problem.” Although this reprehensible statement is not a public policy, it was the use of public spaces to further consolidate their vision of a White European Argentina. Within this social exclusionary framework, this form of exclusion is referred to as the processes of alienation: whereby actions that occur over lengthy periods of time can lead into other forms of exclusion (Hills, 1998).

Maintaining the Status Quo It has been argued in social exclusion theory that the impact of not recognising a particular ethnic community can result in “the inability to participate effectively in economic, social, political and cultural life […] from mainstream society” (Duffy, 1995, p.  33). This multidimensional feature of social exclusion is essential since it suggests that exclusion is not limited to economic resources. Although the costs of running an ethnic minority media newspaper in Argentina has proven to be challenging for the sustainability of its operations, other dimensions of exclusion such as cultural capital, gaining political recognition, and enhancing diversity, voice, and respect for minority groups continue to plague the Afrodescendent media. Even though the twenty-first century has given rise to media diversity through the advancement of the Internet,20 it was clear that pluralism alone could not reduce invisibility (cf. Doyle, 2002): After much effort, activism and militancy of our Afro-Argentine predecessors, greater visibility has been achieved […] The media that is present now is more visibility and has been achieved by social media, but also through the activism by many companions. But in any case, there are many groups and commissions that are responsible for gaining space in public policies and us making visible not just the media. (Afro-descendent Community Member 3)

In what has been coined as the “diversity paradox” (Lee & Bean, 2010; Hackett & Hogg, 2014; Kanthak & Krause, 2012): an increase in 20  See Yu, S., & Matsaganis, M.  D. (Eds.) (2019). Ethnic media in the digital age. New York, NY: Routledge.

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consumer choice; everyone’s right to communicate; and access to more information, such inroads do not automatically result in an increase in the visibility of minorities, nor an equal representation and treatment within legislation (Gibbons, 2015). Although cultural representation is central to the justification of changes in media policies, media pluralism can often be seen as too complex within regulatory responses (Valcke et al., 2015) thus furthering the diversity paradox further. For example, whilst global efforts have been made to protect the integrity of ethnic-cultural heritages and the cultures of minorities, such as UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity which argued for “the free circulation of ideas and works, cultural policies must create conditions conducive to the production and dissemination of diversified cultural goods and services” (Article 9), these are not legally binding. The implementations of such policies are at the governments’ discretion. Meaning, each country would need to rely on its own political realities and rationalities when interpreting cultural diversity and media pluralism within their own media policy objectives. Reflected in the fact that Argentina only acknowledged community and alternative media to be legal providers of audio-visual communication services in 2009 under the new Audiovisual Law No 26,522 (Segura et al., 2019) illustrates the resistance against the wider Argentine populace. Therefore, the new Audiovisual Law was a breakthrough, as it was the first time in Argentina’s history that reserved broadcasting spectrum for non-­ profit organisations including universities and Indigenous groups21 (Becerra & Mastrini, 2014). Passed by the legislature during the Presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner22 (2007–2015), this law replaced the Broadcasting Law No. 22.285, which did not recognise any forms of ethnic minority media. While the Afro-descendent media may, at a surface level, be closely aligned ontologically with both community and Indigenous media due to their values of free speech and social change, their counter-­ hegemonic role against invisabilisation23 and the right to communicate with identity (see Belotti, 2018), their absence as a category is felt.

 Under Article 89.  Her and her husband are known under the political ideology of Kirchnerism, which comes from the left-wing of Peronism. 23  However, specific differences include the use and preservation of indigenous languages for indigenous media outlets, and “community can be used as a type of governance—an identifiable means to achieve certain political outcomes” (Rennie, 2006, p. 16). 21 22

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The belief is that there is no Black community here, and most Argentines are unaware of the term Afro-Argentine [….] we have to make our own media if we are to exist. (Afro-descendent Community Member 3)

By excluding Afro-descendent media or ethnic minority media in this way, reflects a reductionist approach to a fundamentally complex issue about the identity of the country. Legal recognition not only legitimises Afro-descendent media, but will also allow them to actively intervene in shaping public opinion. However, the new law does aim to decentralise the media sector, by placing limitations on concentration and market domination, which “made voice, visibility and access selective” (Williams, 2005, p. 62). Against such limitations, it was only a matter of time that the newspaper giant Clarín, which holds a staggering 25% market share,24 would quickly oppose this new law, arguing it was an attempt to break up the monopoly.25 Former President Mauricio Macri (2015–2019) who is known for this conservative pro-business approach to politics (see O’Toole, 2018) reversed this legal obstacle for Clarin and other media giants by “loosen[ing] or remov[ing] many of the limitations to radio and TV concentration, and to cross-media ownership [resulting in Clarín] becoming the largest media conglomerate in the history of communications in Argentina” (RSF & Association Tiempo Argentino, 2019, pp. 10–11). Given this twenty-first-century media environment of media concentration, political parallelism, bias advertising distribution and the high costs for market entry, there has been a decline in the number of Afro-descendent media. In comparison to the active Afro-Porteño Press of the nineteenth century, the twenty-first century has only had three Afro-descendent newspapers: El Afroargentino (edited by the African Diaspora civil association of Argentina (DIAFAR) with a digital radio station Radio DIAFAR, since 2014); Quilombo (a digital magazine of Afro Culture in Argentina); and Dignidad Afrodescendiente (owned and edited by Manuel Altamiranda). In a similar fashion to those of the past centuries, Dignidad Afrodescendiente was still distributed by hand to what can only be seen as a smaller Afro-descendent population. In order to survive, not only is a radical shift in Argentina’s media landscape required, but also stricter  Others include: América, Indalo, Cadena 3.  These findings come from the Media Ownership Monitor (MOM) Report, a collaborative research project carried out by Reporters without Borders (RSF) and the Argentinian media workers’ cooperative Tiempo Argentino. 24 25

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guarantees of liberal democratic values to reflect a genuine plurality of views. As described by the founder of El Afroargentino26 Federico Pita, a dual function is required: [S]preading our culture and denouncing injustices because we are absolutely convinced of the need for spaces such as radio to contribute to the plurality of voices in a society that concentrates the power of opinion every day in fewer hands, putting in check the quality and scope of our democracy.27 (Pita, 2019, para 2)

Here, we can distinguish between the different manifestations of the social exclusion idea: with earlier variations being used to describe racial and cultural divisions, and the present incorporating a wider social democratic project; thus necessitating us to question other, less obvious forms of invisibilisation. For example, another factor that has also restricted the growth of ethnic minority media is related to content production being strongly centralised in the capital, Buenos Aires, rather than in the provinces28 where many ethnic minority groups reside (Becerra et al., 2012). It was discovered, that this physical marginalisation of Afro-descendants outside the capital city was an intentional process of structural invisibilisation by the urban middle class who wanted to maintain the racially White public sphere (Anderson, 2012). Although the new Audiovisual Law now embraces: “Cultural and linguistic diversity, by promoting respect for cultural identity, traditions and religions, [which] is essential for the development of an information society based on dialogue between cultures and on regional and international cooperation” (Section 8 under Article 1), closer scrutiny over the reality of this is required. Take Radio for example, which is seen to have the highest levels of diversity, due to its accessability, continues to be under the control of the four largest media groups in Argentina (Clarín, América, Indalo, Cadena 3); thus reconfirming the point made earlier—that media pluralism does not automatically equate to an increase voices, nor the visibility of minorities. Because as these media groups become larger and undoubtedly more 26  Described as the first newspaper for the Afro-descendent community in the twenty-first century. 27  Translated from Spanish. 28  While the media market (TV, radio and print) is geographically concentrated in the city of Buenos Aires, some popular radio stations are also concentrated in other major cities such as Córdoba, Rosario and Mendoza.

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powerful, the space for an ethnic minority media will inevitably shrink, especially if legal representation and protection is not secured. As explained here by one member of the Afro-descendent community: They don’t project us, they erase us, and they don’t show us. They keep pretending that we don’t exist. We have no representation in the media, or in politics. There is no Afro quota in these institutions. (Afro-descendent Community Member 3)

This concept of an “Afro quota” represents two more legal components that should be considered when looking at the processes of invisibility of ethnic minorities and their media. The first is the Federal Council of the new law, which under Article 1629 is appointed by the national Executive Power. Members of this council include representatives from all 23 provinces and the city government, alongside representatives from: the private, public, and non-profit media; universities; media workers’ unions; rights management companies; and Indigenous people.30 Given that the Afro-descendent community does not have television and very little radio presence, they are not represented. The unequivocal danger of this exclusion is a serious threat to the visibility and representation of this community. The second legal component relates to the political and economic representation of the community within the national census. It has been well documented that racial categorisation is a key variable in legislation (see Casarez Lemi, 2018; Simon et  al., 2015; Matsubayashi & Rocha, 2012; Williams, 2006), therefore, 2010 “marked an important step in the recognition of Afro-descendants [….] the inclusion of Afro-descendants in the 2010 national census” (Afro-descendent Community Member 1) after decades of exclusion. However, it was later discovered that the option to self-identify as Afro-descendant only appeared on a special form that was not distributed throughout the whole country and was for sampling purposes only (Alberto & Elena, 2016); thus making a legal apparatus designed to recognise them, work against them.

 Integration of the Federal Council for Audiovisual Communication.  Persons recognised before the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs (INAI).

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The Argentinian Paradox This study, by far, does not exhaust the number of policies of invisibilisation that exist in Argentina, nor the complexities these have for an ethnic minority media due to the invisibility of data. However, it has aimed to acknowledge and confront some public policies and narratives that have, over the decades, been legitimised by long held structurally exclusionary and culturally hegemonic ideologies; that have led to the marginalisation, and in some cases, the complete invisibilisation of Afro-descendants and their media. In doing so, this study highlights the complexity of researching ethnic minority media in places where it doesn’t exist in national discourse or media law. By overlooking the influence of public policies in serving various interests, opinions, and the everyday narratives leaves a large explanatory gap. We, as media scholars, must go beyond the confines of studying ethnic minority media in isolation as it runs the risk of underexposing the multidimensionality of exclusions that exist. Therefore, it is anticipated that this present contribution starts to fill an analytical gap by providing a useful resource for those seeking to understand the complexities of ethnic minority media in Argentina. And by pulling together voices from the Afro-descendent community and concepts such as: policies of invisibilisation; erasure; exclusion; dominant White narratives; and the invisible superiority can help us to interrogate the factors that can limit the presence of ethnic minority media against the various interests of a privileged few.

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CHAPTER 8

Safeguarding Ethnic-cultural Identities through Ethnic Media: The Case of Radio Dhimsa in Odisha, India Aniruddha Jena

Introduction This chapter examines community radio as a form of ethnic media for safeguarding ethnic-cultural identities. This is an ethnographic study of Radio Dhimsa (RD), a Desia (indigenous) community radio station in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. Drawing upon the existing literature in the domain of ethnic community media, this chapter intends to add a more nuanced understanding of how ethnic community radio plays a key role in safeguarding ethnic-cultural identities while countering majoritarian identities. This study is important because very few studies have dealt with how community radio engages with ethnic-cultural identities in the Global South. Furthermore, this chapter also looks at how RD challenges the popular conventions of broadcast journalism while being positioned as a community radio station.

A. Jena (*) Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_8

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Community Radio and Ethnic Media in India: Background and Current Status The history of community radio as a form of ethnic media in India is quite different in comparison to other countries. The community radio movement in India dates back to the Supreme Court judgement in 1995 that spurred advocacy efforts for community radio. The historic verdict of Justice P. B. Sawant and Justice S. Mohan in the Supreme Court on 9th February 1995 declared the airwaves or frequencies as public property. The judges ruled that public property has to be controlled and regulated by a public authority in the interests of the public and to avoid encroachment of the public rights. Following that landmark judgement, the community radio enthusiasts and activists struggled for a decade to create not-for-profit radio stations that are owned and run by the local communities, particularly in rural areas (Dash, 2015). Since then, the community radio movement has acquired an identity and status but achieved limited success. The first community radio policy was passed in 2002 and following that the first campus radio came into being in 2004. The second community radio policy was passed in 2006, opening it up for the civil society organisations. Following that, the first civil society organisation supported radio was set up in 2008. More than a decade after the policy was adopted, the country has 289 operational community radio stations in different corners of the country. Of the 289 around 160 community radio stations are run by different civil society organisations and the rest are controlled and managed by educational institutions and other government bodies (GOI, 2020). Of the civil society run community radio stations, a considerable number of stations are located in ethnic tribal regions. And these stations are situated as ethnic media because of the characteristics and attributes they offer to the ethnic communities that they cater to. Research on ethnic media is very rare in India and mostly, studies on community radio have so far focused on development, empowerment, participation, policy advocacy, gender, etc. This study is an attempt to understand questions related to ethnic-culture and identity and how community radio as a form of ethnic media is strengthening ethnic-cultural identities. This study takes Radio Dhimsa—a community radio station in Koraput as the case to understand the ethnic Desia community and its cultural identities. An NGO called South Orissa Voluntary Action (SOVA) in

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association with UNICEF established Radio Dhimsa in the year 2012 to give the Desia community of Koraput a platform to empower their voices and strengthen Desia cultural identities. Moreover, this study intends to understand the conventional broadcast journalism practices of news organisation, production, and consumption, and how ethnic media like Radio Dhimsa challenges the popular conventions. The broad objectives supported by the research questions for this study are drawn after critically analysing key concepts like ethnic community, ethnic media, community radio, and ethnic-cultural identities within the specific context of the Desia community, Radio Dhimsa, and Koraput. The broad objectives supported by the research questions of this study are: 1. To examine how Radio Dhimsa deals with the ethnic-cultural identities of Desia community. • In what ways does Radio Dhimsa construct and represent ethnic-­ cultural identities? • How does Radio Dhimsa challenge the conventional practices of broadcast journalism while practising the values of ethnic media? • How does Radio Dhimsa address the questions of ethnic-cultural identities and in what ways? • How does Radio Dhimsa safeguard the ethnic-cultural identities while countering the majoritarian cultural identities? This study helps in understanding the ways and means of how Radio Dhimsa safeguards the ethnic-cultural identities of the Desia community in Koraput, Odisha. After gathering evidence from the study site has led to a more comprehensive understanding of the Desia community and the overall politics of cultural identity. This study used an ethnographic approach to engage with the Desia community to understand Desia life and their understanding of ‘community’ and ‘media.’

On the ‘What’ & ‘Why’ of Ethnic Media Before zeroing in on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ questions of ethnic media, it is imperative to explain the larger idea, that is, alternative and community media. So, the fundamental idea of community media implies that it is a participatory media that is operated for, of, and by the community in order to express the community’s diverse concerns and issues. And

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importantly, the media is about the community and it empowers the community to engage with media technologies to tell their stories from their perspective. In a parallel tone, Chris Atton opines that: Alternative and community media are primarily interested in and focused on the social and cultural practices that enable people to participate directly in the organisation, production and distribution of their own media, and how these media are used to construct and represent identity and community, as well as to present forms of information and knowledge that are under-­ represented, marginalised or ignored by other, more dominant media. (Atton, 2015, p. 1)

The community has access to and control of the medium itself (Rosen & Herman, 1977). Lewis (1984) defines community radio as: an autonomous, non-profit in goal, listener supported and controlled, and deliberately offering a content alternative to what was generally available to listeners, while adopting a management structure and broadcasting style that challenged the traditions of professional broadcasting. (Lewis, 1984, pp. 137–150)

As far as alternative and community media are concerned, it is not just limited to presenting a different version of the world; rather these media offer multiple versions of the world to understand and see the world of happenings through various lenses and spectra. In most cases, alternative media practices take place within particular communities of interest with varying size and composition. Whereas the idea of ethnic media suggests that it is situated and located within a particular ethnic group, the audience of ethnic media is different than that of the other dominant and mainstream media. It is a type of media that represents a particular ethnic group and it aims at giving the ethnic community a platform to voice their experiences, issues and concerns. It draws quite a few attributes from the larger idea of what constitutes an alternative and community media. These are media that do not subscribe to the conventional ways and means of news organisation, production and consumption. Mostly, these media do programming in different yet distinct settings and languages other than the mainstream languages. Yu Shi offers a more cohesive definition about ethnic media that ‘ethnic media are often regarded as media by and for ethnics in a host country

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with content in ethnic languages (Shi, 2009, p. 599).’ Others have stated that ethnic media serve a particular racial/ethnic group that may not be identical with other mainstream races, ethnics, cultures, identities, etc. Scholars claim that use of ethnic media as a concept has overlapped with other ideas and terms like immigrant media, minority media, language media, and so on (Georgiou, 2006; Johnson, 2010). On the efficacy of ethnic media, Ramasubramanian and others suggest that ethnic media are very important to provide a clear alternative to the other dominant forms of media that do not adequately represent or voice the concerns and issues of a particular ethnic community. In their research they discuss that the use of ethnic media has positive effects on particular ethnic communities by strengthening their cultures, voices, values, identities, and so on in ways and means that are indigenous to them. It also provides the ethnic community a more rationalised form of gratification because of their association with the media (Ramasubramanian, Doshi & Saleem, 2017). In this study, Radio Dhimsa is situated as ethnic media, solely because of its geographical positioning and its mission and vision for the Desia community. Being located in an ethnic community space, Radio Dhimsa as ethnic media is controlled, funded, and managed by the Desia community. The ethnic community of Desia owns Radio Dhimsa and the entire programming is done in the Desia language. It only caters to the Desia community in Koraput district of Odisha. More details about the overall association between Desia community and Radio Dhimsa can be found in the subsequent sections of this chapter. On the positioning of community radio as a form of ethnic media, it is important to understand why radio. On that note, in the case of community radio, the community is not a passive audience. As far as the audience of Radio Dhimsa is concerned, it is the Desia population which is the main audience of Radio Dhimsa. Though the transmission reaches out to other communities in Koraput, due to the language and dialect difference the audience base is limited only to the Desia community. Importantly, due to lack of internet connectivity and issues of digital divide, Radio Dhimsa and the Desia community are not able to exploit the online space. It is mainly the classical way of content gathering from the Desia community and then producing it. Later, the produced programmes are disseminated to the community through broadcasting and narrowcasting. Moreover, community radio as a form of ethnic media gives an opportunity for alternative voices, values, and points of view. And more

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importantly, it challenges the conventional attitude of dominant and mainstream media and believes in decentralisation, community participation, and co-learning and reflects on community’s social needs and realities.

Studying Radio Dhimsa as Ethnic Media: Methods and Motivations Radio Dhimsa, a community radio station, is located in the tribal District of Koraput in Odisha, India. In 2012, an NGO named SOVA in collaboration with UNICEF established the station. Even before getting the license to go on air, Radio Dhimsa right from its inception had been working with the Desia community. It caters to the Desia community spread over 60 villages across six Gram Panchayats in Koraput district. Radio Dhimsa in Koraput is the only community radio station in the entire South Odisha. It is promoted by SOVA.  SOVA was registered as an NGO in the year 1996. Initially, it worked with the issue of displacement that was caused by the Upper Kolab dam project in Koraput. Then SOVA started working with health issues, education, governance, community health, livelihood, and rights-based issues of the Desia community. Desia is an indigenous ethnic tribal community spread across the district of Koraput. This ethnic community in Koraput is known for its own distinct language, culture, tradition, customs, festivals, and ways of life which are altogether different from the mainstream Odia culture of Odisha. On the history and struggle for establishing Radio Dhimsa and procuring licence for airing programmes, the station manager Sachida Mohanty reveals that: During 2006–2008, we (SOVA) had the opportunity to work with UNICEF. UNICEF approached us to apply for community radio because other approaches of spreading awareness like wall painting, pictures, Naat (theatre) were not that successful and effective. Then our team gave it a serious thought and we realised that we already had All India Radio in Jeypore which is not so helpful in terms of how it caters to the needs of Desia community. So having a community radio is like having our own media and more importantly, we can produce and do contents in our local Desia language. (Personal Interview)

There are multiple reasons behind choosing Radio Dhimsa as the case for this study:

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• The first and perhaps the most striking point is that not much has been done academically to study and understand the Desia community and Radio Dhimsa because of their remote location. As a result, the representation has not been adequate and appropriate. • Practicing the true values of ethnic media, Radio Dhimsa, located in an ethnic tribal community, produces programmes in the local language, that is, Desia. This is particularly spoken in the Desia community of Koraput, Odisha. The focus of its broadcast includes issues and questions related to the culture of the Desia community. • Lastly, the ways and means of news organisation, production, and consumption of Radio Dhimsa are opposed to the dominant and mainstream ways of doing broadcast journalism. Radio Dhimsa strongly adheres to the ethnic sense of the community by offering a full-participatory platform where Desia people are solely responsible for the organisation, production, and consumption of contents. As for key theoretical supports, influential works like Yea-Wen Chen and Hengjun Lin’s (2016) Cultural Identities, Ramasubramanian, Doshi and Saleem’s (2017) Mainstream Versus Ethnic Media, Dandan Liu’s Ethnic media and Social Change (2010) and Sanem Şahin’s (2017) Journalism and Professionalism in Ethnic Media have greatly helped in grounding this study conceptually and theoretically. Furthermore, apart from these works, other key and related works have been referred and cited in this study to arrive at a holistic understanding about ethnic media and how they plays out in a given cultural context and site. As mentioned before, this study was conducted in Koraput district of Odisha. Koraput is a land of rich ethnic tribal cultures. The erstwhile undivided Koraput used to be a wide geographic space before its division in 1992 into four districts, namely Koraput, Malkanagiri, Rayagada, and Nabarangpur. Tribal population constitutes around 50% of the total population in this region. Of the total 62 tribes in Odisha, undivided Koraput is home to 52 tribal groups. Koraput is important for two reasons: for its geography and for the rich ethnic tribal life. In the context of this study, culture is a big part of the Desia community’s identity. For the Desia community, culture and identity are understood as ways of life. In the community, culture is understood as material and non-material. Material culture includes Desia agricultural practices, patterns of building houses, celebrating festivals, fishing, playing, etc., whereas non-material culture

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includes Desia language, music, world view, simplicity, hospitality, etc. These material and non-material forms of Desia culture are crude and ingenious in nature. As part of the methodology, this study used an ethnographic approach to engage with the Desia community to understand Desia life and their understanding of community and media. The use of organisational ethnography (Neyland, 2008) helped in understanding Radio Dhimsa as an institution and its structure and function as an ethnic community initiative; ethnographic content analysis (Altheide, 1987) was helpful to understand and analyse the select programmes of Radio Dhimsa and in the ways in which the station is safeguarding the ethnic values of Desia culture and identity. Above all, it also helped in getting an idea about how the community members engage with the contents which are developed. In order to collect data and elicit required information in those kinds of settings, the initial challenge was to build rapport with the community and the people who are engaged and associated with Radio Dhimsa. The sample for the study was selected based on a couple of premises; Desia people who are active contributors to the programming at Radio Dhimsa and station crew members who are running the programmes. Hence, a few days went into building strong base and rapport with the Desia community and individuals who are working in Radio Dhimsa. A network was established to explore the key questions that are related to Radio Dhimsa and its engagement with the rich ethnic-culture and identity of the Desia community. This provided a fair idea of the community radio station, key stakeholders, and individuals associated with Radio Dhimsa. During data collection through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and field notes, it was found that Radio Dhimsa is very specific and particular in its approach and agenda towards the Desia community. Organisational ethnography helped in understanding that as ethnic media, Radio Dhimsa has a clear-cut mandate to safeguard the Desia community culturally and to strengthen Desia ethnic-cultural identity. Ethnographic content analysis offered a more comprehensive idea about how programmes are being made and news and information are gathered. Overall, it offered an all-encompassing outlook about how the process of organisation, production, and consumption of programmes takes place. It also gave an idea about how the programmes aim at strengthening the Desia culture and identity. Importantly, the listeners’ clubs and radio supporters’ clubs which are formed by Radio Dhimsa and the community in a collaborative way help the media in reinforcing and reinvigorating local

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ethnic-­ culture and identity of the Desia community. While the stateowned All India Radio and other private FM stations largely depend on institutional experts (RJs, Reporters, Editors, Voice-Over artists, etc.), Radio Dhimsa encourages local expertise in its broadcast. It has successfully identified the key sources of local knowledge and expertise in a number of villages. And it provides a platform to the local talents to do programming using their skills and knowledge of their ethnic-culture and community to sensitise and create awareness in the community for larger benefits in the long run. In that way, Radio Dhimsa is quite successful in forging a sense of community in the people and moreover, it also establishes its own credentials as ethnic media by challenging and offering an alternative to the other dominant and mainstream media. Radio Dhimsa has been instrumental in reaching out to the marginalised Desia community of Koraput. As the local language is Desia, it is very difficult for the Desia community to understand and comprehend news and information coming from other dominant and mainstream media that are mainly in the mainstream Odia language. So, Radio Dhimsa as ethnic media aims to offer vital and essential information and news to the Desia community in their local language. And more importantly, these programmes are locally generated using talents and expertise of the Desia people. In this way, Radio Dhimsa has been successful in establishing itself as ethnic media that promises to safeguard the Desia culture and identity by programming its broadcasting and narrowcasting efforts. It has been producing programmes in various formats like jingle, drama, interview, spot, skit, discussion, etc. There are volunteers in each of the 60 villages, who are responsible to narrowcast the programmes so that no one is left out. That gives an idea about how Radio Dhimsa has been able to forge a greater sense of community with collaboration, participation, and involvement of the Desia people. Currently, the total number of hours of transmission of Radio Dhimsa is around 11 hours. The transmission takes place in three phases, that is, 6–9 am and 10–12 noon that is termed as Sakhal Bela (Morning session), 2–5 pm, that is, Upar Bela (Afternoon session) and 6–9 pm, that is, Sanja Bela (Evening session). The coverage area of Radio Dhimsa is expanding to 60 villages of 6 Gram Panchayats. Out of which 45 villages are directly tuning to Radio Dhimsa, whereas for the remaining 15 villages team Radio Dhimsa narrowcasts the programmes on a regular basis. Currently, there are 12 community reporters who are responsible to bring the Desia voices and issues to Radio Dhimsa. Radio Dhimsa also does live programming of Grama Sabha and Palli Sabha (Village Union & Committee Meeting) to

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sensitise people about their culture, tradition, values, agricultural practices, festivals, and more. While upon asked about the mission and vision of Radio Dhimsa, the station director Sanjit Patnaik asserted that: Radio Dhimsa is always committed to work for and with the ethnic marginalised Desia community here in Koraput. We as an institution are cognizant about the necessities and essentials of Desia community. Radio Dhimsa gives an opportunity to the disadvantaged Desia community of Koraput to raise their voice and to strengthen their cultural identity. Even though Koraput is more than 500  km away from the state capital, the Desia population of Koraput have found their voice through Radio Dhimsa. (Personal interview)

A few of the programmes that have been very successful in the last couple of years are Lenka Master, Aama Rosei (Cookery show), Aamar Sapana Su Susan (Good Governance Our Dream), Chas Khabar (Agriculture News), Phone-in (About People’s Grievances), Halchal (What’s Up?), Chaiti Parab (Local Festivals), Aama Yojana (Our Plans), etc. Importantly, each of these programmes has a particular focus and objective to follow. That is one of the main reasons why these programmes have been acclaimed and supported by the Desia community. Radio Dhimsa also encourages the community’s work in protecting and reinvigorating the local culture and cultural practices using local talent. Importantly, the station crew members are entirely from the community who have now emerged as local icons because of their exposure and popularity in the community. There are four crew members working in Radio Dhimsa and they are Udaynath Hantal, Prem Naik, Aila Takri, Aila Krisani. Importantly, all of them have been working in the station for few years now. Uday has been working with Radio Dhimsa right from its inception in 2012. During his interview he stated that: He used to always wonder that how come people talk inside a television or radio. He had an undying interest to give himself a chance to present his talent to the community. He strongly believes that Radio Dhimsa is a striving force to consolidate the local Desia community and its ethnic-culture, tradition, customs etc. through its programming. It is working as a platform is to identify the hidden talents and endangering cultures to work for the restoration and protection purpose. (Personal interview)

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For all the crew members, Radio Dhimsa has given them an identity to lead and live, and importantly, they believe that Radio Dhimsa has been trying to safeguard the Desia culture in the long run. People in the Desia community are now recognising Radio Dhimsa as a change agent working towards strengthening of Desia culture and identity. Radio Dhimsa ensures participation of its community members with the rationale that these members one day will grow in confidence and will be able to do programming on their own in the Desia language to strengthen their ethnic-cultural identity. This will help them in countering the cultural hegemony that is strategically sponsored and promoted by the state and corporate-sponsored mainstream media. In reference to that, an interview was conducted with one of the very few people who are considered an authority in Desia culture, Chandal Jani, and he was of the opinion that: In last few decades the state and its administration have invaded their geographical as well cultural spaces. As a result, through the conventional education system, media and cultural policies, the state has started replacing and erasing our own Desia culture. The texts books that youth are referring and studying don’t have a mention of the Desia culture and tradition. And that is why there is a change which is very much visible these days that the youth have started distancing themselves from their own Desia community and culture. And this is posing a serious threat to our own ethnic-culture. Radio Dhimsa has been trying to sensitise people about this very threat, but this is not enough in comparison to how youth are being carried away with the state promoted educational systems, media and cultural policies and its shallow agenda to mainstream the Desia community. (Personal interview)

As ethnic media, Radio Dhimsa’s programmes deal with the region and its cultural distinctiveness. The programmes aim at reaching out to the local cultural activists and artists who have been practising the Desia culture for years now but their creations and outputs are not properly and adequately represented. Radio Dhimsa provides them with an opportunity to showcase and present their work to the community, so that the community becomes aware of their own stars and talents. In that way, Radio Dhimsa invokes a more consolidated sense of an ethnic-cultural community. Importantly, all these attempts and programmes provide an alternative to the community about its cultural identity to strengthen it using their own alternative ways.

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Conclusion In the context of this study, it was immensely important to understand and engage with the idea of community in relation to ethnic media. In an attempt to examine the said idea, Upadhya writes that the concept of community is pervasive and quite frequently used in most social science and humanities texts. Over the years, there have been uninterrupted endeavours to organise and contextualise the idea of the community in order to provide an encompassing comprehension (Upadhya, 1998). In addition, the idea of community has also constantly evolved because of other key conceptual developments like social structure, cultural transformations, globalisation, modernisation, development, politics, democracy, media and technology, evolution of the Internet, and so on (Jodhka, 2014; Delanty, 2009; Cohen, 1985; & Barth, 1969). Community as a concept in the field of alternative and community media in general and ethnic media in particular has been contextualised in various ways and contexts. In that regard, Pavarala argues that community for the purposes of community media may be defined as a territorially bound group with some commonality of interests, implying a common identity too (Pavarala, 2003). However, for Savita Bailur, the idea of community is a dynamic entity that is looking to form social relationships and networks among communities (Bailur, 2012). Moreover, community as an idea and its positioning in the particular context of ethnic media is quite different from that of other sub-fields. In ethnic media also, the idea of community is primarily understood as group of individuals having common territory, identity, network, and interests. And the ethnic community uses a particular media for their own emancipation and empowerment. With the evidences outlined in the earlier sections, it is necessary to state that Radio Dhimsa is an active force to consolidate the Desia culture and by engaging the community in all its operations and programming. Radio Dhimsa defines its community as a homogenous group consisting of the Desia population of Koraput. Hence, this is one of the major reasons why the community is appropriately and adequately reflected through the programmes. As ethnic media, Radio Dhimsa banks on the local crew members with active support and participation of the community to lend credibility to its broadcast content and consolidate the Desia cultural identity.

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In the end, it suffices to suggest that despite the presence of other dominant and mainstream media, Radio Dhimsa does great work to strengthen local ethnic-cultures of the Desia community while retaining the characteristics of ethnic media. By employing locals, broadcasting in the local language, and involving members of the community in all its operations, Radio Dhimsa has been instrumental in providing a platform for marginalised voices, representing and strengthening local culture and has established its credentials as ethnic media.

References Altheide, D.  L. (1987). Ethnographic Content Analysis. Qualitative Sociology, 10(1), 63–77. Retrieved October 22, 2019, from http://www.public.asu. edu/~atdla/ethnographiccontentanalysis.pdf Atton, C. (2015). Introduction: Problems and Positions in Alternative and Community Media. In C.  Atton (Ed.), Routledge Companion to Alternative and Community Media (pp. 1–18). Routledge. Bailur, S. (2012). Who is ‘Community’ in Community Radio? Economic & Political Weekly, 92–99. Retrieved September 17, 2019, from http://communityradio.in/pdf/who-­is-­the-­community-­in-­community-­radio.pdf Barth, F. (1969). Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Little, Brown and Company. Chen, Y.-W., & Lin, H. (2016). Cultural Identities. Oxford Research Encyclopedias/Communication. Retrieved November 15, 2019, from http:// communityradio.in/pdf/who-­is-­the-­community-­in-­community-­radio.pdf Cohen, A. P. (1985). The Symbolic Construction of Community. E Harwood. Dash, B.  B. (2015), Media for Empowerment: A Study of Community Radio Initiatives in Bundelkhand. Tata Institute of Social Science. Delanty, G. (2009). Community: Key Ideas. Routledge. Georgiou, M. (2006). Diaspora, Identity and the Media: Diasporic Transnationalism and Mediated Spatialities. Hampton Press. GOI. (2020). List of Operational Community Radios as on 31st March 2020 in India (Publication). Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Retrieved June 4, 2020, from https://mib.gov.in/broadcasting/state-wise-details-operationalcommunity-radio-stations-india-31-03-2020 Jodhka, S.  S. (2014). Community and Identities: Contemporary Discourses on Culture and Politics in India. Sage Publications. Johnson, M. A. (2010). Incorporating Self-categorization Concepts into Ethnic Media Research. Communication Theory, 20(1), 106–125. Lewis, P.  M. (1984). Community Radio: The Montreal Conference and After. Media, Culture and Society, 6(2), 137–150.

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Liu, D. (2010). Ethnic Media and Social Change: A Case in the United States. In K.  Howley (Ed.), Understanding Community Media (pp.  250–259). Sage Publications. Neyland, D. (2008). Organizational Ethnography. Sage Publications. Pavarala, V. (2003). Breaking Free: Battle over the Airwaves. Economic Political Weekly, 38(22), 2166–2167. Ramasubramanian, S., Doshi, M.  J., & Saleem, M. (2017). Mainstream Versus Ethnid Media: How They Shape Ethnic Pride and Self-Esteem Among Ethnic Minority Audieneces. International Journal of Communication, 11, 1879–1899. Rosen, E., & Herman, R. (1977). The Community Use of Media for Lifelong Learning in Canada. In F.  J. Berrigan (Ed.), Access: Some Western Models of Community Media (pp. 85–143). UNESCO. Şahin, S. (2017). Journalism and Professionalism in Ethnic Media. Journalism Studies, 2–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1266911 Shi, Y. (2009). Re-evaluating the ‘alternative’ Role of Ethnic Media in the US: The Case of Chinese-Language Press and Working-Class Women Readers. Media Culture & Society, 31(4), 597–616. Upadhya, C. (1998). Conceptualising the Concept of Community in Indian Social Science: An Anthropological Perspective. Communities and Identities: Interrogating Contemporary Discourses on India (pp.  1–21). Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad. Retrieved April 19, 2019, from http:// www.unipune.ac.in/snc/cssh/HistorySociology/A%20DOCUMENTS%20 ON%20HISTORY%20OF%20SOCIOLOGY%20IN%20INDIA/A%20 1%20Debates%20on%20sociology%20and%20anthrpology%20of%20 India/A%201%2020.pdf

CHAPTER 9

A “Place for Our Small Problems”: Online Ethnic Media of the Turks in/from Bulgaria Slavka Karakusheva

Introduction “There is no place for our small problems in big media in Turkey … Nor there is any in main media in Bulgaria.” This is how one of my interlocutors started the conversation during our first meeting in the town of Kardzhali in south-eastern Bulgaria in April 2015. He is the founder, the owner, and the main contributor to a small online news agency, established with the aim of publishing news from and about the region as well as translating and re-publishing content from the “big media” in Bulgaria and Turkey, considered of importance for the local population. Around 66.2% of the locals self-identify as Turks and 30.2% as Bulgarians (Census, 2011, p. 24, Fig. 13). This makes the district of Kardzhali the region with the highest concentration of Turkish minority in Bulgaria.1 1   The demographic composition in Bulgaria consists of three main ethnic groups: Bulgarian, Turkish, and Roma. 84.8% of the population in the country self-identify with Bulgarian ethnicity. The Turkish ethnic group is the second biggest one, representing 8.8%

S. Karakusheva (*) Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia, Bulgaria © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_9

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The large number of ethnic Turks and the location of the district at the border with both Turkey and Greece have fostered over the years a regionalising ideology emanating from the capital, Sofia. The region was subjected to ethno-national(istic) politics, to both specific privileging strategies and marginalisation mechanisms, and to economic measures for control of what had been imagined as possible ethno-political mobilisation of the Turkish community (see also Guentcheva, 2000, pp. 111–114). Population policies as part of nation building in Bulgaria and Turkey have affected the district of Kardzhali, and caused enormous emigration of Turks during the ̇ twentieth century (see Höpken, 2019; Kirişçi, 1996; Içduygu & Sert, 2015; Stoyanov, 1998; Erolova, 2017; Parla, 2019 for further elaboration). Forced or encouraged, organised or not, spontaneous or negotiated by bilateral agreements, the emigration of hundreds of thousands was a fact. People crossed the Bulgarian-Turkish border individually or collectively, searching for a better life and moving to what was envisioned as a “symbolic” (Parla, 2006, pp.  552, 554) or “ethnic” (Erolova, 2017, p.  207) homeland. Recently Kardzhali region enjoyed the highest population growth in constantly depopulating Bulgaria—a growth, based on migration increase, caused by seasonal or permanent return of some of those ex-residents who had been subject of displacement politics earlier. As Rossitsa Guentcheva (2000) has argued, the long-lasting regionalising ideology of the political “centre” has been appropriated by the local elites in the 1990s and 2000s into counter-identification processes, into tactics for emancipation from the “centre” through a variety of transnational initiatives. Building on this argument, this chapter aims at demonstrating how regional online ethnic media overcome the deficiency of local news coverage in the national publicity, centred almost exclusively in the capital Sofia, and attempt to fill the vacuum and redress the balance in favour of local specifics. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on social practices of production, reception, and circulation of information, the analysis focuses on two online platforms—Ajans Bulgaristan (popular also as Ajans BG) and Kırcaali Haber—both publishing regional news mainly in Turkish language, reflecting the needs, satisfying the interests, and addressing the concerns of the biggest ethnic minority group in the country. The chapter of the total population. People who identify themselves as Turks live mainly in several regions—Kardzhali, Razgrad, Targovishte, Shumen, Silistra, Dobrich, Ruse, Burgas. Roma ethnicity is declared by 4.9% of the citizens (Census, 2011, p. 3).

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examines these ethnic media as a form of negotiating and challenging the often dissatisfactory, essentialising, and excluding minorities’ portrayals that mass media produces. Last, but not least, the analysis argues that such journalistic initiatives function as agents of cross-border information transfers, and therefore—as the social cement which builds and binds a transnational community.

Conceptual Contours: The Boundaries of Representation While mainstream media have been comprehensively discussed for their central role in consolidating national homogeneity and constructing collective identities (see among others: Anderson, 1991 [1983]; Yumul & Özkırımlı, 2000; Madianou, 2005; Postill, 2006; Spassov, 2012; Bilgiç, 2017), they have been also criticised for the institutional mediation of identity politics and the under- or misrepresentation of particular groups with limited access to content production. Attention has been drawn to the reproduction of the public stigmatisation and the discursive creation of negative, discriminating, Otherising and/or Orientalising stereotypes of minorities (Alia & Bull, 2005; Canut et  al., 2016; Cheshmedzhieva-­ Stoycheva, 2018; Poole, 2002; Richardson, 2004; van Dijk, 1991 among others). Studies on minority portrayals of Turks in Bulgarian mainstream media depict a highly politicised image of the ethnic and religious group (Dobreva, 2009; Lazarova, 2004; Markov, 2002; Spassov, 2017). This is due to the large coverage of a party, seen as the political representative of the Muslims in the country—the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. Such a portrayal however has a deeper background and embodies the historically constructed image of the “Turkish conqueror”, related to the stereotyped narrative of the Ottoman Empire in history and literature textbooks (Lazarova, 2004). Mainstream media reproduce the sustainable grand narrative of the national cannon, presenting the Ottoman Empire as “Turkish yoke” and the establishment of the modern Bulgarian state out of the dissolution of the empire as “liberation” from the Turks (Neuburger, 1997). Mass media  further ally the participation of the “Turkish” party in the government of the state in the last 30 years to this negative perception of the “Turkish ruler”, against whom the heroism of the Bulgarian nationhood of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was constructed. By presenting the Turkish minority in the

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generalised stereotype of political electorate who decides the future of “our country”, mainstream media additionally nourish the complexity of the interethnic relationships. They reproduce a form of sociality which excludes certain members of the society and reinforces images of the Otherness from within. Studies on hate speech in media, for example, report that ethnic and religious minorities, and particularly Turks, are among the main targets of aggressive speech and insult in mass media, social networks and online forums in Bulgaria (Daskalova, 2016; Iliycheva, 2005; Spassov, 2016). Given the role of mainstream media in sustaining the inequality of the social and power relations and in institutionalising the cultural hegemony, ethnic media are often discussed as a possible response to the continuing mis- or under-representation of minorities in public domains and as a forum which provides grounds for a more balanced portrayal of ethnic groups in particular national contexts (Bailey & Harindranath, 2006). Ethnic media are understood as means of communication, produced for an ethnic community (Matsaganis et al., 2011, p. 5) in their own language that reflect their points of view, and address their concerns. They eventually contribute to the ethnic cohesion, and cultural maintenance, communicate collective pride, foster the positive identification, represent minority interests, and facilitate harmonious interethnic relations (Gladkova et al., 2018; Jeffers, 2000; Ramasubramanian et  al., 2017). Additionally, they offer space where people from public “periphery” could contest and critically negotiate the discriminatory, essentialising and stereotyping images, representations and discourses about them created by the “centre” and thus—potentially reshape not only the media sphere, but also the status quo of the social and power relations. The advent of ethnic media in Bulgaria is primarily related to the emergence of new forms of communication, the technological development, and the mediatisation of people’s lives. Such transformations in both media sphere and social reality provide a chance for public expression of alternative, silenced, suppressed, and unheard voices in relatively cheap, simply manageable, and easily accessible online platforms. The media under analysis in this chapter were born in virtual environment while taking advantage of the increasing participatory opportunities, provided by the proliferation of media (Deuze, 2006). The diffusion and the development of Internet has created opportunities for building web-based platforms, able to operate with limited recourses but independently from the established media industry. Furthermore, social media have transformed

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the models of communicating and obtaining news and the means of circulation of information. People are not only audience anymore, but active participants in the distribution of media content. The multilocality and multivocality of their experiences surpass the national boundaries of operation and meaning constructions of mainstream media, as both communication and mobility have expanded across space. Thus, another perspective in the scholarly debate on ethnic media underlines the growing importance of the international migration flows and human mobility (Bailey, 2011; Bernal, 2006; Georgiou, 2005; Kosnick, 2007; Shiramizu, 2000). Certain countries (predominantly in the Global North) have been facing large immigration movements and their societies nowadays consist of variety of ethnic and religious groups (mostly from the Global South) who establish own media to get satisfactorily informed and oriented in the host state or to stay connected with their home places. However, the Global South has its specific and complex migration experiences and migratory patterns and the case with the Turks in/from Bulgaria is a good illustration of this complexity. The role of their ethnic media in fulfilling the information deficiency and in sustaining various forms of cross-border connections seems to be an important topic, insufficiently examined in scholarly literature. Considering the enormous resettlement of Turks from Bulgaria to Turkey during the twentieth century or the continuous circulation between both countries in the last three decades, consumption of media content, produced on the other side of the border, connects people, places, and information flows. It not only disseminates aspects of the national and the regional publicity, but also provides significant information about the context where some of the very close relatives and friends live. The quest to see “our small problems” in media is related also to the curiosity of how kith and kin across the border live. Ethnic media do not replace the traditional channels of communication, including satellite television from far places of affective attachment, but simultaneously deliver possibly alternative news within and across national territories. These media outlets construct routes back and forth which the imagination could take to reach distant people and places. As argued by Bernal (2006, p.  175): “Internet may be the quintessential diasporic medium ideally suited to allowing migrants in diverse locations to connect, share information and analyses, and coordinate their activities.” Moreover, Internet and social media combine “the space of flows” with “the space of places”

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(Castells, 2010), linking distant localities through social practices of human interaction and information circulation.

Case Studies The ethnic media landscape in Bulgaria is a relatively new field with a few small-scale, grass-rooted media outlets whose content production relies to a great extent on the personal initiative, semi-amateur contribution, and voluntary endeavours. Precisely because of these characteristics and the lack of sustainable funding by public or private sources, the field is very dynamic with constant emergence of new actors and closure of old ones. The only “traditional” media in Bulgaria that deliver information in Turkish language is a nine-minute-long daily news programme at 12.30 p.m. on the public television (time when rarely anybody watches news)2 and a three-hour-long broadcast on a sub-channel of the public radio.3 Apart from these state-supported ethnically oriented programmes that have more representative than informative or inclusive functions, there are no other ethnic electronic media or daily printed press in Turkish language. Hence, Turkish ethnic media are produced mainly on online platforms, being comparatively cheap and easily manageable. They are owned by small companies, published by members of the Turkish community in Bulgaria, many of whom have not been educated as professional journalists, but have learnt the profession through practice. However, this study does not aim at depicting a general overview of the terrain, but rather deliberately focusses on two channels that provide information to the largest ethnic minority in the country—the Turkish one. The choice of the cases—Ajans BG Kırcaali Haber—was determined by the fact that they are among the first media enterprises that started publishing information in Turkish language in online domains and among the few that survived through the years, owing to the enthusiasm of their owners and editors who invest time and efforts to maintain the platforms while employed with other jobs. Moreover, these media outlets are also one of the most popular online platforms for consumption of regional, ethnically oriented news among the Turks who still reside in Bulgaria or have migrated to Turkey or other European countries. As this initial study  https://bnt.bg/bg/a/254292-novini-na-turski-ezik, accessed 23.09.2020.  https://bnr.bg/tr?fbclid=IwAR1Fw2KsL1VodvInBblzHswXaZ7YoZd0NZjBJd7hxqw Pwh1J0IcSZMEEOS0, accessed 23.09.2020. 2 3

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is limited within its methodological boundaries, it shall be read as an invitation for a further analysis of the developments of the Turkish ethnic media scene or a broader overview of the ethnic media landscape in Bulgaria encompassing also other groups’ channels. Ajans BG was initiated in 2010 as a personal endeavour of a professionally trained journalist who had previously worked as a correspondent of several national and international media. The agency publishes various news about politics, culture, and religion and reports different events occurring in both Bulgaria and Turkey with specific focus on the district of Kardzhali. It is developed completely in the online space with a website, a YouTube channel with 495 uploaded videos and 2180 subscribers, and a Facebook page with 7638 followers (as of 14 September 2020). In the words of its owner, the news to be published is selected on one basic principle: “to be useful and informative for the local Turks and our migrants in Turkey”. Although the agency is not a profitable business with negligible number of advertisers and irregularity of content publishing, he describes it as “one of the most important projects in [his] life”. This belief is based on the feeling that his medium has a modest contribution to satisfying audience’s demand for knowledge and regional information. Kırcaali Haber was established as a semi-amateur news website in May 2006. In the end of 2007, a bilingual 12-page monthly newspaper with the same name was added to the media portfolio, printed with the support of individual and institutional donations. The owner and editor-in-chief remembers: When I started online, I had no intent to publish a newspaper. It [online publishing] was just cheaper. In 2006 many people living outside the ­country were reading this news. Here the Turkish population did not have computers in their homes in those years. […] But then some friends of mine from Komotini [a town in northern Greece] asked me: Why don’t you publish a real newspaper? A very hard question … I knew nothing of newspapers. They brought me a programme […] and showed me: here like this, here like that. Twenty days I worked on this programme. Twenty days for one newspaper! To learn it and to do the pagination, to make it look beautiful.

In 2010 the monthly newspaper was transformed to a weekly one with the financial support of the local authorities. They subscribed all seven municipalities in the district, whose mayors were elected from the same

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party—the above mentioned Movement for Rights and Freedoms, to the newspaper and thus an issue of Kırcaali Haber was delivered every Wednesday morning to town halls, cultural centres, libraries, groceries, and small kiosks in the remote mountain villages and towns in the whole area. Since then both the online platform and the weekly gazette inform about the events in the region. In 2015—the time of my conversation with the owner—the website had 5000–6000 average daily visits with some days reaching up to 10,000. The editorial team includes my interlocutor’s family and a few more journalists who produce, republish, or translate around 10–15 articles per day, prepare the weekly newspaper, moderate a Facebook page with approximately 31,000 followers, and a Twitter channel with more than 12,800 tweets and around 3300 followers (all numbers as of 14 September 2020). Both media provide regional information to residents and migrants in Turkey. Due to their digital platforms, their content reaches wider public who accesses the websites from various locations and shares their publications in different groups, pages, and chats in social networks. These media capture the atmosphere of the region, focus it to the interests and translate it to the language of their audience, and create a form of publicity that subvert the regional and national broadcasting and publishing regimes.

Regional News and the Genius Loci Although no analysis to this date has focussed on the appearance of regional content in mainstream media in Bulgaria, a basic look at the evening news shows disproportion of presence of the different regions in the national information flows. Reports observe tendency for “centralisation of the media sector in Sofia”, due to increase of employment of journalists in the capital on the account of other districts (Valkov, 2017, p. 6), staff reduction and merge of positions in regional media (Spassov et al., 2017, pp. 49–50), and uneven remuneration of the journalistic profession in the capital and the other regions (ibid., pp. 62–64). To this one may add the disproportional interest of big media corporations towards particular regions, illustrated with lack of representatives of these companies in 5 out of 28 districts in the country (Regional Media in Bulgaria, 2015, p. 2). As a result, the capital, political, and economic centre gets more visibility in the national publicity than a remote district located at the periphery of the national territory with predominantly ethnic minority population.

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What media like Ajans BG and Kırcaali Haber achieve, besides the translation of the messages of the political centres, is capturing and narrating the spirit of place by reporting news with local significance. This news includes not only coverage of the decisions of the local authorities, but also the very mundane information about road reconstructions, natural disasters and car accidents, planned water or electricity interruptions, sport events, cultural initiatives, social support programmes, renovation of public buildings, Muslim religious issues, rites and holidays, traffic at the border checkpoints, and so on. Rarely any of these topics would be considered important enough to be included in public broadcasting and national press, but they give substantial information about local life to both residents and migrants in Turkey, translated and published in their own mother tongue. “People want to see themselves in the news. They want to see their small world. They want to recognise their problems there. If they can see this, they will watch or read the media. Especially if it can provide information that no other mainstream media does”, says the owner of Ajans BG. This “small world” consists of shared knowledge of the vernacular social routine—the information that is necessary for the organisation of the everyday living. The day to day reporting constructs the genius loci and the sense of people for belonging to the place. Publications from and about particular villages and towns pin them to the mental map of the region and turn them into attractive destinations of imaginary journeys. Distantly remote in the mountains or close to the district city, big or small, relatively populated or intensively depopulated, these locations, which otherwise remain forgotten in the infrastructural projects, economic investments, political decisions, and news coverage receive their space and place in the information flows. When people post and comment news from the regional Turkish online media, which discusses their home place, in the multiple Facebook groups of the towns and the villages in the region, they actually contribute to the weaving and the maintenance of a network of local stories and common experiences. This network draws the contours of the regional publicity which might not be of part of the mainstream media content, but produces, narrates, and visualises the “small world” of the people in the region.

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Negotiating Ethnic Minorities’ Portrayals “The aim is that people can read the news in their mother tongue and also our fellow citizens who are outside of Bulgaria can learn information about here. There are other newspapers here, however they do not provide information about the Turkish minority objectively. […] There is almost no other newspaper which covers what we do in Turkish language”, explains the owner of Kırcaali Haber, whose homepage opens with the slogan “The independent voice of the Turks in Bulgaria”.4 Beyond the naive speculation of the media independence and objectivity in terms of reliance on local authorities’ benevolence and funding sources and the inevitable subjective interpretation of events, the communicative channels under scrutiny offer space which reflects the needs and the concerns of a minority. If the national publicity is dominated by news and programmes produced by, for, about, and predominantly in the language of the majority, the discussed here ethnic media challenge “the cultural politics of communication” (Bailey & Harindranath, 2006). They create a forum where minorities could have their own voice in public affairs and thus transform the object-subject mode of representation—from a passive model of portrayal where media “speak about” minorities to their active participation in the formation of own images and stories and the ability to “speaks for” themselves (see also Kosnick, 2007). Thus, in the news of Ajans BG and Kırcaali Haber the Turks are not only a political electorate, but “ordinary people” who win sport competitions, have success in education, celebrate fests, make donations for social causes and public building renovations, put efforts in their own business or agricultural production, experience regular border crossings. Their mundane concerns and cultural repertoires are explicitly outspoken in the interviews in the platforms or implicitly described between the lines of the editors’ articles. The polyphony of voices and the multiplicity of experiences articulates an alternative publicity, which compensates for the inequality of social and power relations and the dominant presentation of society as a single ethno-national entity in mainstream media. The local bulletin and the chronicle of the vernacular affairs which are focussed towards the interests of the ethnic group and possibly represent their viewpoints are also envisaged as contribution to preserving the memory for people, places and events, and archiving it into the registers of the national history. In the words of the 4

 https://www.kircaalihaber.com/, accessed 24.08.2020.

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editor of Kırcaali Haber: “it is important that it will stay as an archive of what has happened here. You know, all newspapers published in Bulgaria go to the archive at the National Library in Sofia. One day, if somebody wants to know what the Bulgarian society looked like in the times we live in, they will have the viewpoint of our media as well.” This form of participation in history writing adds another layer of representation where the Turkish ethnic minority could conceivably reshape its historically and present-­day constructed public portrayal of the great national enemy.

Building a Transnational Community Given the border separation, the Turks in Bulgaria and the Turks from Bulgaria in Turkey are exposed to different media environments that report news corresponding to the relevant social and political  context. Their online ethnic media however, because of their digital domain, respectively easy access, and possibility for easy sharing in social networks, regardless of one’s location, overcome the territorial constraints of the national information flows. Thus, they offer instantaneously exchange of information to deterritorialised people (ethnoscapes, in Appadurai’s definition) in juxtaposition to translocal/transnational mediascapes (Appadurai, 1996). This deterritorialisation does not diminish the importance of the place as social space of interaction (Christensen et  al., 2011; Georgiou, 2011; Morley, 2000). Rather the emerging new forms of communication reconfigure the manner and the means of this interaction and expand sociability and connectivity within and between places. Thereby, online ethnic media, like those of interest in this analysis, pave imaginary routes to distant places of affective attachment, satisfy the curiosity of their public for the daily routine and the extraordinary events there, provoke participation and engagement “from away” (what Bernal (2006, p.  164) calls “emotional citizenship”), and redefine the sense of proximity in both social and geographical aspects. For example, according to the traffic statistics the owner of Kırcaali Haber presented, in 2015 most readers of his website (~60%) were visiting from Turkey, less (~30%)—from Bulgaria, and the rest (~10%)—from other European countries. Despite the variability of these numbers and the flexibility of the audience, the online ethnic media of the Turks in/from Bulgaria function as agents of transborder information transfers that enable and incite engagements of social actors from multiple locations. Separated in their everyday lives by geographical distance, national borders and the different sociocultural and

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political contexts of residence, the simultaneous obtaining of news from the place of their origin creates a sense of an “imagined community” (Anderson, 1991 [1983]) across national spaces. Ethnic media like Kırcaali Haber and Ajans BG add another aspect to the existing cross-­ border digital circulation of knowledge, consisting of local rumours, news, personal communication with relatives and friends, and interactions in social networking sites. This circulation functions as a social cement which builds and binds a transnational community together.

Concluding Remarks The static picture of a dynamic media field, presented here, in which new forms of communication and connectivity constantly emerge, attempted to outline the contours of an alternative publicity—one nurtured by small-­ scale efforts for contesting the dissatisfaction of the representation of an ethnic minority in the public realm in Bulgaria. This public realm, constituted mainly by mainstream media, does not safeguard a pluralistic media sphere in which cultural diversity is secured and ethnic minorities are guaranteed opportunities for self-expression. The endeavours for creating online-based ethnic media are an attempt to raise voice against the stereotypical portrayals people see about themselves in the national publicity. The ethnic media presented in this analysis narrate the vernacular affairs of a locality and mediate it beyond territorial boundaries, thus connecting people and places in a transnational social space of transfer of knowledge and circulation of cultural meanings. One might not assume, however, that the existence of such “public sphericules” (Gitlin, 2002 [1998]) certainly results in enlarging the inclusion of alienated communities into the communality of the national information flows, nor that they foster a dialogue between minority and majority groups. On the contrary, these initiatives remain isolated in a parallel communication domain with own cultural codes, messages, experiences, memories, struggles, and language. Its “discursive comfort zones”—where people can express themselves freely and safely within familiar environment (Mitra, 2005, p. 383; Bailey, 2011, p. 259ff)—do not transform into “contact zones” (Pratt, 1992)—where cultures and people meet in asymmetrical power relations and eventually overcome the inequality of access, representation, and participation. Such an endeavour could probably retell publicly a different  story of living together within and across national boundaries.

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CHAPTER 10

Ethnic Journalism as a Social Mission: An Exploration of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s (ZBC) National FM Radio Station Trust Matsilele and Golden Maunganidze Introduction This chapter explores the impact of ethnic journalism as a social mission in Zimbabwe. Over the years, the media have been seen as the fourth estate, focusing on the normative functions of educating, entertaining and informing (Skjerdal, 2001). With changing geopolitics over the last few years (Donnan, 2017) and societies becoming more inward looking, it has become important to understand how different ethnic groups interface

T. Matsilele (*) Department of Media Studies, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa G. Maunganidze Great Zimbabwe University, Masvingo, Zimbabwe © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_10

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with ethnic medias to make meaning of both their local and international developments. National FM is one of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Cooperation’s (ZBC) radio stations established to address ethnic minorities, who for long were forgotten in the national discourse (Ndawana, 2019). ZBC operates six radio stations and one television station, providing a mixture of news, current affairs, educational programming and music, in English, Shona and Ndebele, with National FM covering all the 16 official languages recognised by the Constitution of Zimbabwe (Ndawana, 2019). The National FM’s mission is to broadcast in all the national ethnic languages, with a bias towards minority languages and cultures (Yorodani et al., 2017). The station’s slogan is “National FM: The whole nation on one station”, and this means that the radio station broadcasts in all the national languages, including the small indigenous languages (Ndawana, 2019, p. 2). The indigenous languages that are broadcast on National FM are Barwe, Chewa, Chikunda, Doma, Hwesa, Kalanga, Nambya, Ndau, Shangani, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Yao (Ndawana, 2019). The station also broadcast in two dominant languages, Shona and Ndebele, which also enjoy dual coverage in another state-owned station, the Radio Zimbabwe FM. Employing document analysis, interviews and focus groups, this chapter explored the extent to which National FM as an ethnic journalism platform has executed its role in safeguarding ethnic identities, languages and culture in Zimbabwe. The social identity lens is used as a theoretical departure, as it assists in understanding groups and individual perceptions. The social responsibility theory is used to explore the extent to which National FM is playing its normative role of informing, educating and entertaining, and doing this duty with accuracy, fairness and balance.

Locating Ethnic Journalism in a Global Context The turn of the century has seen a surge on scholarship looking at alternative media. Most of the studies (Atton, 2002; Bailey, 2008; Couldry & Curran, 2003; Fuchs, 2008) have tended to look at alternative media in terms of power contestations between hegemonic power holders and oppositional formations. However, as Bekken (2008, p.  1) postulates, “alternative journalism is a fluid concept, often casually attributed to a wide array of media practices unified only by being different from the journalism in so-called mainstream media”. As Bekken (2008, p.  1)

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further observes, such a “definition” can encompass everything from local entertainment to the clandestine media of revolutionary movements and in a social context, the alternativeness can extent media driven by a certain language, religion, or other cultural practices often called ethnic journalism. Conceptually, an ethnic group is a collectivity within a larger society having real or putative common ancestry, memories of a shared historical past, and a cultural focus on one or more symbolic elements defined as the epitome of peoplehood. Examples are; “kinship patterns, physical contiguity (as in localism or sectionalism), religious affiliation, language or dialect forms, tribal affiliation, nationality, phenotypical features, or any combination of these” (1978, p. 12). Gudykunst and Kim (1997, p. 93) observe that “ethnicity involves the use of some aspect of a group’s cultural background to separate themselves from others”. This ethnic classification is socially defined or may be based on cultural, psychological, or biological characteristics. This classification is driven by a desire for community and self-determination, what Miller (1987) regards as a sense of “peoplehood” that can be characterised as ethnic identity. However, it is important to note, as Johnson (2000, p. 30) postulates that “ethnicity can be self-identified or placed on someone by others”. In this instance, Johnson (2000, p. 30) explains, “someone can self-identify as MexicanAmerican but state structure can categorise such a person or persons as Hispanics”. Preserving ethnic identity and creating community bonds, are in part, some of the roles that ethnic journalism has played. The concept of ethnic identity is of primordial importance for the understanding of what ethnic groups encounter in their position as minorities inside a dominant culture (Phinney, 1990). These encounters are what shape group perceptions, what Mhlanga (2013, p. 7) concluded by saying, “ethnicity … can also be able, when properly harnessed, to cause unimaginable levels of unity.” For this particular study, ethnic media will be restricted to broadcasting targeted at ethnic minorities in Zimbabwe and this group excludes Shona and Ndebele, which researchers consider to be dominant ethnic groups. The 2012 census figures have information only on the two dominant ethnic groups making it difficult to get information about other ethnic minorities. The two largest ethnic groups in Zimbabwe, Shona and Ndebele, have a combined ethnic representation of 92 percent based on the last census figures, with Shona enjoying 76 percent and Ndebele 16 percent, with the other indigenous languages constituting just above 8 percent (Ndawana, 2019).Other than Shona and Ndebele, the other ethnic groups that National FM broadcast to, who

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solely rely on this station, are Barwe, Chewa, Chikunda, Doma, Hwesa, Kalanga, Nambya, Khoisan/Tshawo, Ndau, Shangani, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Yao.

A Brief Survey of Ethnic Minorities There is scant information about ethnic minorities in Zimbabwe from demographic details to geographical location. Researchers argue that one of the reasons for the scant details about minorities is the issue of integration and what ethnic minority’s feeling ashamed of their ethnic identities. The Chewa people have no specific geographical location and they do not form any community in any area in Zimbabwe (Daimon, 2007). Ndawana (2019) and Daimon (2007) observe, the Chewas came into the country during the colonial era and the federation to look for any kind of job that was available. The other ethnic minority group is the Chikunda people found in Mashonaland West, in Guruve along the Zambezi valley, together with the Doma and Korekore. There are also people of this ethnic tribe in Mozambique and Zambia (Isaacman & Peterson, 2003). There are different theories about the Doma people who are found in Mashonaland West, specifically in Kanyemba, with some researchers saying they came from Mozambique and others say they originated from the Korekore of Zimbabwe (Ndawana, 2019). This ethnic group lives a nomadic lifestyle. Hwesa is another ethnic minority group and is spoken by people who live in Nyanga district, Manicaland province in Zimbabwe. The Hwesa people share borders with other small minority group called Barwe. Kalanga people, another ethnic minority, are found in Botswana and Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, they are located in Matabeleland South in Bulilima, Mangwe, Nyamandlovu, Kezi, Matobo districts and in Matabeleland North in Tsholotsho district (Ndawana, 2019). The other ethnic minorities serviced by National FM are Nambya, Tonga, Venda, Sotho and Tsonga. The Nambya people are predominantly found in Hwange district. This ethnic group is also found in Victoria Falls and actively preserves its ethnic nineteenth century following the Mfecane wars in South Africa. This language is spoken in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa and a few other speakers are found in Swaziland. In South Africa and Mozambique, the language is called Tsonga. In Zimbabwe, the Shangani-speaking people are located in Masvingo province in Chiredzi district, with a few Shangani people being found in

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Mwenezi and Zaka who were moved to give way to sugar plantations (Muzondidya & Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2007). The Sotho people originated from Lesotho, South Africa and Botswana and in Zimbabwe they are located in Matabeleland South in Gwanda district, specifically in Manama (Hachipola, 1998). The other ethnic minority is that of the Tonga people found in Namibia, Botswana, Malawi and Zambia. In Zimbabwe, Tonga has two versions which are Tonga itself and another one called Mudzi-Tonga, which is spoken in Mudzi district. A few Venda people are also found in Zimbabwe who were displaced by the white settlers and were moved to Gwanda, Mberengwa, Zvishavane, Mwenezi and Plumtree. The Xhosa people also known as the Fingo or Amafengu were brought into Zimbabwe by Cecil John Rhodes as his workers. After requesting for land, Rhodes allocated them land at Embembesi, outside Bulawayo. As Ndawana (2019) observes, some Xhosas were later allocated more land in Fort Rixon, Goromonzi, Musengezi, Marirangwe, Masvingo and Gwatemba. The last language that’s broadcast on National FM is the Yao language which is not regarded as an official language in Zimbabwe. Yao is a Chewa dialect and its speakers are found among the Chewa people.

Ethnic Media and Cementing of Ethnic Bonds Ethnic media have existed for more than a century and performed multiple functions in the adaptation process. To a varying degree, ethnic media preserve the cultural identity of ethnic groups by providing relevant home country news (Ogunyemi, 2018a). In diaspora communities, it has been observed that ethnic media facilitate immigrants’ adaptation process by providing local news and information they can use in the host society (Flusty, 1997; Li, 1997) through what is regarded as diasporic news. Conceptually, the term diaspora has its roots in Jewish heritage referring to being scattered all over but over time the term has come to refer to a group or groups of people living outside of their homeland (Shuval, 2000). Diasporic news would therefore refer to information, entertainment, and education news that is politically, economically, and socioculturally relevant to diaspora audiences (Ogunyemi, 2018b). Matsilele (2013) and Mano and Willems (2010) agree noting that for Zimbabwean communities living outside the country diasporic news has played the role of not only creating ethnic bonds but also actively engaging on politics back home. It is this diasporic media that has often been referred to as

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ethnic media due to its focus on ethnic minorities and for previous studies the focus has been on diaspora ethnic minorities. Countries that have gone through incessant crises like Zimbabwe and Ethiopia have had diasporic ethnic media (Matsilele, 2013). Such ethnic media was established to facilitate Zimbabwe’s diasporic population adaptation away from home and also as a means to continue fighting political crises back home. Ethnic media or what has been categorised by European scholars as minority media has seen exponential growth in the late twentieth century. This growth has followed immigration trends as migrant ethnic communities fight for resources in host countries with indigenes. The International Organisation on Migration report 2020 estimates the number of international migrants to be almost 272 million globally, with nearly two-thirds being labour migrants. The report further notes that the “figure remains a very small percentage of the world’s population (at 3.5 percent), meaning that the vast majority of people globally (96.5 percent) are estimated to be residing in the country in which they were born”. These projections, the IOM intimates, already surpasses some estimated number and proportion of international migrants’ projections made for the year 2050, which were in the order of 2.6 percent or 230 million. That said, it is widely recognised that the scale and pace of international migration is notoriously difficult to predict with precision because it is closely connected to acute events (such as severe instability, economic crisis or conflict) as well as long-term trends (such as demographic change, economic development, communications technology advances and transportation access). This view is supported by Viswanath and Arora (2000), who argue that the growing ethnic diversity and pluralism has led to increasing competition for resources—housing, jobs, assistance, and business. This scramble for resources, as the authors add (Viswanath & Arora, 2000, p. 40), “has led to an anxiety and alarm over the seeming threat to the mainstream of American culture and the English language”. The same threats for jobs, livelihoods and social amenities have been reported in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East were cases of xenophobia have been reported. The harsh conditions immigrants find themselves in has prompted a medium through which their can articulate their conditions. To help advance ethnic interests, as Subervi-Velez (1986) writing on American society notes, these ethnic groups have grown active and have established institutions to sustain their ethnicity and ease their transition into American society with varying degrees of success. This underlying

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infrastructure under which ethnic media sits is what has led Viswanath and Arora (2000, p. 40) to conclude that “the ethnic media are a product of these groups’ attempts to organise, communicate, and facilitate their transition into American society” or South African, British, Australian or any other society (author emphasis). Studies conducted by the New California Media (2005), an association of over 700 ethnic media organisations in the United States, concluded that ‘[f]orty-five percent of all African American, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American and Arab American adults prefer ethnic television, radio or newspapers to their mainstream counterparts. In the United States alone, there are more than 35 million foreign-born residents, and about 60 percent of them entered the country in the last two decades (Foner et al., 2000). While this is an anecdotal case, it helps to give a picture into preference of media consumption as people tend to trust people they share similar history, culture and ethnic background with. However, as Mhlanga (2013, p. 7) intimates, “ethnicity continues to be fraught with paradigmatic stereotypes often arrived at using colonial spectacles African scholarship, [hence] political leaders and policy makers will also struggle to find its useful meaning”. In contemporary (Western) society, Deuze (2006) observes, much can be made of the ongoing loss of social cohesion propelled by the joint forces of globalisation, individualisation, and multiculturalism. The mentioned developments regarding the continuing popularity and widespread reach of different types of ethnic, minority and diasporic media seem to go hand in hand with an international trend of declining and fragmenting audiences for mainstream media, especially regarding nationwide news media. However, as the mainstream media has registered decline, there has been consolidation of ethnic media. Lin and Song (2006, p.  363), writing on ethnic media in the United States, observed that “ethnic media has been identified as one of the few sectors among all news media that are seeing general audience growth in the USA, while mainstream newspapers, for example, have suffered from a steady circulation decline for decades”. The demand for ethnic media has also been observed in Canada with over 250 ethnic newspapers and about 14 full service radio stations. As Meadows et al. (2002) note, these ethnic media entities represent over 50 cultures and over five million Canadians whose cultural heritages are neither French nor Anglo-Saxon. These ethnic media, Meadows et  al. (2002, p. 3) argue, “contribute to a sense of community identity for the people that they serve by meeting the specific information needs of the

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community. They are the ‘communal voice’ on issues of utmost importance to their audience or readership.”

Social Identity and Social Responsibility Theories This study employs two theoretical lenses, relying largely on the social identity theory and to a lesser extent, the social responsibility theoretical frame to understand the role of ethnic media in Zimbabwe. Much reliance is on the Social Identity Theory as it deals with contested issues of ethnic discrimination which exists in the broader Zimbabwean society with ethnicity playing a central role in how stories are framed in the media fraternity and resources are distributed. Zimbabwe has been battling to build a nation-state from the time of attaining independence with most debates on nation-formation having centred on the hegemonic ethnic groups, Shona and Ndebele with passing or no recognition of ethnic minorities. Muzondidya and Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2007, p.  275) agrees noting that “ethnicity, alongside race, has continued to shape and influence the economic, social, and political life of Zimbabwe since the achievement of independence in 1980”. This ethnic polarisation, Muzondidya and Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2007) observe, was set in motion by the Rhodesian colonialism via constructing and reconstructing people’s identities and by compartmentalising them in cultural and geographic terms thereby reinforcing ethnic divisions among Africans and consequently preventing them from developing nationally integrated identities. It is these ethnic divisions that colonial powers capitalised through uneven distribution of resources and creating a near permanent state of unevenness among Zimbabwe’s ethnic groups and any other ethnic groups in colonial Africa. Part of the divide and rule by colonial settlers had to do with stereotyping that Muzondidya and Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2007, p.  279) observe in the mines labour saying, “Shangaans were stereotyped as ‘the best workers above and below ground’, Zulus as the ‘best drillers’, Ndebeles as the ‘best foremen’ and Manyikas and ‘northern boys’ (Malawian and Zambian immigrants) as the ‘best house servants.’” When it came to resource allocation, colonialists preferred to privilege certain ethnicities over others and due to demographic peculiarities, minorities were often side-lined as they brought little to no political capital. The challenges around minority ethnic exclusion is what prompted the national broadcaster, the ZBC, to introduce a radio station that is dedicated to ethnic minorities and covering stories that hardly get coverage in the country’s mainstream media.

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This is what led Muzondidya and Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2007, p.  331) to conclude that ethnic minorities “did not easily fit into the postcolonial nation of Zimbabwe. In both official and public discourses, they continued to be seen as non-indigenous settler minorities, falling outside the ‘classic’ definition of a ‘Zimbabwean’”. The social identity theory has its origins in the early works of Henri Tajfel in Britain, who looked on social factors in perception and on cognitive and social belief aspects of racism, prejudice, and discrimination (Hogg et al., 1995, p. 259). Much of social identity theory deals with how people come to see themselves as members of one group/category (the in-group) in comparison with another (Stets & Burke 2000, p.  226). Supporting this view, Hogg et  al. (1995, p.  255) elucidate that “social identity theory is a social psychological theory that sets out to explain group processes and intergroup relations”. Commenting on this, Turner (1999), posits that people obtain positive reinforcement from a sense of belonging to a distinct group; particular memberships or social identities can be created on the basis of any commonly shared characteristics. In social identity theory the self is reflexive in that it can take itself as an object and can categorise, classify, or name itself in particular ways in relation to other social categories or classifications (Stets & Burke 2000, p. 224). This process is called self-categorisation in social identity theory. Through the process of self-categorisation or identification, an identity is formed. In social identity theory, a social identity is a person’s knowledge that he or she belongs to a social category or group (Abrams & Hogg, 1988). A social group is a set of individuals who hold a common social identification or view themselves as members of the same social category. The mass media counts as external factors that affect the constitution of an ethnicity and the perpetuation of a culture. This chapter investigated perceptions around ethnic media Zimbabwe with an aim to better understand their roles in contemporary Zimbabwean communities. Recent events and social indicators have suggested that many societies are becoming increasingly insular as diverse nations struggle to meet demands for social services, jobs for indigenes. In fragile and weak economies like Zimbabwe, the fight for jobs takes even an ethnic dimension (Ndhlovu, 2006). It is this fight for recognition, cultural identity and even access to economic benefits, what Mhlanga (2013, p. 206) calls the ‘northern problem’ that has seen ethnic minorities fighting for ethnic preservation which climaxed with the establishment of the National FM to cater for ethnic minorities. The ‘northern problem’, Mhlanga (2013) argues, is a

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metaphor he uses to refer to existence of a disgruntled group claiming a particular ethnic identity or identities different from the dominant ethnic or ethnics groups. In this study, these ‘disgruntled ethnic minorities’ will include every other ethnic group except Shona and Ndebele which this chapter considers to be dominant ethnic groups. This is not to say, Ndebele, for example, would feel itself to be a dominant ethnic group. For this chapter, the Ndebele ethnic group is being considered as such factoring the historical and contemporary location of Ndebele ethnic group as the second ‘most important’ in Zimbabwe and also the ‘privileged’ position this ethnic group occupies in the country, the place of the second most important in comparison to other ethnic marginalities. The Social Responsibility Theory (SRT) is an important lens through which the media in Zimbabwe’s complex socio-politics of ethnicity can be examined considering that since independence the country’s public and private media has largely served hegemonic interests. In instances where the country’s media covered ethnic minorities, it has been largely negative coverage of minority ethnic and cultural practices which has played a role in cultivating stereotypes. This chapter argues that this media infrastructure, in its practice, has undermined media ethics that calls for balanced reporting aspects at the core of this theoretical framework. Siebert et al. (1963, p. 100) posit that the SRT doubts the rationality of men, arguing that “[u]nder the social responsibility theory, man is not viewed so much as irrational as lethargic. He/She is capable of using his/her reason, but he/she is loath to do so.” Siebert et al. conclude that “consequently, he/ she is easy prey to demagogues, advertising pitchmen, and others who would manipulate him/her for selfish ends” and for cases like Zimbabwe, such manipulation can include reinforcing biases of ethnic hegemonies. Klaehn (2009, pp. 43–44) notes that powerful elites interlock with dominant media and set the agenda on how lower tier media should report consequently establishing cultural hegemonic views. The SRT holds the view that it is important for the media to act in a responsible manner that demonstrates the diversity of the society and views, not only representing elite interests (Siebert et al., 1963, p. 100).

Explaining the Research Process This study employed the qualitative approach which focuses on individuals’ lived experiences as they are presented in thoughts, ideas, feelings, attitudes and perceptions (Ohman, 2005). Ohman (2005) elucidates that

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qualitative research explores the quality of a phenomenon, not the quantity. The study made use of purposive sampling in the selection of the key informants who responded to key informant interviews as they were more knowledgeable about ethnic journalism within Zimbabwe and specifically in South Eastern Zimbabwe. Sampling is the process of selecting a part of a group under study (Du Plooy, 2009, p. 108; Rossouw, 2003, p. 107). Neuman (1997, p. 201) notes that sampling is a “process of systematically selecting cases for inclusion in a research project”. Purposive sampling method allows researchers to choose a selection from which the researcher can learn from. Warning against random selection, Marshall (1996, p. 523) argues that “choosing someone at random to answer a qualitative question would be analogous to randomly asking a passer-by how to repair a broken-down car, rather than asking a garage mechanic—the former might have a good stab, but asking the latter is likely to be more productive”. This purposeful approach comes with intentional bias which is its equal strength (Tongco, 2007). However, the danger with this approach is that it relies on the researcher’s judgement on the informant’s reliability and competency. In this study, the selected subject was a hyperactive social media user whose online activity has in one way or the other contributed to the national discourse. The researchers also made use of purposive sampling to select university students who came from the study sites used as case studies, namely Beitbridge and Chiredzi. The sample selected units who listen to National FM radio and had broadcasting experience and understanding of their ethnic language and culture. The study was carried out from December 2019 to March 2020 and this period was for data collection. The study consisted of key informants in the form of government officials, lectures and journalists working from regions with ethnic minority languages and is knowledgeable about ethnic journalism. Thus, in this regard, five key informants were used in this study. Focus group discussions (FDGs) can have 4–12 people per group and there is reliance on the interaction within the group, who discuss a topic supplied by the researcher (Morgan, 1988). In this case, the topic supplied by the researchers was on ethnic journalism as a social mission in Zimbabwe specifically focusing on how Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s (ZBC) National FM’s is playing a role in safeguarding ethnic identities, languages and culture. Specifically, in Chiredzi two focus group discussions were made and each had eight participants giving a total of 16 participants. In Beitbridge two focus group discussions were conducted and

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each had eight participants giving a total of 16 participants. Thus, for the focus group discussions, a total of 32 participants were used. For the study, the sample size of 37 participants was used. Thus, these participants were deemed representative in the sense that they represented the regions were some of the ethnic languages which are under researched are located in namely Chiredzi and Beitbridge. More so the selection of the university students was deemed representative of the people who are more knowledgeable about ethnicity and journalism. In order to enhance validity of the study, the researchers made of the triangulation process such that there was understanding of ethnic journalism from more than one standpoint of view. In this study there was use of focus group discussions, key informant interviews and document analysis such that there is reduction in the weaknesses of the research instruments when used in isolation. More so triangulation improves the quality of data which was collected from various sources. Three research designs were also used to investigate the phenomenon of ethnic journalism in Zimbabwe: interviews, focus groups and document analysis. Semi-structured interviews were employed as to acquire respondents’ views, ideas and suggestions on the topic under study. A semi-structured interview “represents characteristics of both a structured questionnaire and characteristics of an in-depth interview” (Du Plooy, 2009, p. 198). The unstructured part of the interview allows an interviewer to create an atmosphere of trust and encourages an interviewee to talk about a particular subject broadly (Du Plooy, 2009, p. 199). Document analysis was also employed as a design as it allows for a systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents—both printed and electronic material (Bowen, 2009, p.  27). Atkinson and Coffey (1997, p.  47) refer to documents as ‘social facts’, which are produced, shared, and used in socially organised ways. Lastly, focus groups were also employed due to their functionality nature in complementing semi-structured interviews. Focus group design uses focused interviews to obtain information from individuals and interactions among individuals in a small group setting (Ruff et  al., 2005). As Robinson (1999, p. 905) argues, focus groups can be defined as “an in-depth, open-­ ended group discussion of 1 to 2 hours’ duration that explores a specific set of issues on a predefined and limited topic”. The data from the interviews and focus group discussion was analysed using thematic analysis which would follow the themes which were generated by the respondents. Thus the themes were then used to answer the research questions which were generated in the study. The researchers made use of excerpts from

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the interviews and the focus group discussions to indicate the views of the respondents. The excerpts did not indicate the name or positions of the respondents so as to follow the ethics of anonymity and confidentiality.

Discussion The findings section addresses the following themes in this particular order: . Understanding ethnic journalism in Zimbabwe 1 2. Traditional functions of media in the context of ethnic journalism in Zimbabwe 3. National FM’s role in shaping culture and identity of ethnic groups in Zimbabwe 4. Ethnic Journalism for Community Development in Zimbabwe 5. Towards the introduction of community radio stations in Zimbabwe

Understanding Ethnic Journalism in Zimbabwe A study by the Information and Media Panel of Inquiry (IMPI) revealed that the people in Zimbabwe were in dire need of community radios that would subsequently foster ethnic journalism in rural Zimbabwe (Ndawana, 2019; Alfandika & Muchetwa, 2019). The IMPI report therefore recommended that the alignment of media laws to the 2013 constitution be fast-tracked with the sole aim of promoting access to information in Zimbabwe. The 2013 constitution recognises the following as official languages in Zimbabwe, English, Shona, Ndebele, Kalanga, Tonga, Shangani, Venda, Nambya, Chewa, Chibarwe, Khoisan, Ndau, Sotho, Xhosa, Tswana and Sign Language. Ndawana (2019) argues that the government through the national broadcaster Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) has the mandate to see all the formally perceived marginalised languages given equal airplay on both radio and television. Ndawana’s argument corroborates with the Yorodani et al. (2017) study, which explains that the coming of ZBC Commercialisation Act in 2001 transformed the operations at the national broadcaster with National FM formerly Radio Four being tasked to broadcast in all vernacular languages in Zimbabwe. However, respondents in this study argue that since 2001, National FM has never managed to execute its mandate effectively as Shona and Ndebele languages

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continued to dominate National FM’s programming schedules. In an interview, a respondent said the following: On paper National FM goes beyond the official languages which are recognised in Zimbabwe and it goes even beyond the official languages and broadcasts in other minority languages. There is repetition though of the other main languages like English and Ndebele which are broadcasted by other stations.

The fact that Zimbabwean government dedicated one channel to cater for all marginalised languages while reserving the other three channels to speak in Shona, Ndebele and English exposes government bias. Despite the fact that the 2013 Zimbabwean Constitution recognises 16 official languages which must be given equal prominence even in the media, there are no mechanisms on the ground that compels the state media to fulfil the constitutional expectation and often, the most parts of the country have no access to radio signals. Despite the Zimbabwean Constitution recognising the 16 official languages, there is more of state provision of ethnic journalism for these ethnic minorities than ethnic media broadcasting to and for ethnic minorities. The absence of round the clock ethnic media dedicated to ethnic minorities has seen ethnic groups like the Tsongas and Vendas that reside in areas within reach for South Africa’s ethnic radio stations like Phalaphala FM for Venda and Munghana Lonene FM for Tsonga rely on these foreign radios for cultural and entertainment broadcast. The Zimbabwe government in 2019 promised to license 40 community radio stations saying areas such Beitbridge would be issued with a licence for its Venda ethnic population, Shangani or Tsonga in Chiredzi, Kalanga in Plumtree and Tonga in Binga. This commitment by the government can be interpreted as an acknowledgement that since independence in 1980, the government has failed to provide a medium that services ethnic minorities thereby failing to provide information that is balanced to the country’s citizens. This view is supported by Mabika and Salawu (2014), who argue that National FM has not managed to fulfil its mandate with some languages such as Khoisan failing to be broadcasted at all. In some cases, targeted audiences rarely have the opportunity to listen to National FM because there are no radio signals in their areas. People from Chikombedzi and Beitbridge listen to South African radio stations since there is no radio in Zimbabwe that has the capacity to reach them.

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The following was said by a lecturer at Great Zimbabwe University who comes from south-eastern Zimbabwe: We rely on South African radios in Chiredzi. I know that many people living in places such as Mwenezi, Beitbridge and surrounding areas also depend on radios from South Africa. We know more South African current affairs than what happens in Zimbabwe.

Traditional Functions of Media in the Context of Ethnic Journalism in Zimbabwe According to Holtz-Bacha (1997), when the public service television was founded in Britain in 1927, the main responsibilities of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) were to entertain, educate and inform. Thus, the media throughout the whole world have key functions that they are expected to perform and the ZBC’s National FM in Zimbabwe is also supposed to religiously execute those duties. In carrying the key responsibilities, the NFM is expected to use the marginalised languages to reach out to the people of Zimbabwe. The station’s slogan is “National FM: The whole nation on one station”, and this means that the radio station broadcasts in all the national languages, including the small indigenous languages. According to Mabika and Salawu (2014), while Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, National FM does not broadcast in all these languages. However, despite calling itself the whole nation in one station the people who own the minority languages in Zimbabwe have a feeling that the national broadcaster is not doing enough and not serving them. The roles of educating, informing and entertaining the whole nation are not being met by the NFM because it has no capacity to reach the intended public (Ndawana, 2019). This failure to reach the intended public is further worsened by the fact that minority languages are dedicated less airtime on radio as all 16 languages are supposed to get broadcast time each day. This reality makes it impossible for a single ethnic minority to have their issues articulated for more 90 minutes each day. There are limited community radios which can be used to broadcast issues which are directly for the ethnic minorities. Ethnic minorities, based on interviews conducted, expressed willingness to have dedicated ethnic media that can articulate localised content. There is a general feeling from the ethnic minorities that their issues are not discussed socially, economically and culturally. Although there are a number of community initiatives which

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are conducted around the country by grassroots movements their transformative power is yet to be seen, in part, because they have a limited infrastructural support. Most of the grassroots movements promote cultural initiatives such as the Centre for Cultural Development Initiatives— Gaza Trust, which focuses on promoting Tsonga cultural events. In Masvingo province, for example, there is one radio initiative targeted for the ethnic minority Tsonga group called Tsakani Radio initiative while in Mashonaland West there is another ethnic radio initiative targeted at the Tonga tribe called Patsaka Community Radio initiative. However, even ethnic hegemonies that already enjoy much airtime also have ethnic dialect initiatives like the Wezhira Radio initiative targeted at the Karanga dialect which is part of the ethnic Shona group. Even the concept of having ‘the whole nation on one station’ has been highly condemned by participants who said entrusting just one radio station with the sole responsibility of catering for the whole nation leaves a lot to be desired: We need more radios in our communities not just one station. We strongly believe that the concept of the whole nation on one station is completely wrong.

Chibita (2011) is of the view that if radio stations do not cater for all languages, then they cease to act as public sphere platforms. The same sentiments echoed by Chibita (2011) can be stated for Zimbabwe in the case of National FM which should be catering for the minority languages but covers mainly Shona and Ndebele. Apart from offering little air time to minority languages, the relevance of the programmes which are broadcasted at National FM is also queried: The challenge being faced is that most of the programmes which are aired at National FM do not have much to do with what the listeners (minority languages). So at the end of the day the programmes have little to do with their listeners. So who does the radio cater for?

A Tsonga producer cum presenter indicated that NFM is not representing the interests of the minority as the dominant languages still feature at National FM. The following was stated:

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The same government sends Shona and Ndebele promos and some of the DJs use Shona than their respective languages they should be representing. At the end of the day the interests of the minority are not represented.

In a bid to address existing imbalances on official language use in Zimbabwe, some universities such as Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) have introduced languages such as Venda at degree level with the objective that the positive impact of the initiative see professionals being employed by national broadcasters, newspapers and television channels so that they run professional programmes in their own language. However, some experts interviewed condemned how such languages are being taught at tertiary level in Zimbabwe: Venda is a language which is officially recognised and people are actually shocked that Venda is being taught at University. It is sad that very few students are enrolled at tertiary level and those doing a degree in Venda are being taught so that they become teachers—thus for educational purposes only and nothing else. We are not preparing our learners to be journalists so the teaching of marginalised languages at universities will not add value to the quality of journalism products that we will receive.

However, despite having Universities teaching minority languages, the media industry in Zimbabwe have not benefitted from the initiative. There is no single newspaper in Zimbabwe that reports in one of the marginalised languages. Only Kweyedza newspaper which is run by Zimbabwe Newspapers (Zimpapers) reports in Shona, one of the dominant languages in the country.

National FM’s Role in Shaping Culture and Identity of Ethnic Groups in Zimbabwe Broadcasting involves a systematic dissemination of entertainment, information, educational programmes and other features for simultaneous reception by a scattered and mass audience which receives the programmes individually or in relatively small groups (Ezeokoli et al., 1984). According to Rahman Ullah and Khan (2017), radio must play a critical role in educating the nation. Similarly, National FM, as a public broadcaster in Zimbabwe is expected to come up with systematic programmes that help local communities to understand their identity and culture through the

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use of local languages. However, the situation for Zimbabwe has largely remained opposite as promulgated by Ndawana (2019), who argues that due to the uneven playground in most of African broadcasting arenas, civil societies and other organisations have come up with alternative platforms to air their voice. The local media have been hijacked by politicians to churn out propaganda news. The media are therefore expected to help local communities to shape their own identity and culture. The radio productions and media content broadcasted become a mirror reflection of the communities that they represent (Happer & Philo, 2013). However, the same cannot be confidently said about National FM which seems to have lost its expected mandate. During a focus group discussion (FGD) with university students mainly from Beitbridge and Chiredzi, they indicated that the news and current affairs at National FM cannot be identified with the minority groups in Zimbabwe: The news and current affairs which are broadcasted are the same as those which would have been presented in English and made into the minority language. The question then is who determines the news and are the people really part of the minority groups as the news and current affairs do not really reflect their demands and needs.

A study by UNESCO (2013) found that in Czech Republic and Australia where indigenous radios used local languages in fostering community development and ensuring the survival of minority languages. Thus under normal circumstances, the local radio has a mandate and duty to promote local cultures, language and the people’s identity. In the long run, the radio therefore, plays a critical role in the promotion of development in local communities. Ndawana (2019) indicated that the programmes at National FM lacked in intensity as most of the news items in news bulletins were very brief and did not give adequate details. On topicality, National FM programming falls short in the sense that the news in minority languages are not broadcast throughout the day. The news bulletins for minority languages were only broadcast between 10 am and 4 pm. The other hourly news bulletins are in Shona and Ndebele and those who are not conversant in Shona and Ndebele would be left out until the following day. The seriousness of the government in the promotion of ethnic journalism in Zimbabwe therefore

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should be seen through the government’s eagerness to give licences to anyone who would wish to operate a radio station in Zimbabwe.

Ethnic Journalism for Community Development in Zimbabwe Dagron (2001) equated the media to a tsunami arguing that media messages have the capacity to make a huge impact in people’s lives. The same argument seems to corroborate with earlier studies by Schramm (1963), who described the media as a major contributor to nation building and community development. Governments all over the world have therefore dedicated state media to some roles aimed at championing community development and Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC)’s National FM has the burden to help communities that were formerly neglected to promote development through ethnic journalism. What sets ethnic journalism apart as a distinct category is the involvement of ethnically differentiated groups living within a dominant culture. The use of different languages for different communities becomes key in the success of ethnic journalism. However, focus group discussions especially with the Tsonga Communities revealed that the main news that are reported on National FM do not have direct impact in the communities since they are read in other languages such as Shona, Ndebele and English. The same reporters who do stories for the other channels are the ones who produce stories for NFM. According to the participants, the sad part about the news is that the producers just translate Shona/ Ndebele stories into Shangani language and as a result, there is no connection between the station and the communities represented. If anything, the stories about Tsonga or Venda communities may feature on the radio when something negative has taken place in their communities (Campbell, 1995; Cottle, 2000; Hall, 1996; van Dijk, 1991). Moreover, minority groups have continuously expressed their worry about negative reporting and have argued that news reports about them are, at best, one-sided or irrelevant and often negative and discriminatory (Aikio & Aikio, 2001; Ross, 2000): In terms of news, it is difficult to cover what will be happening in our community using our local language and the stories that we generally hear if we get the chance of getting signals are not related to us since there is always a story with national appeal that often outweighs a story of interest to our community.

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Thus, the listeners generally do not take National FM as a tool for community development. Ethnic journalism in Zimbabwe remains a pipe dream with interviews believing that the introduction of minority languages on the national broadcaster remains a political gesture made by government officials who may want to be seen as ‘moving with times’ recognising all the ethnic groups in the country. According to interviewees, the same government uses National FM to send some promos in Shona and Ndebele language at the expense of the marginalised languages. As if using Shona and Ndebele is not bad enough, most employees working for National FM have little or no appreciation of marginalised languages as they are generally fluent in English, Shona and Ndebele. The station thus largely fails to represent the minority groups in the country with the participants suspecting that the management itself may not appreciate the need for ethnic journalism as a tool for development.

Towards the Introduction of Community Radio Stations in Zimbabwe The permanent secretary in the ministry of Media, Publicity and Broadcasting Services recently indicated that the government of Zimbabwe was eager to come up with community radio stations that would focus on local languages, cultures and identities. Apart from community radio stations, the government was also willing to offer licences to all universities in the country so that they would run campus radio stations. On 22 December 2019, the government of Zimbabwe through the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) published a notice of areas that were allocated radio frequencies for community radios. Only ten community radios that are expected to broadcast in local languages were allocated frequencies. According to BAZ, community broadcasting services is defined as a free to air radio or television not operated for profit or as part of profit making enterprise which, provides programmes for community purposes and is capable of being received by commonly available equipment. BAZ emphasises that community broadcaster is prohibited from airing programmes or advertisements on behalf of any political party. Above all, a community radio is expected to use local languages. Despite showing some steps towards positive direction, civic societies in Zimbabwe especially MISA-Zimbabwe have condemned the government for limiting potential players who can promote ethnic journalism through community

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radio initiatives. Coming up with ten language-based community radio stations remained restrictive and retrogressive. More so, the government hand-picked areas that were expected to apply for the community radio stations. The selection of the ten areas remained a political gesture with the government leaving all urban centres preferring areas that are generally closer to Zimbabwean boarders where marginalised languages are being spoken. The deadline for application of radio licences was initially set for March 20, 2020 but due to pressure mainly from Civic Society, the government has since extended the deadline to 29 May 2020. The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Media, Publicity and Broadcasting Services indicated that the government’s initiative aimed at correcting the wrongs of the country’s former colonial masters who bundled minority languages into generic languages like Shona, Ndebele and Manyika (NewsDay, 10 February 2020): We are trying to correct the imbalance that was created by our former colonial masters. That is why we want you to have your own Shangani radio station.

Although the government argues that they are addressing the wrongs of the past, the civic society in Zimbabwe’s position is that the government is not sincere in the implementation of the constitution which advocates for freedom of the media and access to information for all. The communities that are to be entrusted with community radio stations lack both the skills and the equipment needed to run quality broadcasting productions. MISA—Zimbabwe established community radio initiatives in many major cities in the country but the government deliberately avoided all the areas with infrastructure in place opting to go for areas that are yet to mobilise resources for equipment. The sincerity of the government in all this remains questionable.

Conclusion The government of Zimbabwe through BAZ need to be proactive in making sure that the national broadcaster—ZBC is fulfilling its constitutional mandate of providing information for all. The National FM radio needs to be fully supported by all relevant government departments so that it is able to promote the marginalised languages in Zimbabwe. The demand for ethnic dedicated media as demonstrated by government’s response by

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offering to licence over 40 community radio stations show the pressure from ethnic minorities. Currently the NFM which does a lot of programming and broadcasting to ethnic minorities is believed to be playing the translation role for the state’s ethnic hegemonies. Therefore, there is need for more private or community owned media which can deal with ethnic journalism in Beitbridge and Chiredzi and the other ethnic minority areas as well. This is mainly due to the less effort and structural limitation by the state broadcasters especially National FM to cater for the needs and demands for the 16 ethnic minority languages. As it stands, the radio is expected to cater for minority languages but that is not the situation obtaining on the ground due to a number of factors discussed above. The coming in of community radio stations will not add any value in the country if not properly done. Governments should be in the forefront of promoting community development journalism which can only be reality if the communication channels use local languages by different ethnic groups in the country.

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CHAPTER 11

Māori-Language Journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: Balancing Cultural Values, Journalistic Norms and the Constraints of the National-Language Revitalisation Agenda Atakohu Middleton

The author is of indigenous Māori and nineteenth-century British settler heritage and speaks te reo Māori and English. She spent 20 years as an English-language news and features reporter before turning to journalism research. The data that informs this chapter is drawn primarily from the author’s PhD research, which employed video ethnography (11 reporters) as well as qualitative interviews (35 people, the majority working journalists) to explicate Māori-language journalism. A. Middleton (*) School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_11

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Background Māori are ethnically Polynesian and migrated in waves from the northern Pacific Ocean from 1300 AD onwards. They brought with them collectivist values and a highly developed oral culture organised around whakapapa, a word that refers not only to genealogical descent but also to the belief that all things in the natural and spiritual worlds are related and interdependent (Walter & Reilly, 2018). The arrival of British Admiral Captain James Cook on the Endeavour in 1769 led to an influx of sealers, whalers, traders, missionaries and settlers from the United Kingdom (Anderson et al., 2014). Māori named the new arrivals Pākehā, a name derived from the indigenous word for mythical, pale-skinned beings (Ranford, 2015). In the early 1800s, English missionaries devised an orthography for te reo Māori and taught many Māori to read and write (Jones & Jenkins, 2011). British settlers followed, bringing the newspaper and the Anglo-­ American journalistic tradition, the latter here defined as informational, independent reporting that monitors power (Day, 1990; Hollings et al., 2016). In the early to mid-1800s, te reo Māori was the common language, and many newspapers in te reo were published by Māori, settlers and the churches (Curnow, 2002). In 1840, Māori and the British Crown signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi), which promised to preserve Māori control of tribal assets and culture. However, the Crown did not keep its promises, and its policies of land alienation and cultural assimilation severely eroded Māori language and culture (Walker, 2004). In the 1980s, Māori legal action under the provisions of Te Tiriti forced the government to take concrete steps to protect te reo Māori and secured Māori access to broadcasting assets (Middleton, 2010).

Ethnic Media in Aotearoa New Zealand Modern-day Aotearoa New Zealand numbers five million people (Statistics New Zealand [SNZ], 2020) and is home to 213 different ethnicities and 165 languages (SNZ, 2013). Aotearoa New Zealand is the fifth most ethnically diverse country in the OECD (Chen, 2015). The top five ethnicities are New Zealand European (64.1%), Māori (16%), Chinese (4.9%), Indian (4.7%) and Samoan (3.9%) (SNZ, 2019). New Zealand Europeans with long histories in Aotearoa New Zealand often refer to themselves as Pākehā; while the name is contested, individuals often use it to assert a positive, post-colonial New Zealand identity and

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to differentiate themselves from more recent arrivals from Europe (Marcetic, 2018; McCreanor, 2006; Matthewman, 2017). Mainstream media, both commercial and state-owned, are run by, and largely reflect, the dominant culture’s preoccupations and perspectives. Ethnic newspapers, websites and radio have sprung up to serve Pacific, Chinese, Indian and other communities, particularly in Auckland, where 44% of residents were born outside the country (Chen, 2015). Most of these ethnic media outlets are run on a commercial basis and local and central government support for them is limited; state support for non-­ mainstream media is focused primarily on the government’s obligations to Māori under Te Tiriti. This focus paved the way for laws that made te reo Māori an official language of the country in 1987 and set out how the government and Māori communities were to share responsibility for safeguarding Māori language and culture (Māori Language Commission, n.d.). Aotearoa New Zealand now has primary and secondary schools where the principal language of instruction is Māori, a plethora of language classes in the community and in tertiary education teaching for all who wish to learn, and public funding for feature films and songs in te reo. English-language broadcasters, both Māori and non-Māori, freely use Māori words that have become part of New Zealand English. All adult Māori speak English. However, just 11% of the Māori population, or some 50,000 people, report that they speak te reo “very well or “well”, but five times that number have “some” ability, meaning that they can speak more than a few words and phrases (SNZ, 2014, p. 8). While te reo is increasingly becoming part of the country’s national identity, with unprecedented demand for language lessons in recent years (Buckleton, 2018), the fact remains that there are more learners of the language than fluent speakers. In the population overall, just 4% of people can hold a conversation about everyday things in the Māori language (SNZ, 2014).

The Māori News-Media Funding Model and How This Influences Journalism Practice Funding for all Māori-language news media is disbursed through a state entity called Te Māngai Pāho (TMP). It was created in 1993 under the country’s broadcasting laws to ring-fence Government funding for radio and television programming that reflected Māori life, language and

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culture. TMP sees news as an important part of the “languagescape” and posits Māori-language journalists as, primarily, agents of revitalisation. Māori-language news is, therefore, the by-product of a wider agenda to rescue te reo Māori, and that agenda comes with constraints (Middleton, 2020). TMP assesses the quality of reporters’ Māori language and requires each story to be 70–100% in te reo (TMP, 2018). This 70% threshold poses a challenge to reporters when relatively few Māori speak their heritage language fluently. At present, TMP funds three daily news bulletins in te reo Māori—two on television and one on radio—and a radio current affairs commentary show. Te Karere (the messenger) began in 1983 as a five-minute bulletin on the state broadcaster, Television New Zealand. Now 22 minutes 30 seconds long, the bulletin airs on weekday afternoons. Māori Television, a state-funded broadcaster launched in 2004, broadcasts Te Ao (the world) seven days a week at 6.30 pm; the show is 26 minutes long. Since 2004, Radio Waatea has produced Waatea News, which consists of six-minute bulletins in te reo Māori from 7 am to 6 pm on weekdays. These are distributed to the other 20 stations in the national tribal radio network. Radio Waatea also produces a 55-minute Māori-language current affairs show, Manako, from Sunday to Thursday nights. Manako features ten-minute interviews with commentators on news of the day in the Māori world. All the above shows are available online. Māori-language reporting generally follows the structural, technical and story-telling conventions of the Anglo-American model, but gazes through a lens informed by Māori language, the Māori world view and indigenous social, economic and cultural preoccupations. It is, thus, a hybrid formation in its use of the forms and tools of mass media to express a native perspective (Grixti, 2011). This perspective reflects the fact that Māori are a colonised minority in their own lands, and that Māori lag behind mainstream society on many indicators of social wellbeing. However, it also reflects that the past 25 years have seen a resurgence of indigenous pride and power as tribes have settled their historical claims for redress with the Crown and started to build economic, social and cultural capital (Anderson et al., 2014). We lack an up-to-date content analysis of Māori-language news. However, statistics supplied by Radio Waatea, Te Karere and Māori

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Television suggest that the most popular stories are those about land, ranging from environmental issues to legal processes around the return to tribes of confiscated land; Tiriti o Waitangi claims and activities; kapa haka, or group dance, which is a popular and highly competitive activity; the deaths of community figures; ethnic relations and racism; Māori social wellbeing, including health, crime and education; the revitalisation of language and culture; Māori sport and sportspeople; and celebrations of Māori culture and achievement (Middleton, 2020). Te Karere and Te Ao journalists can interview newsmakers in English and fulfil the requirement for each story to be 70% in te reo through their introductions and links, which are invariably in te reo Māori. Waatea News can produce read-only news stories if there is no Māori-language audio. Manako faces the biggest challenge: It must find people who can sustain ten-minute conversations. Subject expertise and language talent may come in one person, particularly among the small percentage of Māori who were educated in Māori-­ language schools. However, the need to balance quality information and quality language means that reporters frequently find themselves persuading non-fluent interviewees to use what Māori language they have. Assistance might include giving interviewees advance notice of questions; providing the correct words for concepts; or making time for interviewees to practice soundbites. A common strategy is to focus questions narrowly and ask the same question in several different ways to maximise the chances of a good soundbite (Middleton, 2020). In supporting interviewees, reporters aim to employ the Māori value of manaakitanga, or care and concern for others; they avoid judgement and are mindful that many people feel deep shame at being unable to speak their heritage language fluently (Cowell, 2017; Te Huia, 2013). In this respect, Te Ao reporter Kereama Wright saw his role as cultural ally as much as journalist: The thought of speaking Māori on television is daunting. It’s about confidence-­building. You’re not just there to get the story, you’re there to empower someone to deliver the message in their native tongue. And I love it. I’m a product of second language-learning parents, and I can see the importance of it. So we’ll sit there for half an hour sometimes and practice the kōrero. Or sometimes we’ll write it. It happens quite often. Often it’s just repetition, repeating the answer until they get confident enough, and we’ll take a number of takes. (Middleton, 2020, p. 243)

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However, reporters were less concerned with a speaker’s grammatical and syntactical accuracy than their ability to convey a message. They also recognised that today’s adult learners might become language revitalisation leaders of the future, so it was important to maintain their confidence (Middleton, 2020). Te Ao reporter Taroi Black said he encouraged people to use what they had: Here and there, they’re going to have a few errors, they’re not going to be grammatically correct in their reo. But I’m not all about a speaker who’s grammatically correct; I’m about a person who knows how to speak enough in te reo and having the confidence to actually utilise the language … the more you speak it, the better you become. (Middleton, 2020, p. 242)

An argument can be made that it is unethical for a journalist to give advance notice of questions or help an interviewee work out what they want to say. However, in Māori-language news, the intersection between the limited pool of speakers, manaakitanga (compassion and care for others) and the requirements of a funding regime predicated on language revival engenders a different perspective. The consensus among Māori-­ language journalists is that telling people what to say is unethical, but helping them translate their own ideas into Māori is acceptable for clarity (Middleton, 2020).

The Influence of Cultural Values on Newswork Māori-language journalists learn their craft through tertiary journalism schools and/or on-the-job training. They see their role as do their English-­ language counterparts: to be the eyes and ears of (Māori) society (Hanusch, 2013). Like all journalists in Aotearoa New Zealand, they must abide by the laws of the land and company codes of ethics, as well as the regulations set by two national media standards bodies: the New Zealand Press Council for print and online news, and the Broadcasting Standards Authority for television and radio news (Broadcasting Standards Authority, 2016; New Zealand Media Council, n.d.). At the time of writing, efforts are underway to create an association of Māori journalists. Māori reporters need to balance this role conception with the values, beliefs and practices with which they were raised, and which hold considerable sway in indigenous environments such as marae (tribal community centres) where much Māori newsgathering is done. Culturally-rooted

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indigenous practices and beliefs are collectively called tikanga. The root word of tikanga is tika, which means just, fair, right or correct (Williams, 1971). Tikanga, then, embeds notions of doing what is right in a Māori paradigm. Tikanga frames reporters’ personal lives, and they take their cultural practices to work with them. They are expected to call on the values embedded in tikanga to make decisions about any issues that arise. Māori Television’s head of news, Maramena Roderick, said: “Our journos come from their own tikanga base, as did I. They bring that with them. Nothing I say is going to be of more value to them than what their own have already taught them” (Middleton, 2020, p. 222). As an example, reporters are prepared to discuss their tribal background so an interviewee can identify blood links; this is part of whakawhanaungatanga, or the Māori cultural practice of building a relationship when meeting for the first time (Mead, 2003). In their work, particularly in Māori spaces run on Māori values, reporters take their cues from the environment. If journalists are welcomed to an interview with unexpected cultural formalities, they participate. Being seen to do the right thing is important in a culture where interrelatedness is an important factor in social control (Middleton, 2020). Manaakitanga, or taking care with how others are treated, is a social imperative. Journalists tend to avoid aggressive or polemical approaches; this is seen as unnecessary to get and tell a story and risks impairing personal and professional relationships. Reporters believed that they were still able to ask questions that might make others uncomfortable, because their job required it. But equally important was asking tough questions in a way than maintained both parties’ mana, which in this context is best translated as dignity. However, some reporters, mostly younger people, had difficulty challenging those older than themselves. This was often due to the great respect generally accorded to older people in Māori society, but also to asymmetrical power relations in Māori society based on age (Hanusch, 2013; Middleton, 2020). Across tribes, cultural practices are broadly similar. However, there are variations and reporters generally respect these differences. If something cannot be recorded for spiritual reasons, such as photos of the dead in communal houses, or sacred chants, reporters usually will not insist (Middleton, 2020). However, balancing the demands of newswork and the requirements of culture also brings cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957)—the

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discomfort that arises when what one has been socialised to do and what one must do at a particular moment are at odds. Māori culture is process and people-driven; news is driven by time, deadlines and the need for complete content. In the Māori world, correct process takes priority over the clock, particularly with the many newsworthy formal events run under spiritual protocol on marae (tribal centres). In explaining the tensions, journalists often used the metaphor of wearing a Māori hat and a journalism hat. The Māori hat was permanent, but the journalism hat was removed at the end of the day. Journalist was an added identity, not a role that subsumed one’s cultural identity (Hanusch, 2014; Middleton, 2020). As an example, to the vast majority of culturally attuned Māori, if you have never been formally welcomed to a particular marae, you are considered waewae tapu, which translates as “feet set apart” and designates you an outsider (Mead, 2003; Salmond, 2004). One’s first entry needs to be accompanied by the necessary ritual to take you spiritually and ceremonially from outsider to insider. If journalists could fit such ceremony in, they participated according to the usual norms of Māori culture. But deadline pressures often meant they were unable to, and some reporters felt they needed to address that by drawing on their own cultural norms. A common strategy was to do a karakia (incantation) to the ancestors as spiritual protection before entering an unfamiliar marae. One reporter explained that she did a “karakia within” in which she asked her own ancestors and those of the marae for safe passage (Middleton, 2020, p. 174). A minority of reporters took their waewae tapu status out of the equation when faced with an unfamiliar marae, rationalising that as they were present to do the job of reporting, not participate, they could forgo ritual. They foregrounded their journalistic identity in order to take a short-cut that, in their personal lives, they would not make; they dealt with the tensions between culture and newswork by compartmentalising them. One reporter said: “I have been asked to be here, so that’s my invitation … to be there without having to go through the formalities” (Middleton, 2020, p. 174). However, journalists were careful about being seen to adhere to cultural norms when reporting tangihanga, which are important events in the Māori world and attract large numbers of people. Tangihanga run for three days and are journalistic gold: They are emotional, visually arresting and showcase the most accomplished Māori-language orators and

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performers. However, they are also among the most fixed of Māori rituals and highly tapu (sacred, set apart) due to the presence of death (Mead, 2003). As earlier stated, Māori reporters drew on Māori cultural norms to manage the balancing act between the requirements of newsgathering and the need to follow indigenous practices in spaces run on indigenous lines. For example, when attending a tangihanga (Māori funeral), reporters felt that it was important for their own spiritual health, their reputations as Māori, and their standing as reporters to go through formal marae ritual and acknowledge the deceased. To skirt this was to be a kiore (mouse) scuttling in and hoping to go undetected, according to television journalist Semiramis Holland: You cannot be labelled a kiore in Māoridom. You need to be seen to be paying your respects, first, to the tūpāpaku [the decreased] before you can do anything else on that marae. It’s just how it is … Māori are watching you very closely and so you need to be seen to be adhering to tikanga. (Middleton, 2020, p. 181)

When on marae, journalists under time pressure could be reluctant to ask people to step out of ritual for interview, aware that they risked refusal or rebuke. However, they also noted that face-to-face apologies acknowledging a transgression of cultural norms were important mitigating acts and generally well received. Veteran reporters said that as Māori communities had become more familiar with journalists’ work, they had become more accommodating (Middleton, 2020). Reporter and presenter Oriini Kaipara believed that Māori journalists were still feeling their way through the tensions that existed between tikanga and newswork, with every story bringing different considerations. For reporter Shannon Haunui-Thompson, being considerate and alert to the environment was critical to managing the juggling act: There’s a whole lot of tikanga [norms] in te ao Māori [the Māori world], but there’s a whole lot of tikanga [norms] around being a journalist, full stop, and it’s always just a balance really. You have to be thoughtful in whatever situation you are in. (Middleton, 2020, p. 230)

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Blending the Oral Arts into News Language Important in everyday Māori life is the wisdom embedded in the rich repertoire of teachings, stories and sayings by and about elders and ancestors (Firth, 1926; McRae, 2017; Walker, 1978). The pithier of these provide meaningful short-cuts for journalists that, moreover, are highly appealing to Māori ears accustomed to metaphor, allusion, proverbs and the musical cadences of oral culture. Radio Waatea’s Eruera Lee-Morgan saw such devices as “scene-setters … one little metaphor can tell the whole story” (Middleton, 2020, p. 129). To illustrate, he wrote a radio story about Māori Television preparing a national election special that involved a large number of staff. In an interview, the special’s presenter said that its success would depend on many people from all levels of the organisation working as one. Wanting to express the Māori equivalent of “many hands make light work”, the reporter opened his story with an adaptation of this well-known saying: Mā whero, mā pango, ka oti ai te mahi By red and black, the work is finished. (Mead & Grove, 2003, p. 292)

Red refers to kōkōwai, a mixture of shark oil and red ochre that was smeared on the body of chiefs; manual workers were, in comparison, darker skinned. However, both parties were required to complete a task (Mead & Grove, 2003; Parker, 1966). In the first paragraph of his story, the reporter recontextualised the saying from “by red and black the work will be completed” to “by red and black, the live broadcast will succeed”: Script: E takatū ana a Whakaata Māori ki te whakahaere hōtaka motuhake e pā ana ki te Kōwhiringa Pōti ā-Motu. Hei tā Oriini Kaipara, kaiwhakataki o te hōtaka, mā whero, mā pango e tutuki ai te whakapāohotanga arorangi nei. Translation: Māori Television is preparing itself to produce a special broadcast for the night of the General Election. According to presenter Oriini Kaipara, with everyone pitching in, the live broadcast will go well. (Middleton, 2020, p. 130)

Te reo Māori has a vast collection of sayings to describe human beings, their attributes and their deeds, and several are regularly used in Māori-­ language news. For example, the phrase “Ka pū te rūhā, ka hao te rangatahi” translates as “When the old net lies in a heap, the new net goes fishing” (Mead & Grove, 2003). This describes the retirement of an elder

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in favour of a younger person and is frequently used in news stories about people stepping up to a leadership role. When reporting the deaths of notable people, reporters often use the phrase “Kua hinga te tōtara o te wao nui a Tāne”, or “The tōtara in Tāne’s great forest has fallen” (Mead & Grove, 2003). A tōtara is a sturdy conifer much prized for canoe-building and is often referred to as a chiefly tree as it is among the tallest in the forest (Orbell, 1985). Here is how Waatea News reported the death of former All Black rugby great Colin Meads in August 2017: He tōtara nui kua hinga i te wao nui a Tāne, ā, ko te ihorei i te ao whutupōro, a Colin Meads. A great tōtara has fallen in Tāne’s great forest—Colin Meads, a major figure in the rugby world. (Middleton, 2020, p. 126)

Reporters often alluded to Māori creation stories, and a story by Te Karere reporter Peata Melbourne offered a good example. She reported the acquittal of an Australian man, Gabriel Tostee, of the murder or manslaughter of his Tinder date, Māori woman Warriena Wright.1 Providing background, Melbourne said: I whai aroha a Wright i tētehi tāne tauhou i runga i a Tinder. I haere ia ki te Takutai Kōura mō tētahi mār enatanga. Kei reira ia tūtaki ai ā-kanohi nei a Tostee mō te wā tuatahi. Ko tōna tūmanako he pō tūtaki tāne noa iho, engari kē, he pō tūtaki i a Hine-nui-te-pō. (subtitles) Turning to Tinder for some fun with a man she’d never met, Wright was in Gold Coast for a wedding and met up with Tostee for the first time. What was supposed to be a night out with a man ended up being the night she met her death. (Middleton, 2020, p. 88)

The phrase “the night she met her death” could be translated factually as “te pō i mate ai ia”. But Melbourne wrote “he pō tūtaki i a Hine-nui-­ te-pō”, or “the night she met Hine-nui-te pō”, the goddess of death. In the Māori creation story, Hine-nui-te-pō, devastated to find out that the father of her child was in fact her own father, fled to the underworld to become the eternal guardian of the dead (Mead, 2003; Reed & Calman, 2004). The allusion in such a news story is elegant and unobtrusive. However, as can be seen above, it was not translated in the subtitles; 1

 The story is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDfYVpa5xFY&t=3s

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Māori-language journalists assume that the primary audience for subtitles is non-Māori and/or monolingual. According to the reporter: There’s no need to literally translate what I say—Māori talk figuratively a lot, and that’s how I talk in Māori too. But Pākehā don’t, so I translate it to capture the meaning. With this particular example, I wrote it in Māori first and it was a play on words … she embodies the concept of death, and I assume reo Māori speakers will already know this. I don’t assume the same of non-Māori speakers. (Middleton, 2020, p. 96)

Oratory and the News For centuries, formal public oratory, called whaikōrero, has been a high art form in the Māori world (Dewes, 1975). Oratory draws on the Māori creation story, genealogy and history, addresses the Māori gods through karakia (incantation), and employs figures of speech like those discussed above (Rewi, 2010). Many of these oratorical devices have found expression in Māori-­ language news, both in scripts and in news-show elements such as greetings to viewers and links between stories. For example, orators in te reo Māori often announce that they are taking the floor by using chants that, in centuries past, sentries shouted at night while patrolling their pā, or settlements. To open Manako, a news commentary show, host Tumamao Harawira often recited this ancient call: Kia hiwa rā, kia hiwa rā! Kia hiwa rā ki tēnei tuku, kia hiwa rā ki tērā tuku. Kia tū, kia aho, kia mataara! (Translation) Be alert, be alert! Be alert on this terrace, be alert on that terrace. Stand up, be awake, be wary! (Hı ̄roa, 1949; Rewi, 2010)

He often added the phrase “Tı ̄hei mauri ora!” This means “the sneeze of life” and in formal settings, signals that a new speaker is taking the floor; it is often translated as “here I am”, “let there be life” or “I speak” (Kāretu, 1992). The phrase refers to the Māori creation story; the god Tāne fashioned the first woman out of red earth and breathed life into her, upon which she sneezed (Rerekura, 2007; Rewi, 2010; Salmond, 2004).

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Other important elements of formal oratory are the ennoblement of listeners, often by comparing them favourably to elements of the natural world. Mountains, for example, are seen as possessing prestige and power, and most tribes have a mountain that anchors their geographical identity. Māori Television news presenter Piripi Taylor often greeted viewers by referring to them as mountains, as in these two examples: Presenter: “Kei ngā maunga whakamana, tēnā koutou katoa.” Translation: Prestigious mountains, I greet you all. Subtitle: Good evening. Presenter: “E ngā maunga whakahı ̄ huri noa, rarau mai rā.” Translation: Proud mountains of this land, welcome. Subtitle: Good evening. (Middleton, 2020, p. 120)

In both cases, as seen above, the subtitles read simply “good evening”. According to news producer Arana Taumata, “what sounds fine, beautiful and natural in te reo Māori can be kind of cheesy and floury when translated into English. We try and protect our language by avoiding literal translations, but default to a generic translation” (Middleton, 2020, p. 113).

Talking About the Dead In Māori culture, it is important in speech to separate the realms of the dead and that of the living. In public, discussion of the dead is followed by a formulaic phrase that conspicuously returns the focus to the living (Rewi, 2010). Reporters and presenters often did the same in their scripts and links, aware that viewers expected cultural norms to be reflected on air. On Te Karere, to finish a story about the death of a high-profile figure, the presenter said to the camera, “Nā, hoki mai ki te hunga ora” which means “Now, we return to the living” before he introduced the next story. At funerals, orators will address the deceased directly, and this tikanga has transferred into news in several ways. Te Karere presenter Irena Smith ended a story about a notable death with a spontaneous direct address to the deceased, using the tōtara-tree metaphor discussed earlier. She said, “Moe mai rā, e te tōtara haemata”, which translates as “Sleep well, strong-­ growing tōtara”. Smith said that she chose the metaphor because it suited the deceased: “He was a big man who did big things” (Middleton, 2020, p. 124).

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The Future of Māori-Language Journalism At the time of writing, Māori-language journalism faces several significant challenges. As Te Māngai Pāho, the Māori media funding agency, funds journalism for language outcomes rather than news, it has no statutory interest in the quality of the news it funds. For most of its 30 years of existence, TMP has not had to concern itself about news quality, as a Māori-­ focused journalism school and in-house training at several Māori news providers, including state-owned broadcaster Television New Zealand, ensured a steady stream of bilingual reporters (Middleton, 2019). However, these pipelines have closed in recent years. Now, while many professionally trained journalists remain in reo-Māori news, editors must, increasingly, employ untrained people for their language skills (Hanusch, 2014; Middleton, 2019, 2020). Journalists reported that newsroom training tended to be piecemeal and subsumed by the need to fill bulletins every day (Hanusch, 2012). In 2018, Māori Television head Keith Ikin told a national gathering of Māori journalists that this was far from ideal: The majority of reo-Māori journalists are fluent speakers who have been thrown into the hot seat and have had to swim amongst the sharks and survive … they’ve had to try and build their journalistic skills, somehow … it’s unrealistic and an unfair expectation. (Middleton, 2019, para. 11)

At the time of writing, the government is reviewing the state-funded Māori media sector, looking at a range of funding, structural and technical issues; journalism training has been identified as an area requiring attention (Mahuta, 2019; Middleton, 2019). The hope is that investment in skill development will place Māori-language journalism on a firmer footing. In an age when anybody can create an audience from their phone, the need for well-resourced, independent journalism to record and report Māori perspectives has never been greater.

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Glossary2 Hine-nui-te-pō  Female guardian of the dead in Māori thought Kapa haka Māori performing group Karakia  Incantation, ritual chant, chant: A set form of words to state or make effective a ritual activity Kiore  Mouse, rat Mana Prestige, authority, control, power, influence, status, spiritual power, charisma Manaakitanga  Hospitality, kindness, generosity, support—the process of showing respect, generosity and care for others Māori  Indigenous person of Aotearoa New Zealand Marae Māori community centre Pākehā  English, foreign, European, exotic Tangihanga  Funeral, rites for the dead Tapu  To be sacred, prohibited, restricted Te Māngai Pāho (TMP) A broadcasting funding agency to support Māori content Te reo Māori  The Māori language Tika  To be correct, true, upright, right, just, fair, accurate, appropriate, lawful, proper, valid Tikanga  Correct procedure, custom, habit, lore, method, manner, rule, way, code, meaning, plan, practice, convention, protocol—the customary system of values and practices that have developed over time and are deeply embedded in the social context Tōtara  A species of podocarp tree endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand Tūpāpaku  Corpse, deceased Waewae tapu Newcomer; a person who has not been to a particular marae before Whakapapa  Genealogy but also the interlocking nature of all things in the natural and spiritual worlds Whakawhanaungatanga  The process of establishing relationships, relating well to others.

2

 Source: https://maoridictionary.co.nz/

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Further Information Te Ao: https://www.maoritelevision.com/shows/te-­ao-­maori-­news Radio Waatea: https://www.waateanews.com/ Te Karere: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtgvSkmjzkGoFMflc_ztVwQ

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Hanusch, F. (2014). Dimensions of indigenous journalism culture: Exploring Māori news-making in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journalism, 15(8), 951–967. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884913495757 Hı ̄roa, T.  R. (1949). The coming of the Maori. Māori Purposes Fund Board. http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-­BucTheC.html Hollings, J., Hanusch, F., & Lealand, G. (2016). Country report: Journalists in New Zealand. Worlds of Journalism. http://www.worldsofjournalism.org Jones, A., & Jenkins, K. (2011). Words between us: First Māori-Pākeha ̄ conversations on paper He kor̄ ero. Huia. Kāretu, T. (1992). Language and protocol of the marae. In M. King (Ed.), Te ao hurihuri: Aspects of Māoritanga (pp. 28–41). Reed. Mahuta, N. (2019). Te ao pāpa ̄ho ki tua Ma ̄ori media sector shift: An overview of the current state of the sector as of March 29, 2019 [New Zealand Government Cabinet paper]. https://www.tpk.govt.nz/docs/tpk-­mmss-­ cabpaper-­stateofthesector-­april2019-­1.pdf Māori Language Commission. (n.d.). Te ture mō te reo Māori. https://www. tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/en/te-­reo-­maori/te-­ture-­mo-­te-­reo-­maori-­2016/ Marcetic, B. (2018, March 3). A history of outrage over the word ‘pākehā’. The Spinoff. https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/03-03-2018/a-history-of-outrage-overthe-word-pakeha/ Matthewman, S. (2017). Pākehā ethnicity: The politics of white privilege. In A land of milk and honey? Making sense of Aotearoa New Zealand (pp. 83–94). Auckland University Press. McCreanor, T. (2006). ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones…’ Talking pakeha identities. In J. H. Liu, T. McCreanor, T. McIntosh, & T. Teaiwa (Eds.), New Zealand identities: Departures and destinations (pp.  95–128). Victoria University Press. McRae, J. (2017). Māori oral tradition: He kor̄ ero no ̄ te ao tawhito. Auckland University Press. Mead, H. (2003). Tikanga Ma ̄ori: Living by Ma ̄ori values. Huia. Mead, H., & Grove, N. (2003). Nga ̄ pepeha ̄ a nga ̄ tı ̄puna. Victoria University Press. Middleton, A. (2019, February 17). Māori media revamp: Where’s the focus on quality journalism? E-Tangata—A Maō ri and Pasifika Sunday magazine. https://e-­t angata.co.nz/reo/maori-­m edia-­r evamp-­w heres-­t he-­f ocus-­o n-­ quality-­journalism/ Middleton, A. (2020). Kia hiwa rā! The influence of tikanga and the language revitalisation agenda on the practices and perspectives of Māori journalists working in reo-Māori news (Doctoral thesis, Auckland University of Technology). https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/handle/10292/13286 Middleton, J. (2010). Ka rangona te reo: The development of Māori-language television broadcasting in Aotearoa New Zealand. Te Kaharoa, 3(1), 146–176. https://doi.org/10.24135/tekaharoa.v3i1.122

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New Zealand Media Council. (n.d.). Statement of principles. https://www.mediacouncil.org.nz/principles Orbell, M. (1985). The natural world of the Maori. Collins. Parker, B. (1966, March). Nga whakatauki: Maori proverbs and sayings. Te ao hou: The Maori magazine, 54. http://teaohou.natlib.govt.nz Ranford, J. (2015). ‘Pakeha’: Its origin and meaning. In ACE papers graduate student work—Issues in contemporary education, paper 8. University of Auckland. Reed, A. W., & Calman, R. (2004). Reed book of Ma ̄ori mythology. Reed Publishers. Rerekura, S. (2007). Whaikōrero: Tauparapara 1. Sam Rerekura. Rewi, P. (2010). Whaiko ̄rero: The world of Ma ̄ori oratory. Auckland University Press. Salmond, A. (2004). Hui: A study of Ma ̄ori ceremonial gatherings (3rd ed.). Penguin Group. Statistics New Zealand. (2013, December 10). New Zealand has more ethnicities than the world has countries [Press release]. http://archive.stats.govt.nz/ Census/2013-­census/data-­tables/totals-­by-­topic-­mr1.aspx#gsc.tab=0 Statistics New Zealand. (2014). Measuring reo Maō ri speakers: A guide to different data sources. http://archive.stats.govt.nz/~/media/Statistics/browse-categories/people-and-communities/maori/measuring-­t e-­r eo-­m aori-­s peakers/ measuring-­maori-­speakers.pdf Statistics New Zealand. (2019, September 23). New Zealand’s population reflects growing diversity [Press release]. https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/ new-­zealands-­population-­reflects-­growing-­diversity Statistics New Zealand. (2020, May 18). Estimated population of New Zealand. https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/population-­of-­nz Te Huia, A. (2013). Whāia te iti kahurangi, ki te tuohu koe me he maunga teitei: Establishing psychological foundations for higher levels of Māori language proficiency. (Doctoral thesis, Victoria University of Wellington.) https:// researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/xmlui/handle/10063/3459 Te Māngai Pāho. (2018). Annual report 2017–2018. https://www.tmp.govt.nz/ uploads/data_object/file/data/3569/TeMa_ngaiPa_ho_Annual_Report_ 2018_Lay_FA_Web_LR.pdf Walker, R. (1978). The relevance of Māori myth and tradition. In M. King (Ed.), Tihe mauri ora: Aspects of Maoritanga (pp. 19–32). Methuen. Walker, R. (2004). Ka whawhai tonu ma ̄tou: Struggle without end. Penguin. Walter, R., & Reilly, M. (2018). Ngā hekenga waka: Migration and early settlement. In L. Carter, S. Duncan, G. Leoni, L. Paterson, M. Ratima, M. Reilly, & P. Rewi (Eds.), Te kop̄ arapara: An introduction to the Māori world (pp. 67–86). Auckland University Press. Williams, H.  W. (1971). A dictionary of the Māori language (7th ed.). Legislation Direct.

CHAPTER 12

Ethnic Newsmaking Through Citizen Journalism: Collective Content Production of Syrian Refugees in Turkey Glenn Muschert, Ahmet Taylan, and Duygu Özsoy

Introduction The civil war started in Syria in 2011, sparking a mass migration which is the largest displacement crisis since World War II. Due to Turkey’s shared border with Syria and an open-door policy toward refugees, a large number of Syrian refugees came to Turkey, which now hosts the numerically

Chapter submitted for consideration of Anna Gladkova and Sadia Jamil (eds.) Ethnic Journalism in the Global South (Palgrave).

G. Muschert (*) Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE e-mail: [email protected] A. Taylan • D. Özsoy Faculty of Communication, Mersin University, Mersin, Turkey © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_12

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largest refugee population in the world. Although Turkey is a state party to the Geneva Convention of 1949, Turkey is not a state party to the additional protocol to the Geneva Convention on Protocol relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I, 8 June 1977). Therefore, Syrians in Turkey have a legal status affording temporary protection, but are not formally considered refugees by the Turkish state (Erdoğan et al., 2017), although they are often described as refugees in national and international media. According to data provided by the Turkish Ministry of the Interior, Directorate General of Migration Management, there are more than 3.5 million refugees in Turkey in 2020, with a large portion living in the southeastern cities such as Adana, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kilis, and Mersin. As a result of this migration, the demographic structure in these regions has changed, and in fact, in Kilis the number of refugees exceeds the local population (Erdoğan et al., 2017). There are also concentrations of Syrians ̇ in some larger urban areas in the western parts of Turkey, notably Istanbul ̇ and Izmir. This mass displacement brings with it many economic, cultural, and social challenges, and indeed issues relating to Syrian refugees have been among the main political concerns in the last ten years in Turkey. Syrians were initially seen as guests and treated with positive regard, although discrimination began as the Syrian crisis dragged on and as the prolonged stay of Syrians in Turkey suggested that their presence might be long term or even permanent. The media plays an important role in how Syrian refugees are viewed in Turkey and indeed in determining their treatment officially and interpersonally. Since the war in Syria began nearly a decade ago, there has been a growing academic literature about refugees in Turkey. Research in the field of communication mainly focuses on the representation of refugees in different media such as television, print media, local media, and alternative media. However, there are relatively fewer studies focusing on refugees’ ethnic newsmaking and information-sharing practices. Indeed, it is important to focus on the negative portrayal of refugees in the mainstream media and the discrimination these representations cause in everyday life, including how rights-oriented journalism handles the refugee issue and the difference between the ideal and the situation as it is. Scholars rarely focus on media and social inclusion, but rather more often on media and exclusion (Ewart & Snowden, 2012). However, focusing on inclusive practices such as ethnic media helps to clarify the important role of media

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for building inclusive social dynamics (Katz et  al., 2012). The focus on Syrian ethnic journalism in Turkey provides precisely the opportunity to understand how Syrian voices in Turkey have contributed to the discourse concerning this refugee group. This chapter reports upon in-depth interviews concerning the ethnic media practices of Syrian journalists in Turkey living in the cities most commonly hosting refugees. Analysis focuses on how Syrian journalists interpret the representation of Syrians in mainstream media in comparison to ethnic news media in Turkey, identifying what they perceive as negative bias in such representation which highlights the presence of Syrian refugees as a problem for Turkish people and Turkish society. Respondents spoke about why they felt that Syrian ethnic media are necessary in Turkey, especially regarding their use of ICTs in their practice of ethnic media. “Even a cursory look at the bibliography on ethnic media would reveal that there are many different terms used to describe similar things. Minority media, immigrant media, diasporic media, and community media are terms often used along with or instead of the term ethnic media. Term preferences are often related to how different countries understand differences between people based on their ethnic or racial background” (Matsaganis et al., 2011, p. 8). The term “immigrant media” appears to have an expiration date, and as the stay of Syrians in Turkey remains protracted, the population may not focus on issues and interests shared by other immigrants. Similarly, the term diaspora does not fit the experience of Syrian migrants in Turkey and therefore is not apt (see Georgiou, 2006 for discussion of diaspora media). Throughout the chapter, the use of the term “ethnic media” is intentional and reflective of the definition posited by Matsaganis et  al. (2011), because it is more inclusive than the more specific terms “immigrant media” or “diaspora media.”

Syrian Ethnic Media in Turkey It is axiomatic that mainstream media outlets do not represent all segments of society equally, objectively, and fairly (GUMG, 1976, p. 232). The production and distribution of the thoughts and opinions of the social segments with different ethnic origins, political thoughts, and religious beliefs is possible only within narrow limits according to the criteria of the market. Thus, disadvantaged groups such as refugees often find it difficult to make their voices heard via mainstream media, and the harmony, integration, and mutual understanding necessary for a democratic

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society leave their place to exclusion and prejudice (Kaya, 2009). For preventing the centralization of the media and to ensure pluralism in the media Ferreira argues that “we need to democratise and redistribute media influence not only amongst more media channels, but between media channels and consumers” (2017, p. 12). Similar biases are seen when examining how refugees are represented in the media, as the depiction often causes refugees difficulties in daily life. Even in places where refugees live in close quarters with Turks, the two groups may not interact with each other. Thus the knowledge of Turkish people about the refugees may come indirectly, with heavy bias (Arıcan, 2019), as information is mostly obtained via the media (Atak, 2019). In Turkey, refugees have been the focus of much coverage, but these representations are often inaccurate, highlighting the challenges presented by the presence of a refugee population within Turkey’s borders (Boztepe, 2017). For example, Syrian refugees in mainstream media have been featured in coverage of many dramatic or criminal events and as the subject in political conversations (Boztepe, 2017; Oral Evren, 2020). The characterization of refugees is often discriminatory and stereotypical (Doğanay, 2019), often focusing on the economic burden of refugees or their use as cheap labor in informal work (Boztepe, 2017; Göker & Keskin, 2015). While problems associated with refugees are often provided, contextual background is rarely given and the underlying causes of the challenges described are not explored (Boztepe, 2017; Doğanay, 2019). This lack of context is stultifying of the development of empathy in the audience, as the refugees are not portrayed as suffering and three-dimensional persons, but rather as the superficial embodiment of social problems (Doğanay, 2019). Although the ideological differences of media organizations differentiate the way they discuss the refugee question in Turkey, in mainstream media it is consistently the case that refugees are just objects or subjects for coverage, and indeed their negative representation remains similar in almost all media organizations (Göker & Keskin, 2015; Boztepe, 2017). While the representation of Syrian refugees in news may often be negative, a lack of coverage from the perspective of the Syrian refugee population may be even more damaging. Indeed, in Turkish media, refugees are the object of the news, not the subject of the news. The challenges experienced by refugees are not reflected from their own perspectives. Indeed, refugee voices rarely appear in the news, and if they are present, they are generally the perspectives of male refugees (Doğanay, 2019). Media representations of refugees shape the way societies perceive them and their

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positive and negative attitudes in society (Pandır, Efe, & Paksoy, 2015). While making news about refugees, concepts that point to different statuses such as refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers are used interchangeably (Boztepe, 2017). The media conflation of these statuses is problematic, as the distinction may point to the rights that Syrians hold in preset-day Turkey. Such negatively biased refugee representations also appear in alternative media that aim to do rights-oriented journalism. Naming refugees with various labels, giving little voice to refugees as sources of news, and lack of context are also deficiencies seen in alternative media (Türkkol, 2019). Because Syrian refugees are concentrated in the southeastern cities in Turkey, the refugee question has become an important issue for the region and its urban areas. For this reason, research has focused on the media of those cities, where the presence of refugees is problematized. Generally, Syrian refugees are not the subject and source of news, and there is a scarcity of discussion about the solution of the challenges presented (Bodur, 2020). However, when looking at the distribution of positive and negative news about refugees in local and national media, the rate of positive news about refugees in the local media is higher than in the national media (Doğanay, 2019). Despite the mischaracterization of Syrians in Turkish mainstream national and regional media, it is crucial that different groups such as Syrian refugees should be portrayed equally and fairly in media. However, mainstream media is insufficient in this regard, and therefore ethnic news media is needed for these groups to carry their own life practices, concerns, and needs to the public agenda. What is needed is the development of an alternative media, in this case an ethnic media produced by Syrian refugees, that emerges with a rhizomatic structure. The rhizome is a botanical term, borrowed to apply to social phenomena by Deleuze and Guattari in their A Thousand Plateaus (1987), which can be compared to a tree or root-like formation, in which their branches feed and multiply and are subdivided in an order. Rhizomatic structures, although discrete, actually refer to multiplicities that are actively similar, but do not have unity and integrity. Rhizomatic structures do not originate from a single root, but they are constantly rooted in new places without a fixed order, as a certain point of the rhizome can be unexpectedly related to another. As Bailey and colleagues describe, “the rhizomatic approach to media focuses on three aspects: their role at the crossroads of civil society, their elusiveness, and their interconnections and linkages with market and state” (2007, p. 27). Ethnic media may create a rhizomatic

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network among refugees, while highlighting ethnic perspectives that the mainstream ignores. It is important that the ethnic media is organized predominantly on a local or regional scale, as it counterposes mainstream media organized on the national scale. The locality of ethnic media will positively affect the participation in terms of gaining the ability to engage the audience in the production process and giving them a voice. Thusly, the receiver becomes a transmitter in communication channels, as participation and inclusivity are enabled. Ethnic news media can appeal to a particular community, for example, people of a district, city, or public area, minorities, refugees, women. Such media can also be a good alternative and balance against mainstream media. Case in point is this chapter’s examination of the ethnic media forms of Syrian refugees living in Turkey. In the sections that follow, the analysis highlights the voices and perspectives of Syrian ethnic journalists serving their constituents in Turkey. The respondents clearly indicate that they see the need for Syrian ethnic media not only to serve the information-seeking needs to Syrian refugees in Turkey, but also to express a broader perspective or countervailing narrative to the negative characterizations of Syrians observed in the mainstream media. Subsequent sections explore the role of Syrian ethnic media in reducing discrimination against Syrians born out of mischaracterizations and its role in integrating the Syrian population into the broader Turkish society, as their stay extends and may become permanent. Final sections reflect on the role of ICTs in Syrian ethnic media in Turkey, including some broader implications for the findings.

Interviewing Syrian Ethnic Journalists The chapter draws on 12 in-depth interviews, including 11 with Syrian ethnic journalists who moved to Turkey since the start of the war and living/working in the cities with concentrations of Syrian refugees. A single interview was with a Turkish employee of a non-governmental organization (NGO) specialized in media and refugees. The participants generally create content in Arabic for Syrian people who live in Turkey but some also share their content in English with international media institutions like BBC and Al Jazeera. The interviewees are journalists working in a variety of media forms such as radio, television, newspaper, and the Internet. While some of them were already journalists before the Syrian war, most of the participants were people who started working in

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journalism as the war began. Some respondents received journalism education at the university level in Syria or Turkey, and some participated in journalism education provided by large media or rights-oriented media organizations (Table 12.1). Respondents were recruited via snow ball sampling, starting with the researchers’ professional contacts and expanding outward. The initial intention was to travel to the cities where the respondents live and work to conduct face-to-face interviews. With the development of the COVID-19 pandemic, this strategy became untenable, and therefore interviews were conducted electronically via zoom conferences and email. The interview questions were oriented toward gathering information related to five topics in general: first, whether the respondents assessed the mainstream media’s portrayal of Syrian refugees as accurate or inaccurate; second, a description of the information-seeking practices among Syrian refugees, including ethnic media consumption; third, the role of Syrian refugee ethnic media in addressing issues of discrimination against Syrians; fourth, how the media plays a role in integrating Syrian refugees into the broader

Table 12.1  Sample characteristics Namea

Ageb Gender City

Education

Occupation

Mahmoud

28

M

̇ Istanbul

Bachelors

Gaziantep Mersin

University student Bachelors

Radio program coordinator Citizen journalist Freelancer/graphic designer Journalist Journalist Journalist Journalist

Lina Maha

26 24

F F

Ahmed Sayeed Abdullah Murad

34

26

M M M M

Hassan

23

M

Khalid 24 Abeer 40 Mohammed Mariam

M M M F

Mersin Mersin Mersin/ Şanlıurfa ̇ Istanbul ̇ Istanbul Gaziantep ̇ Izmir

Masters High School Bachelors University student (Journalism) University student Bachelors (Journalism) Bachelors Bachelors Bachelors

Names are changed to protect participant identities

a

b

Where omitted, respondent’s age not reported

Journalist News editor Chief editor Journalist NGO employee

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Turkish society; and, finally, the role of ICTs in Syrian ethnic media. (See Appendix A for an English-­language version of the interview schedule.) One impediment involved the inability to use an interpreter to translate from Arabic, which is the first language of the respondents. Instead, interviews were conducted in Turkish or English, with the respondents choosing the language with which they felt more comfortable. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, with Turkish-language interviews translated into English. Analysis of transcripts was guided by the principles of qualitative data analysis (see Barbour, 2014), an inductive approach involving the thematic examination of transcripts in order to draw patterns of meaning within the respondents’ answers to the questions provided. While the interviews followed a general protocol specifying questions, the respondents were able to decline to speak about specific topics, just as they were free to discuss topics not otherwise suggested by the interview schedule. Thus, while the study was focused on the Syrian ethnic media producers, practices, and consumers, the respondents had much latitude in answering the questions. Given the snow ball sampling, the small number of respondents, and the relative under-studied nature of the research topic, the inductive approach was appropriate for the purposes of this study.

Findings Bias in Mainstream Representation of Refugees and the Need for Ethnic Media All the participants reported that mainstream media in Turkey gives insufficient attention to the challenges experienced by Syrian refugees. Although there are a lot of articles in mainstream media about Syrians in Turkey, the respondents sensed a dominant focus in news reportage about problems caused by Syrians and relatively little about the difficulties experienced by Syrians. Those interviewed think that the news about Syrians in mainstream media is often biased, often reflecting rumor and not based in fact, and that such bias feeds discrimination toward the refugees. As many Syrian refugees are not conversant in Turkish, they often are unaware of the content conveyed in mainstream Turkish media, yet nonetheless they tend to be aware that they are a focus of disdain. Lina:

As a Syrian, some news [reports] are extremely disturbing, I can read and understand because I know Turkish, and I feel very

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uncomfortable because mainstream media always share only negative things or only the needs of refugees for financial aid. Hassan: The TV channels or newspapers in Turkey share the news they want and whenever they want, and half of this news is rumors and sprawl among the nation, so some Turkish people have a negative reaction to the Syrians. Nobody reflects our real life or our experiences. Another deficiency with mainstream media is that the news about Syrians is not addressed in the context of cause and effect relationships, which makes it difficult for the Turkish society to understand the complexity of challenges faced by Syrian refugees and drives discrimination against them. Many Turkish people criticize Syrian refugees because they have sought refuge abroad, rather than staying in their country and fighting. This misunderstanding goes both ways, as Syrian people often think that Turkish people are not aware of events in Syria and are misinformed about the plight of refugees. It is an important issue for Syrian refugees that Turkish people do not understand them and they believe that this misunderstanding feeds discrimination (Arıcan, 2019; Vesek, 2020). The Syrian journalists interviewed generally think that the media’s failure to report the events in cause-effect relationships is the reason for this. Murad: Media report events about us, but I think these news [sic] are missing without explaining the main reasons. Why did these immigrants migrate, what are the causes of the war, what kind of society and state were there in Syria or Iraq? These often lack in mainstream media.

Mariam, an employee of a non-governmental organization (NGO) working in the media and migration field, stated that this deficiency is not limited only to mainstream media, but that alternative media producing rights-oriented news can also reproduce discriminatory discourses. Mariam: Mainstream media can use hate speech because of political economy, they have their own target audiences and they produce news for them. However, alternative media do it without realizing it. For example, in a news about refugee rights, they can use a photograph of a woman with her child in her arms in dust and dirt. That kind of representations give an implicit

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message to audiences that refugees are poor, miserable, desperate, they cannot have a normal life like us. According to the participants, the main sources of this misrepresentation of Syrian refugees are political conflicts, the lack of Syrian journalists in mainstream media organizations, and the market concern of producing content attractive to the Turkish audience. Khalid: Media produce negative content about foreigners. The main reason for this is that most organizations do not have a journalist who cares about foreigners. The lack of interest of the Turkish people in foreign languages, those working in media institutions are rare, who know Arabic. Syrians are the subject of news in both mainstream and alternative media, but the media do not produce news for the Syrian audience in Turkey. Misrepresentation and non-representation of Syrians in the media make it difficult for refugees to be accepted in society; however, ignoring Syrians in Turkey as a legitimate audience for news may be even more damaging. Indeed, many developments in the Turkey, such as labor issues and government policy, also affect refugees, although they are not afforded the information they need. Mariam: Even in rights-oriented media, citizen journalists do not report by considering the presence of 4–5 million refugees. They never think this news is also important for refugees, let’s translate this into Arabic. If there is an early election in Turkey, it will be affected millions of refugees from early elections. They do not produce content for the refugee target group. This approach of the media both restricts the Syrians’ access to the information they need and feeds discrimination. The confluence of these effects forms the reason why Syrians in Turkey need their own ethnic media. Rather than consuming media content coming out of Syria, which may not capture the perspectives of Syrian refugees, there is the development of an ethnic media ecology among Syrians in Turkey. Ahmed: The majority take their news from famous news Facebook pages. Nearly, all of these pages are Syrian, and some of them

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owned by [Syria-based] TV channels like Syria TV, Orient TV, Al Jisr. These media outlets focus mainly on the Syrian affairs, whereas, Turkish media cover only the important news about Syria and that is why Syrians prefer to follow Syrian media outlets. As the Syrian community in Turkey has become large enough to be a key audience for the Syrian media in Turkey, this audience has many problems and challenges in life outside the borders of their country, and they need the media service that is directly concerned with them. … I think that the Syrian audience in Turkey takes the news from the Syrian media with interest, and follows it well, and this is indicated by the statistics of the audience on our websites, the largest proportion of visitors to our website and our pages on social media are from Turkey, and certainly they are Syrian visitors. Information-Seeking Practices Among Syrian Refugees

If Syrian refugees in Turkey are not an audience served by mainstream or alternative media sources, then it is interesting to consider the sources of information they do use. The need for refugee populations to access reliable information is clarified when considering the recent COVID-19 pandemic. In this period, the information needs of people are increasing all over the world (Bento et al., 2020). When we consider this need among refugee populations, many who often live in close quarters, it seems obvious that a lack of media written for refugee audiences puts the public health of the refugees and the society in which they now live at risk. One solution is to rely on news coming out of the country of origin. Abeer: Enab Baladi [a Syrian news organization that produces news from inside Syria for international consumption] covers this topic with great focus in the recent period, and the organization has developed a written guide for covering this pandemic. The public is very interested in knowing the latest news about [the] Coronavirus, and they are interested in knowing the advice and guidance given by the media to deal with it, and the media also monitors the extent of people’s response to preventive measures and sometimes reveals the failure of governments and citizens to take measures or follow precautions.

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However, within the context of Syrian refugees in Turkey, refugees use ethnic media forms and social media platforms (such as WhatsApp and Telegram) for news access, as in the case of COVID-19 coverage. Mariam: How we follow the news of the corona every day, we want to learn how many cases there are in the city we live in, whether we go out or not, these people also need this kind of information. They exchange information with each other on their WhatsApp and Telegram groups. For example, refugees in Kayseri have telegram groups with 500 people and they follow what is going on in Kayseri. There are a few people in that city that speaks Turkish, and they write to them. The reliance on news media from informal groups in social media platforms may blur the distinction between what is considered professional journalism and what is not. In some cases, information shared in groups such as WhatsApp and Telegram may be considered citizen journalism, but often they are not. In social networking sites, participants tend to exchange knowledge among themselves, such as important developments in cities where they live, information on border crossing to go to European countries, and notices for job postings, rentals, and purchasing second-­ hand goods. Nonetheless, some of the information reporting, curation, and commentary observed on social media sites can resemble the actions of the citizen journalist. It is beyond the scope of the present chapter to engage the issue of whether informal news production makes someone a citizen journalist. While journalism is a traditional profession with profession-­specific norms and ethical principles, to work as a journalist does not require one to receive a formal media education. This kind of sharing can be mentioned as witness reporting not even witness journalism because journalism is a profession, but news reporting is a practice ̇ (Irvan, 2018). Activists, journalism students, and professional journalists follow similar practices and goals as citizen journalists, as they produce news content. There are many organizations that can be evaluated as ethnic media that produce more professional content using varying media such as radio, television, newspaper, and the Internet. Iho, Apoyevmatini, Salom, Jamanak, Lraper, and Agos—steadily for many years engaged in ethnic journalism in Turkey—are some of the best-known examples among these organizations. Indeed, although there has been little investment and

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organizational development in Syrian ethnic media in Turkey, a nascent news ecology has emerged, one heavily reliant on social media platforms and ICT use. Abeer:

The majority of Syrian media organizations in Turkey are initiatives by individual journalists and activists. Many of these organizations have successfully competed with major media organizations and have become reliable and reliable sources of information. Mahmoud: With the help of financial returns provided by some websites such as YouTube, Syrians have definitely managed to establish alternative media networks based on popular social media sites. I think the Syrians in Turkey is [sic] showing more tendencies from traditional media to new media, perhaps because of the ease of access to news on new media. Lina: I was working on a newspaper before. But recently I began to share news on my Facebook account. Because I know Turkish, I translate news from Turkish media to Arabic related to Syrian refugees and general developments. Since most of refugees do not know Turkish, people who know Turkish create groups on social media and translate the news into Arabic so people can access the news. However, the participants stressed that these media organizations often face the challenge of sustainability and that the cultivation of a coherent audience may be difficult as such media agencies seem short lived, due in part to financial challenges (specifically reliance on foreign financial support), the diversity among the Syrian population in Turkey, and the precarious nature of life for those displaced by war. Mariam: We cannot see refugees as one single group of four or five millions. There are many different groups among themselves. There are many different groups in terms of ideology, language, religion, and region…. Even if you just set up Internet media, it is difficult. You have to pay money to the people working here, but you cannot earn money. We were initially thinking of establishing a citizen refugee journalism network with EU funds, but it did not seem like a sustainable thing.

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Role of Ethnic Media Against Discrimination A functioning ethnic media can both give voice to refugees and make them visible, while facilitating communication between residents and newcomers. However, there remains in this case an isolation effect, as the Syrian ethnic media is consumed almost exclusively by Syrians, and therefore does not facilitate interaction with Turkish people. Abeer:

I think that the problem of the Syrians in Turkey is the language, in behavior and in the ways of expression, and this is a great responsibility on the Syrian media, which publish content with (news and stories) in the Arabic language, and it not yet been able to create a news platform about Syria in the Turkish language. Murad: There is very little content for Turkish people. I can tell you a funny story. Syria TV produced a Turkish content on its Facebook page but they wrote the hashtags in Arabic. All of the comments came from Syrians. While the Syrian ethnic media may provide content for a Syrian audience, it neither contributes to integration of Syrian people into Turkish society nor appears to reduce discrimination. Arıcan (2019) asserts that Syrians have been characterized by Turkish people as foreigners who disrupt normal social life and that Syrians have accepted their guest status, preferring to remain silent in the face of discrimination. Erdoğan et  al. (2017) argue that low levels of refugee representation in media have largely negative consequences, but that there may be latent advantages. For example, while the association of refugees with negative incidents in the media causes them to be perceived as people who cause problems, low visibility of refugees may prevent the broader conflict that could occur between refugees and longer-term residents of Turkey (Erdoğan et  al., 2017, p. 24). One reason for this is the concern that being visible may increase discrimination. Another reason is that Syrians internalize being the other. Also, they believe that discrimination is so strong that whatever we do this problem cannot be solved. Hassan:

Of course, I am talking about some of them, they throw blame for all the troubles to the Syrians, if they are unemployed, they say that Syrians have all the jobs, if they cannot enter the uni-

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versity, the Syrians have taken my place without examination. Some people never rent their home when they know we are Syrian. There are bad and good people in every nation. Whatever we do, we cannot win their hearts because they will never believe that we have not received salaries from the state or entered a university with an exam. Those who know Turkish can tell their troubles and what they do here, but there are those who do not know Turkish, they are excluded wherever they go. Prejudice is a big problem and we cannot save ourselves from it. Although choosing to remain silent and invisible may sublimate intergroup conflict in the short term, it may suppress the solution of underlying social tensions. The fact that refugees are primarily visible in their ethnic media and can speak with their own voices can strengthen them, which can be seen as the first step to make space for themselves in the public sphere. Ethnic media as an alternative small public can also fulfill the functions of an organization like “Citizen Communication Cooperative,” which can build democracy (Barber, 2003, p. 277). Role of Ethnic Media for Integration Ahmed:

Of course, it will help in the integration process and in decreasing the cultural differences, and for me the main barriers for integrations and involvement are the ignorance of Turkish language and the lack of confidence in Syrians because most of them are youth.

Many Syrians relate that when they first migrated to Turkey they were welcomed by the Turkish people, but as the time passed the attitude toward them became negative (Bulut, 2019; Vesek, 2020). In the beginning, the Turkish people generally described Syrians as guests, and the media also frequently uses the term guests for refugees (Erdoğan et al., 2017). Although the treatment of Syrians as guests may have served an initial function of providing hospitality for the refugees, the continued usage of the term guests may confer an advantage in favor of the host, maintaining a distinction between insider and outsider. On a more fundamental level, the term guest does not imply legal or human rights, which may be intimated by the term refugee. With the prolongation of the Syrian

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refugees’ stay in Turkey, there is an increasingly discriminatory discourse which relates rhetorically to the implication that the guests have overstayed (Arıcan, 2019; Bulut, 2019; Erdoğan et al., 2017). Abdullah: I think the Syrian news can’t integrate the Syrian in Turkish society because it needs a collaboration between Syrian and Turkish media campaigns to do this mission, and this already discussed in the Syrian Turkish media conference in 2019. The fact that refugees are characterized as guests in the media stifles their acclimation and integration. As guests, Syrians’ status in Turkey remains uncertain and temporary, as it is unclear whether they will remain in Turkey permanently, or if not, then for how long (Bulut, 2019; Sümer, 2019). However, year by year they have made a life in Turkey, and many have been born, grown up, and received an education in Turkey, all of which makes it difficult for them to leave. Therefore, the integration of Syrian refugees into broader society may be one of the important challenges to be solved in Turkey in the decades to come. This concern is reflected in the growing media coverage of the so-called integration problem, and perhaps counterintuitively the topic has featured more prominently in alternative and ethnic media sources, as compared to mainstream media. The weakness of the integration conversation in the mainstream Turkish media is that integration is described as one way, with refugees adjusting to the expectation of the hosts, rather than as a two-way process of integration as both Syrian and Turkish segments of the population adapt to one another (Doğanay, 2019, pp. 29–30). Ethnic media can help people to orientation (Matsaganis et al., 2011), and the ethnic journalists interviewed here focused on the role of ethnic media in integrating Syrians into their new social environment, including collaborating with Turkish journalists to ensure success through balanced and blended discourse.

The Role of ICTs in Ethnic Media Murad:

Social media is often more convenient due to immigration and foreign languages to access the news. At the same time, the news of the Syrian war on social media can enter the circulation fast.

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Mahmoud: I think these tools [ICTs] are used at a high level. This is due to the cheap price of mobile phones compared to ­televisions, as well as the language problem for those who are not fluent in Turkish. ICTs are vital for both content creators and audiences/users, and the study participants noted the vast majority of Syrians have at least a smartphone with Internet access. Indeed, among the first purchases upon entering another country is smartphone access, and phone ownership and purchase of service is very important for refugees. From a single device, the newcomer can access resources such as web-based translation, navigation applications to get around, news from the home country, and information about resources in the new country. These days, smartphone ownership and subscription services have low price points, and such ICTs are equally convenient for information producers and consumers. Abeer:  Turkey provides information technology services widely and [with] cheap financial cost, and this makes the use of the Internet easy and attractive for residents of this country. They subscribe to media and social sites and express themselves. We see that Syrians in Turkey have become more like journalist citizens on the Internet, using their phones to transmit almost everything that is happening around them, and document many local stories and news in their areas of their lives. ICTs enable citizen journalism among refugees, thanks to convergence, they can produce and prepare the content for publication and share it with their audience. However, there is a noted limitation that it is costly and requires training to produce more professional-level business using digital technologies. Despite the obvious advantages afforded to ethnic journalism producers and consumers by the ubiquity and affordability of ICTs and social networking platforms, it is important to understand that technology is not a panacea for the challenges faced by society. Indeed, the adoption and development and impact of ethnic media forms among Syrians in Turkey are hindered by the revenue-generating model in media and by limited education and ICT skill development among users. Khalid: Technology has tremendous potential to convey the problems of Syrians, but Syrians need education, material and technologi-

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cal support, whether from international or government institutions. Technology is excellent, but it cannot be used by everyone due to lack of financial support. Because Syrians cannot follow the technological developments sufficiently, they are one step behind their colleagues working in the Turkish media.

Conclusion In the Turkish media landscape, it seems that news about Syrian refugees has two different dimensions. First, mainstream media reproduces hegemonic discourses and stereotypes, which may fuel discrimination. Second, Syrian refugees now receive more focus from rights-based media organizations, although such reports seem to focus narrowly rights violations and discrimination. Therefore, ordinary news reports on the context of the daily life practices of Syrian refugees appear neither in mainstream media nor in rights-based media. It is clear that production of such content is not under the control of refugees themselves. For example, one Syrian journalist noted that few refugees are employed rights-based media organizations, despite the intention of such agencies to produce media “for and in the name of refugees.” Although Syrian ethnic media in Turkey may play a crucial role in tackling these challenges, the efforts of ethnic media alone are insufficient to facilitate the integration of Syrian populations into their new social contexts. An ideal solution to this biased news ecosystem which fails to meet the information needs of Syrians is to encourage refugee participation in content production in both mainstream and alternative media. It is insufficient for Syrian ethnic media to produce content solely for Syrians, and the future of the 3.5 million Syrians whose stay in Turkey is indefinite requires not only the development of a robust ethnic media but also further integration of Syrian-Turkish journalists into mainstream and rights-­ based media organizations. Indeed, the language barrier between Turkish and Arabic remains an impediment; however the longer Syrians reside in Turkey, both segments are likely to be exposed to the other’s language, especially as Syrians and Turkish people find common ground via integration into educational, economic, and social contexts in Turkey. While there remains a mainstream media discourse dividing the groups, this study of Syrian ethnic journalists in Turkey does reveal that the makings of a more balanced and integrative media discourse continue to exist and at times to flourish.

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Appendix 1: Interview Guide Dear participant, This questionnaire has been prepared to collect data from you within the scope of a scientific research. The subject of the research is citizen journalism and the ethnic media practices made by Syrian refugees in Turkey. We kindly request you to answer the questions below as much detailed as possible. You can give your answers in Turkish or English. The information you provide will be used only as a data for scientific research and will not be shared for any other purpose. All your credentials will be kept confidential. Thank you very much for your valuable contribution. Name: Age: Gender: In which city do you live: The last school you graduated from: If you work, please provide your organization/position: 1. Could you please introduce yourself briefly: How long have you been in Turkey? In which area is your specialty/education? Have you got a training in journalism? 2. Could you please write about your journalism experience: How many years have you been working as a journalist or producing news and content? How did you start sharing news? What kind of journalism activities do you have? How do you provide the economic resources of these activities? 3. Do you think that if mainstream media in Turkey gives enough publicity to the problems of Syrian refugees and news about them? Why? 4. How Syrian refugees perceive news about themselves which are produced by mainstream media in Turkey? What are the reasons of this perception?

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5. From which sources do Syrian refugees in Turkey receive information and news about themselves more? Do they follow Syrian or other countries’ media? Do they mainly follow Syrian or Turkish media? What are the reasons of these? 6. Can Syrian refugees in Turkey create their own news networks (internet, newspaper, magazine, radio TV, etc.) outside the mainstream media organizations? To what extent? Do you think these alternative news networks are effective and beneficial? How? 7. Do you think if Syrian refugees in Turkey effectively use different media and information channels such as social media and blogs to share news and information? Why and how? 8. What do you think about how and at what level do Syrian refugees in Turkey use information and communication technologies as a means of self-expression? 9. Do you think Syrian refugees have access to communication technology in Turkey? Do you think there is a digital inequality? 10. How does digital inequality affect Syrian refugee experiences of involvement and exclusion process in public debates and decision making? 11. To what extent do you find amateur and small media organizations, citizen journalism practices useful? Can these be an alternative to mainstream media? How? 12. Do you think there is a bias in Turkish society against Syrian refugees? If yes, what are these prejudices? How much and how can Syrian refugees express themselves against this?

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13. Do you think to what extent Syrian refugees’ own media and news networks help them for integrating to Turkish society and building mutual understanding? 14. Any other comments, criticisms, or ideas you would like to add? Thank you very much for your contribution.

References Arıcan, E. (2019). Gündelik Hayat Bağlamında Suriyeli Sığınmacıları Şeytanlaştırma Pratikleri: Önder Mahallesi Örneği [Demonizing the Syrian refugees in everyday life practices: A case of Önder neighborhood], unpublished Master’s thesis, Ankara, Turkey: Hacettepe Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, at https:// tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tezSorguSonucYeni.jsp, accessed 15 July 2020. ̇ Atak, E. (2019). Toplumsal Hafizadaki “Arap Imaji”nin Türkiye’deki Suriyelilere ̇ Yönlendirilmesi Sorunsali: Izmir Yereli [The problematic of directing The ‘Image Of Arabs’ in Turkish collective memory: The case study of Izmir], ̇ unpublished Master’s thesis, Izmir, Turkey: Ege Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://tez.yok.gov.tr/ UlusalTezMerkezi/tezSorguSonucYeni.jsp Bailey, O. G., Cammaerts, B., & Carpentier, N. (2007). Understanding Alternative Media. Open University Press. Barber, B. (2003). Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. University of California Press. Barbour, R. (2014). Quality of Data Analysis. In U.  Flick (Ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis (pp.  496–509). SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446282243 Bento, A.  I., Nguyen, T., Wing, C., Lozano-Rojas, F., Ahn, Y.  Y., & Simon, K. (2020). Information Seeking Responses to News of Local COVID-19 Cases: Evidence from Internet Search Data. arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.04591. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.04591 Bodur, A. (2020). Yerel Medyada Suriyeli Göçmenlere Yönelik Haber Üretim Pratiğini Anlamak: Hatay Örneği [To Understand News Production Practices for Syrian Immigrants in Local Media: Hatay Example]. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Gaziantep, Turkey. Gaziantep, Turkey. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://tez.yok.gov.tr/ UlusalTezMerkezi/tezSorguSonucYeni.jsp

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Boztepe, V. (2017). Televizyon Haberlerinde Suriyeli Mültecilerin Temsili. ̇ Dergisi, 4(1), 91–122. https://doi.org/10.24955/ Ankara Üniversitesi Ilef ilef.312831 Bulut, O. (2019). Suriyeli Göçmenlerin Gündelik Hayata Katılım Süreçlerinde Etno Kültürel Direnç Noktaları: “Göçmen kimliğinin değişken rolü” [Points of Ethno Cultural Resistance in the Process of Participation of Syrian Migrants in Daily Life: ‘The Changing Role of Immigrant Identity’]. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Gaziantep, Turkey. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tezSorguSonucYeni.jsp Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Athlone. Doğanay, Ü. (2019). Mülteci Hakları için Medya ve Sivil Toplum Iş̇ Birliği Projesi ̇ Medya 18 Aylık Izleme Raporu Ulusal ve Yerel Medyada Mülteci ve Göç Haberleri. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://igamder.org/uploads/belgeler/Medya18AylikIzlemeRaporu.pdf Erdoğan, M., Kavukçuer, Y., & Çetinkaya, T. (2017). Türkiye’de yaşayan Suriyeli mültecilere yönelik medya algısı. Ankara: Freedom Research Association. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://oad.org.tr/Content/BlogResimleri/ pdf/2019925145411997OAD-­analiz-­multeci-­final%20r3.pdf Ewart, J., & Snowden, C. (2012). The Media’s Role in Social Inclusion and Exclusion. Media International Australia, 142(1), 61–63. https://doi.org/1 0.1177/1329878X1214200108 Ferreira, J. (2017). How We Are Solving the Mainstream Media’s Problems. Medium. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://medium.com/mediasifter/ how-­we-­are-­solving-­the-­mainstream-­medias-­problems-­9ff78eb2a404 Georgiou, M. (2006). Diaspora, Identity, and the Media: Diasporic Transnationalism and Mediated Spatialities. Hampton Press. Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG). (1976). Bad News. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.. Göker, G., & Keskin, K. (2015). Haber medyası ve mülteciler: Suriyeli mültecilė im Kuram ve Araştırma Dergisi, 41, rin Türk yazılı basınındaki temsili. Iletiş 229–256. https://iletisimdergisi.hacibayram.edu.tr/index.php/IKAD/article/view/204 ̇ Irvan, S. (2018). Witness Reporting Is Not a Threat, It’s an Opportunity. Birgün. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.birgun.net/haber/ prof-­dr-­suleyman-­irvan-­tanik-­haberciligi-­tehdit-­degil-­firsat-­218224 Katz, V.  S., Matsaganis, M.  D., & Ball-Rokeach, S.  J. (2012). Ethnic Media as Partners for Increasing Broadband Adoption and Social Inclusion. Journal of Information Policy, 2, 79–102. https://doi.org/10.5325/ jinfopoli.2.2012.0079

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Kaya, R. (2009). Iktidar Yumagı: Medya, Sermaye, Devlet [The Spinning of Power: Media, Capital, State]. Imge Kitabevi. Matsaganis, M.  D., Katz, V.  S., & Ball-Rokeach, S.  J. (2011). Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers, and Societies. Sage. Oral Evren, B. (2020). Türkiye’deki Suriyeli haberleri ve gazetecilerin haber üretim pratikleri [The Syrian News in Turkey and News Production Practices of Journalists]. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Ankara Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Ankara, Turkey. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://tez.yok.gov. tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tezSorguSonucYeni.jsp ̇ Pandır, M., Ibrahim, E.  F. E., & Paksoy, A.  F. (2015). Türk Basınında Suriyeli ̇ Sığınmacı Temsili Üzerine Bir Içerik Analizi/A Content Analysis on the Representation of Syrian Asylum Seekers in the Turkish Press. Marmara ̇ im Dergisi, 24, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.17829/midr.20152419995 Iletiş Sümer, G. (2019). Türkiye’de lisansüstü eğitime devam eden Suriyeli kadınların sosyal uyumuna toplumsal cinsiyet ve sosyal sermaye merkezli bir bakış [Gender and Social Capital Based View to Social Cohesion of Syrian Women Continuing Post Graduate Education in Turkey]. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Ankara, Turkey. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tezSorguSonucYeni.jsp Türkkol, F. (2019). Alternatif Haber Dili Arayişlari: Bariş Gazeteciliği Ve Hak Haberciliği Perspektifinden Türkiye’deki Suriyeli Mülteci Haberleri [Search of Alternative News Language: From Peace Journalism and Right Journalism Perspective Syrian Refugee News in Turkey]. Unpublished Doctoral thesis, ̇ Maltepe Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Istanbul, Turkey. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tezSorguSonucYeni.jsp Vesek, S. (2020). Türkiye’de Suriyeliler Ve Göç: Gitme Ve Kalma Konusunda Karar Alma Süreçlerini Etkileyen Faktörler [Syrians and Migration in Turkey: Factors Affecting Their Decision Making Process for Staying or Returning Home]. Unpublished Doctoral thesis, Anadolu Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Eskişehir, Turkey. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://tez.yok. gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tezSorguSonucYeni.jsp

CHAPTER 13

Afro-Brazilian Journalism in Alternative Media: A Study of Alma Preta Igor Oliveira Neves, Victor Fermino da Silva, and Mateus Yuri Passos

Introduction In Brazil, a broader notion of ethnic media is underdeveloped, and this may happen because of the very different origins of ethnicities in the country, with a hegemonic society that is mainly descendant from European immigrants—mainly Portugal, Spain and Italy—who own the mainstream media companies. There are smaller newspapers, magazines and news websites with a focus on the communities of descendants of those European immigrants (Escudero, 2015; Escudero & Elhajji, 2019), but those are not perceived as “ethnic” due to their straight identification with the hegemonic ethnicities in Brazil and are published in Portuguese. The most long-lived ethnic media in the country is that dedicated to Japanese immigrants and their descendants, with two newspapers created in 1917 and some newspapers, magazines and websites still active—for example, ニッケイ新聞 (Nikkei Shinbun) [Nikkei News] and São Paulo

I. O. Neves (*) • V. F. da Silva • M. Y. Passos Methodist University of São Paulo, São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_13

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Shinbun [São Paulo News], published in Japanese, and NippoBr and Jornal Nippak [Nippak News], both edited in Portuguese. For the most part of the history of media in Brazil the native indigenous peoples, collectively labeled as índios [literally “Indians”], had no media outlets of their own—which is due to several factors, such as their lack of financial resources and the isolation of indigenous communities from cities and the media in general, which has now started to change as they have founded their first pan-indigenous media outlet, Mídia Índia [Indian Media], which started as a Facebook page in 2017 and became a full-fledged website in 2019, and is part of the broader scenery of independent alternative media in Brazil, which started to achieve some public acknowledgment in 2013 while covering a wave of public protests that took the major cities in the country along June and July of that year. “Alternative” is the term applied to media outlets (mostly websites) which aren’t owned by major media companies and were instead founded by small, nonhierarchical groups of journalists which usually use the term “collective” to characterize their status as companies (Barros, 2019). Its turning point was the coverage of public demonstrations by the audiovisual streaming service Mídia Ninja—Narrativas Independentes, Jornalismo e Ação [Ninja Media—Independent Narratives, Journalism and Action], which was widely viewed and even forced the mainstream media to change their coverage, which was at first in opposition to social activism (Barros, 2019). Due to the higher potential of the Internet for spreading content, online alternative media may be able to reach a larger audience than print newspapers and magazines, and also due to the higher professionalization of contemporary alternative media—differing from 2000s’ era of blogs— even if most still act as some form of militant journalism. The approach to writing differs from mainstream news mostly because alternative media in Brazil does not rely on traditional primary definers—as conceptualized by Stuart Hall et al. (1978)—thus listening to sources that are able to relate to the specific issues of class, culture and ethnicity implied in a given story, due to their standpoint and personal experience as well as their training background, skills and positions. It should thus not be a surprise that ethnic groups, and especially ethnic groups that are historically repressed in Brazil, would thrive in a media environment that combines a relatively low cost for operation and has the potential to reach a broad audience. Our focus in this chapter will be Afro-Brazilian Journalism, a branch of ethnic media in Brazil that continues the tradition of black press in the

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country—which for a long period focused on “domesticating” black people and strengthening a notion of inferiority and subservience, and in recent decades shifted its purpose to the empowerment of black people in Brazil. Afro-Brazilian Journalism present an important way of giving prominence to the issues faced by contemporary Afro-Brazilians and the notions regarding the identities and agenda of black social militancies in Brazil, particularly against the notion that there is already a nonracist “racial democracy” in the country (Schwarcz, 1993). The black population of Brazil was formed during the slave trade of sub-Saharan African peoples between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries; after slavery in the country was abolished in 1888, the Afro-Brazilians were socially marginalized—including in the social structures of the countries, for example, access to education, employment and health care, and inequality of application of Law and Justice. There was also a loss in the sense of identity of Afro-Brazilians, due to the mix of different ethnicities during the early stages of slavery and the intermarriages between black and white Brazilians, as well as the descendants of the native peoples of Brazil, and also those of Middle Eastern and even Asian ancestry, giving birth to people of mixed raced who, according to Kabengele Munanga (2019), had their ancestry and the very right to identify themselves as black people stolen from them. The contemporary websites created by and for black Brazilians recently have brought up this issue regarding the identities of black people in the country, as well as the marginalization and persecution of cultural manifestations related to the black population, for example, samba and Afro-­ Brazilian religions such as umbanda and candomblé. In this sense, Brazilian Funk—a musical style which was created in favelas in the 1990s, mostly by Afro-Brazilians—is targeted by the police and the Brazilian State, as well as a cultural elite which attempts to determine which genres are worthy of being considered art. Thus, in this chapter we intend to present an overview of Afro-Brazilian press and also how it shapes its stories in the contemporary web-focused scenario, via an analysis of the website Alma Preta, which promotes the voices and standpoint of Afro-Brazilians. We will focus on their coverage of the imprisonment of DJ Rennan da Penha, a Brazilian Funk musician who was charged with drug traffic and convicted by Brazilian Justice, even though there was strong evidence that he was not guilty.

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A Short Overview of Afro-Brazilian Press The history of the black press in Brazil is almost as long as the Brazilian press. According to Pinto (2006), the first newspaper about black issues, O Homem de Côr, was created in 1833—only 25 years after the first newspaper printed in Brazil in 1808. On its first issues, the newspaper reproduced a part of the Brazilian constitution that affirmed that every citizen of Brazil could postulate for a position in public offices, with a bill that proposed that these posts were put under a color hierarchy, which would put white people in priority (Pinto, 2006). However, even before any kind of press was allowed to exist in the country,1 black people were already using means similar to the press to express their dissatisfaction to the condition of black people, which was then under slavery. We may cite as an example the Buzios Revolt, which happened in 1789, in which newsletters were spread around the city of Salvador with their demands (Pinto, 2006). Most of the black press newspapers of the nineteenth century did not had funds and were thus short lived, a situation that would be recurrent even throughout the twentieth century. Those newspapers mainly discussed the abolition of slavery, and after 1889, when the Abolition Letter was signed, they discussed about the situation and issues of the now free black population (Araújo, 2019; Pinto, 2006). The black press in the twentieth century has kept the task of denouncing the subaltern position of the black person in the white society. Helped by the associations of black people that started to surge at the time, part of the black press started nurturing the idea that a black person needed to adjust itself to fit in the white world and to escape poverty. The preoccupation with education is a constant. The black person must educate itself to “get a better life”, demonstrate that he can also get to the same level that the whites through educational improvement. For this, they must quit addictions like alcoholism, bohemia, they must refrain from making mess at balls, they must be model citizens. In almost every newspaper, there is a preoccupation with a puritan ethic who was presumably able to save the black person from marginalization. That is why a lot of these outlets condemn the excess in black parties that were considered by white people to 1  Which was prior to 1808, when the Portuguese Royal Court fled Portugal in order to escape an invasion by the French Army, since it refused to sever its political and economic ties with the United Kingdom.

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be the center of corruption and disorder. The newspapers’ purpose  is to point out, through moral rules, the behavior that every member of the black community must follow. (Moura, 2019, pp. 242–243)

In his study about the black press in the state of São Paulo, Clóvis Moura (2019) argues that being in this marginalized position for so long made part of this press to put so much pressure in this politics of respectability, the urge to finally get out of poverty, to free themselves from police brutality, to be able to live life like a normal person did. This urge of the elevation of race also led to a kind of vision of purity, of a race that could reach its peak. Moura also points that the focus on race issues would lead to an apolitical black press, mainly in its first two periods.2 But in the third period, which began when a political change was also happening in Brazil—the country was leaving a dictatorial regime led by Getúlio Vargas—things started to change. With more political freedom, newspapers became able to discuss class issues more openly and to support black candidates running for office (Moura, 2019). However, a permanent issue in the black press was the lack of money for the newspapers (Moura, 2019; Sodré, 2015). Moura states that the black press was not created solely by a black middle class, and he doubts that a structured enough black middle class even existed; it was thus also made by the poor black people, which would also explain the financial struggles of the newspapers: As we can see, black press newspapers emerged based on information, news, gossip, and highlights of the social life of the black community. As the time passed by, however, it takes connotation of racial and social claims. This happened as a consequence of the sharpening of class struggle and the exclusion of black people from more well-paid positions and the most socially profitable space in the structure of the dependent capitalist system that formed after abolition. (Moura, 2019, p. 255)

According to Sodré (2015), the black press was mainly established in São Paulo and was fundamental for the awareness of the place black people occupied in society, even though it did not directly promoted any strong 2  Moura, following the division proposed by Roger Bastide and Miriam Nicolau in their studies about the black press in São Paulo, separates the black press in first period: 1915–1923; second period: 1924–1937; third period: 1945–1963.

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social change. The author disagrees with Moura regarding the apolitical views of the black press: The black press of the past was also political, although not necessarily partisan: it was a matter of expressing the social upliftment or integrationist wishes of a social group stigmatized by color and by the slave origin. It was a press, therefore, impelled by the antiracist fight, even if its strategies not always were ruled by very clear positions or ideologically progressive. (Sodré, 2015, p. 281)

Moura’s analysis ends in 1963, a year before the military coup that would put Brazil under a dictatorial regime until 1985 and that made social movements, like the black movement, illegal and censoring the press, therefore, making impossible for a black press to exist. Sodré notes that from 1980 on—when the regime was ending—the black press starts to reappear, no longer preoccupied with the politics of respectability and making integrationist demands, but more firmly denouncing racism and the myth of an assumed racial democracy (Schwarcz, 2012, 1993). Sodré also states that new studies about the black population consumption in the 1990s propelled the emergence of a new type of black press, one that was focused on publicizing products that would improve the self-­ esteem of black population, which equalized consumption to happiness, and much of its content revolved around looks. “But in the contemporary black media (Raça Brasil, Black People) the preoccupation with hair is almost obsessive, due to its recurrence in ads and articles” (Sodré, 2015, p. 288). However, despite these more mainstream attempts, the black press in the twenty-first century continued to be constructed in a counterhegemonic manner. Valmir Araújo connects the specificities of the black press with the alternative and popular press, “once that it has as one of its objectives the attempt to offer space and protagonism to black issues and black actors, that in the Brazilian reality were always in a subaltern position in the traditional media” (Araújo, 2017). With the reduced costs to produce content, Internet has become a way for black media to dodge the lack of resources imposed into it. With the end of the geographic barriers imposed by the need for distributing print newspapers, the black press is now able to transmit and gather more public around its subjects.

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Unfortunately, there are very few studies on the current state of the Brazilian ethnic press. But in a 2020 mapping of the black/ethnic media in Brazil, made by the Permanent Forum on Racial Equality (Fórum Permanente de Igualdade Racial), were found 65 outlets (news portals, NGOs, YouTube channels, social media profiles, etc.) that identified with the perspectives of the black/ethnic media. Of the total, 44.4% of them (approximately 29) are journalistic.3 All of those websites—just like all of Afro-Brazilian Press—are published in Portuguese, since none of the languages of the original black African ethnicities remain in use in Brazil (Prandi, 2000) and their public range from late teenagers to middle-aged black Brazilians. The same mapping shows that the majority of these media (61.2%) work with one to five members only and are mostly made by young people between 18 and 29 years (39.7%). Financing comes from publicity, public biddings, own financing and monthly subscription via crowdfunding. Araújo, moving away from the analysis of the attempt of a more mainstream black press, sees that the Internet has helped the black media amplify its voice on denouncing racism in society: It is possible to highlight that the existence of the black press in the digital medium has contributed incisively for the propagation of a counter hegemonic discourse about racial issues, once it is aligned with black movement organizations (…) These channels perform the difficult task of denouncing the existence of racism in a society dominated by the belief of a racial democracy, with the actions of a press that ignores, minimizes or stereotypes, by sensationalism, the issues related to the black people. (Araújo, 2017, 2019)

According to Pinheiro (2019), this online ethnic media is focused not on insertion in a racist society, but in actual political changes and reduction on inequality, what would be a step forward in comparison to part of the past black press that called for an inclusion in the white society through respectability politics. Pinheiro (2019) also notes that even though the Internet enables a decentralization in the production of the ethnic media and the emergence of new formats and distribution channels, financing is still a constant struggle of the black press. 3  FÓRUM PERMANENTE PELA IGUALDADE SOCIAL. Mapeamento da Mídia Negra no Brasil. [s.l.], 2020.

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Alma Preta and the Coverage of the Arrest of DJ Rennan da Penha The online media outlet we will briefly analyze as an example of contemporary Black/Afro-Brazilian Journalism is Alma Preta, a website created in 2015 by Journalism undergraduate students at the São Paulo State University (UNESP)4 and which now defines itself as a news agency focused on “meeting the wishes and aspirations of the Afro-Brazilian community”. It is funded mostly by readers’ subscription through a permanent crowdfunding campaign on the Catarse platform. Its crowdfunding campaign allows contributions between 10 and 1000 Brazilian reais. Currently, the agency has 397 supporters, gathering about 11.0000 reais monthly (approximately 2.025 dollars),5 which is far from the 307.000 (68.114 dollars) reais that The Intercept Brasil is making monthly, but close to what other smaller alternative media outlets are making. As this would be one of the best metrics for indicating its success Alma Preta is thus: Alma Preta also creates content for social media such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as well as the podcast Papo Preto [Black Talk], which is available at Spotify. Thus, while we will focus here on its most traditional platform—the website—, it is clear that the news agency employs a multitude of genres and resources in order to promote Afro-Brazilian culture and to present news under the standpoint of black people.

Even the four sections of the website aim to fulfill this purpose through different perspectives: “Realidade” focuses on issues of racism in politics, economy, culture and sport; “Da Ponte Pra Cá” focuses on events in favelas, and mostly on the positive aspects of life in poor neighborhoods; “Mama África” focuses on international coverage, specializing in events throughout the African continent, and “O Quilombo” publishes short essays by the staff and also collaborators from institutions with which Alma Preta has a partnership, such as Coalizão Negra por Direitos [Black Peoples’ Coalition for Rights] and Nós, Mulheres da Periferia [We, Women from the Slums]. For our analysis, we have selected 3 of the 13 stories regarding the arrest of DJ Rennan da Penha, a Brazilian Funk musician from Complexo  Retrieved from https://almapreta.com/institucional/sobre  https://www.catarse.me/financie_alma_preta

4 5

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da Penha, a favela in Rio de Janeiro. He is one the creators of 150 bpm Funk, a subgenre of Brazilian Funk with more intense beats, and the Baile da Gaiola, one of the biggest funk parties of the city. In 2016 he was accused of traffic association but was acquitted by lack of proofs in first instance. But in March 2019 the Rio de Janeiro Public Ministry appealed and the DJ was condemned to six years and eight months of prison in second instance. In November 2019 he was freed from prison after the Supreme Court changed its interpretation of second instance imprisonment. We have chosen Rennan’s case for analysis due to the very prominent impact it had in the representation of funk in the media. He composed one of the most popular tracks of that year, which had then been sampled by artists like Anitta/Anira. As Rennan was being prosecuted, fellow artist Kevin o Chris, who partnered with Rennan, was on social media asking for a more just process as well as featuring partnerships with international artists, such as Drake and Post Malone. The 150 bpm funk subgenre, mostly popularized by Rennan and others, like DJ Polyvox, while extremely popular, was the new iteration of funk culture in mainstream spotlight. It also represented an opportunity to discuss how, yet again, the music related to the people making it. The story titled Rennan da Penha suffers prejudice for representing black culture, according to lawyers (Freire, Mar 25 2019a) focuses mostly on the voices of the lawyers responsible for defending the musician. It also embeds a Twitter post by a funk fan calling for the support of popular funk artists, like Anitta, Ludmilla—who called Rennan for a musical partnership in December 2018—MC Pocahontas and Lexa. Including a post in an informal social network such as Twitter is not exactly new, but echoing the voice of the vocal unknown illustrates the frequent validation of non-primary definers, that is, the voices of average people are as relevant as the voices of lawyers, of jurists. The accusation that the musician is a watcher for the traffic is referenced in a citation present in the text that claims that “such an accusation is of such preposterousness that it borders on innocence, since that job requires discretion. Rennan’s concerts attract more than 25,000 people, and it is absolutely impossible for him to go unrecognized anywhere he goes” (Freire, Mar 25 2019a). She quotes someone who argues that it would make no sense to have a watcher who is also being watched the whole time. The story also starts off by describing the dichotomy in representation of the musician, who is seen as a “DJ of the thugs” by some and a “revolutionary” by

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others (Freire, Mar 25 2019a). While obviously an exaggeration, it serves to simplify the “two sides” of this dialectic and create a consubstantiality: Rennan can represent, under a hegemonic perspective, the worst about favela culture; or he can represent transgression within that struggle. By echoing the voices of those that consider the arrest preposterous, Freire rhetorically opts for an identification with those that have values aligned with the idea that favela culture should not be criminalized. The second story, also written by Simone Freire, is DJ Rennan da Penha: arrest and the erasing of the young, black and poor population (Freire, June 19 2019b), published two months after the arrest. It begins by presenting the damaging of the economy of Complexo da Penha in the wake of DJ Rennan’s arrest, since Baile de Gaiola, the 20,000-people party he organized in the neighborhood, was halted. The piece presents only two sources: activist Raul Santiago and Lorenna Vieira, Rennan’s girlfriend. Santiago presents an ironic and stark contrast: a “silencing” in the media and social institutions regarding Rennan’s arrest—under the risk of him falling into oblivion and be left to rot in jail, while his musical creations were still being played throughout the country. Vieira denounces the arrest as exemplary of the criminalization of black peoples and black cultures in Brazil. There is an appeal to join the “Deixa eu dançar” [Let me dance] movement, a petition for the release of Rennan da Penha—while it is voiced by Santiago, it is also reinforced by the reporter, who includes instructions on how to participate, which hashtags should be used and which Twitter should be mentioned. Finally, the story titled ‘One of his dreams is to live abroad’ tells Rennan da Penha’s partner (Simões, Oct 18 2019) tries to humanize the musician through a short interview with Lorenna Vieira. The piece portrays what Rennan was like on everyday life. The headline does not show Lorenna’s name, characterizing her only as his significant other. Her name appears only in the subtitle. The text starts telling how Lorenna was dealing with Rennan’s incarceration, “even in this sad and revolting situation that we are living, he gives me a lot of strength. I am happy for having him in my life and when we get to see each other we can forget everything, at least a little”. Then it discusses how they met and what was he like on a daily basis. “In our everyday routine we were always together. Rennan liked waking up early and going to buy bread, after we cleaned the house and did our laundries. He is also a person who enjoys cooking and makes the lunch

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every day”. The first section of the text wraps up by telling how Rennan acquired fame through his funk parties in Complexo da Penha, the dreams he has achieved and the ones he stills wants to achieve. With the success of his career, Rennan started having opportunities to accomplish his dreams like traveling abroad with his girlfriend. The artist’s goals were interrupted by his conviction of traffic association. The second section of the piece is a three-paragraph explanation on how Rennan was arrested, what was his accusation and a statement of the DJ’s defenders arguing that the conviction was based on prejudice because he represents the black marginalized culture. By characterizing him as a person that do mundane things like cleaning the house, doing laundries, cooking and using some kind of respectability politics, the article tries to distance Rennan from the image of a criminal or someone who could be associated with traffic groups.

Racism and Counterhegemony in the Rhetorics of Journalism To communicate and reproduce racism is not just an individual act of intolerance, but often a mere unconscious act in a system based on racist consubstantiality. Insofar as to understand that “racism is wrong” or “racism is negative”, the hegemony of such stigmatization tends to consubstantialize the idea that the only possible method of racism is the conscious, violent, physical one. In cultural terms, the artistic canon is poised to reflect the methods, techniques and expressions of white standpoints. The more abstract realizations of racism are rooted in other aspects that cannot be as easily turned into digestible discourse: “such critics usually operate according to the elitist definition of ‘fine Arts’ which scope embraces, singularly and exclusively, expressions that the white West consider as art” (Nascimento, 2018, p. 143). That is not to say that the black individual cannot be integrated into hegemonic artistic canon, but that the black culture as a collective is silenced by parameters defined by white culture. If we disregard for a moment the idea that art has a linear history and consider that it has variability, we may find that reflections of transgressive black culture can indeed be integrated into artistic canons, although usually not without struggle. And transgression in itself is very closely designated as inside the domains of brutality, of sexuality and of bestiality.

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Regarding Brazilian funk,6 it is not only the music that becomes target for this kind of interpretation: the lyrical themes, the dances and the entire locations around the parties are often portrayed as libertine orgies dedicated to criminal factions. That is, of course, when these parties are organized inside favelas. Brazilian funk, when played in middle-class parties, is a mask of black culture for the lumpenbourgeoisie of affluent cities. Unlike samba, however, Brazilian funk is still in the process of being domesticated. The most avant-garde iterations of the genre are still finding their way into the niches that are contemplated by the sociocultural standpoint that inspires most of the music, however. But the construction of funk, as human expression of their surroundings, struggles to find solace in mainstream media. One TV channel, TV Record, which also happens to be owned by a conservative religious leader, has programs like Cidade Alerta that often paint the funk culture under a negative light. That is not to say that more popular, less transgressive funk artists, like Anitta, are not glamourized by some of the programs. In MC Rennan da Penha’s case, coverage had been leaning to the side of the police: usually by reinforcing the public notion that his condemnation is to be supported by other transgressive behaviors, like being photographed around people with guns (2019). More often than not, speech genres or movements are associated with their most transgressive examples. A black musician that follows the fashion language of Brazilian funk will be the cultural reproduction and icon of the most violent lyrics in that genre. The individual, singular black body is but a flesh enunciation of a genre that challenges a taboo. It should be noted, however, that the racist roots that feed the social power dynamics should not be attributed to a mere taboo as in the religious sense, but the 6  Brazilian funk music can be somewhat complex to understand as a cultural phenomenon, mostly because some of its properties as a genre have been replaced to become more digestible in international circuits. If we take the very popular singer Anitta/Anira, we see many constructive elements of the funk culture speech: the sexual tones (in lyrics and in dancing), the mention of favelas, the focus on improving one’s life. What matters is that funk music is more than what is digestible. It can be heard meshing with other musical genres from Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo. According to historian Hermano Vianna, “the consumption of funk cannot be considered, in any way, an imposition by the mass media” (Vianna, 1990, p. 246). He also draws some parallels between the North American funk and the Brazilian one: mainly, while they are fairly close in terms of aesthetic proximity to hip-hop culture (or black culture), some of the branches of hip-hop culture were already being assimilated by the lumpenbourgeoisie. Not only that, but it can be seen as reaffirmations of favela culture (Lopes & Facina, 2012).

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imagetic notion of taboo can help us understand the role of transgressive black culture and its combative dialogue with hegemonic discourse. The religious aspect is paramount to comprehending the master-slave relationship (Hegel, 1977) of lumpenbourgeoisie and its dialectical conflict with favela culture: the beauty of “high culture”, that of “sexual purity” and that of a “crimeless lifestyle” are seen as sacred. “The taboo is there in order to be violated” (Bataille, 1986, p. 64). There can be no identity to the master if there is no servant. The hegemonic culture exists only to oppress, to mimic, to compare. And as such, the parallel of impotence drives, again and often, the representation of black people as naturally more sexual. As a discourse, a black body means danger, erotism, transgression. And that in an interpretative level, portrayed by structural racism and its branches. If we are still talking about symbols and interpretations, we can look at one icon of sanctity in white culture, which is the white woman: dangerously close to sin as a representation of Lilith figure but still walking among the dichotomy that makes her an Eve. In this hegemonic discourse, the white sanctity, white beauty, is to be desired by the common black man. “By loving me she proves I am worthy of white love. I am loved like a white man” (Fanon, 1986, p. 63)— it should be noted, however, that this salvation comes from the notion of the black man and subservient and in need of salvation. And if we consider the association of the black man to a predatory image, this relation becomes even more complex: “The myth of the Black rapist continues to carry out the insidious work of racist ideology” (Davis, 1981, p. 199), and while this critique is iconic to the United States’ racial climate, we can follow this line of thinking through a different history with a similar result in Brazil: the myth of the black rapist is ingrained throughout Brazilian culture, and the representation of funk as servient in relation to hegemonic culture is just one branch of the white impotence (and black culture as transgression) as racist discourse. The transgressions of black culture as dominated culture are transgressive because they exist in relation to white culture (Fanon, 1986). And by understanding white culture as the hegemonic sanctity that relies on exploring black culture for cultural labor, we can find a different perspective: it is not just about how white hegemonic culture diminishes black culture, but about how it needs to diminish it, turn it into taboo, only to keep its relevance as white culture. Through the understanding of rhetorics in journalism, if we go by Burke (1969), it is not that they are trying to convince everyone of a

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singular argument, like a communicational silver bullet. Instead, we see a consubstantialization that narrates a normal society that does not need to change. It creates a common identification between all actors of our society. An identification that shares the conscious idea of racial equality, of meritocracy, followed by the unconscious dismissal of racist structures or oppressive cultures. And more importantly, that transgression of that normality is uncivilized, barbaric, and worst of all, justifiably punishable by death. However, the role of ethnic news media made possible by oppressed communities, such as the black peoples in Brazil, is to counterpoint that notion of normality and reaffirm their own senses of normal, of morality, of life—an empowerment attitude which may be seen in stark contrast with the black press of the early twentieth century, which aimed at the “taming” of the black peoples and their conformation to the white hegemonic standards and the white hegemonic expectations from them: for example, funk music as a regular venue for business and fun, the funk musician as a dreamer. The journalism crafted by Alma Negra not only presents such a standpoint but also defies conventions which lie in the very heart of standardized journalism. While the mainstream white media—most usually perceived as the normal media, even the single true media—uses primary definers such as police officers, politicians and CEOs in order to establish what reality is, which events actually took place and how (Hall et  al., 1978), contemporary black press in Brazil erases such hierarchy and presents all information sources as equals in their authority for interpreting reality—often even prioritizing sources which would be perceived as minor by the mainstream press.

Conclusion Earlier in this chapter, we have presented an overview of the black press in Brazil and how it had an integrationist agenda during the first decades after slavery was abolished in Brazil, focusing on encouraging the adoption ways of life that would be perceived as “respectable” by the white society. As we have discussed, this stance has changed since the 1980s, and the focus of Afro-Brazilian Journalism has shifted for a come to terms with African ancestry in all its cultural, aesthetic and, more recently, political and ideological aspects. As concepts such as structural racism were developed and online alternative media grew in numbers and visibility, websites

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such as Alma Preta thrive in presenting perspectives that are able to empower Afro-Brazilian readers, especially in regard to a black culture that is still downplayed and subjugated by a hegemonic white culture. The humanization of black people and black culture and the denunciation of their systematic persecution by the Brazilian state seem to not only dismiss any remnants of that early integrationist policy, but also to actually oppose it by affirming the urgency of acknowledging Brazilian black culture’s and people’s dignity and meaningfulness on their own terms.

References Araújo, V. (2017). Imprensa Negra Brasileira na Internet. Paper Presented at the 40o Congresso Brasileiro de Ciências da Comunicação. Araújo, V. (2019). O papel da Imprensa Negra Brasileira. Alterjor, 2(20), 212–228. Barros, L. E. R. (2019). O vídeo no jornalismo convergente e móvel: um estudo de mídias independentes brasileiras. Master’s Thesis in Social Communication. Universidade Metodista de São Paulo. Bataille, G. (1986). Erotism: Death and Sensuality. City Lights Books. Burke, K. (1969). A Rhetoric of Motives. University of California Press. Cidade Alerta, R. J. (2019). Imagens mostram DJ Rennan da Penha com suspeitos armados no Rio. R7. https://recordtv.r7.com/cidade-­alerta-­rj/videos/ imagens-­m ostram-­d j-­r ennan-­d a-­p enha-­c om-­s uspeitos-­a rmados-­n o-­ rio-­18022020 Davis, A. (1981). Women, Race and Class. Random House. Escudero, C. (2015). Imprensa de comunidades imigrantes de São Paulo e identidade: estudo dos jornais ibéricos Mundo Lusíada e Alborada. In C. M. K. Peruzzo & M. A. C. Otre (Eds.), Comunicação Popular, Comunitária e Alternativa no Brasil: Sinais de resistência e de construção da cidadania (pp. 367–389). Editora Metodista. Escudero, C., & Elhajji, M. (2019). The Polish in Brazil and their Community Media: the Ways of Enunciation of Diasporic Identity. In E.  Sarmiento & R.  Siuda-Ambroziak (Eds.), Brazil-Poland. Focus on Migration (pp. 197–213). ASC-UW. Fanon, F. (1986). Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press. FÓRUM PERMANENTE PELA IGUALDADE SOCIAL. (2020). Mapeamento da Mídia Negra no Brasil. [s.l.]. Freire, S. (2019a, March 25). Rennan da Penha sofre preconceito por representar a cultura negra, dizem advogados. https://almapreta.com/editorias/realidade/ rennan-­d a-­p enha-­s ofre-­p reconceito-­p or-­r epresentar-­a -­c ultura-­n egra-­ dizem-­advogados

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Freire, S. (2019b, June 19). DJ Rennan da Penha: prisão e o apagamento da população jovem, negra e favelada. https://almapreta.com/editorias/realidade/ dj-­r ennan-­d a-­p enha-­p risao-­e -­o -­a pagamento-­d a-­p opulacao-­j ovem-­ negra-­e-­favelada Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J., & Roberts, B. (1978). Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law And Order. Macmillan. Hegel, G. W. F. (1977). Phenomenology of Spirit. Clarendon Press. Lopes, A. C., & Facina, A. (2012). Cidade do funk: expressões da diáspora negra nas favelas cariocas. Revista do Arquivo Geral da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, 6. Moura, C. (2019). Sociologia do negro brasileiro. Perspectiva. Munanga, K. (2019). Rediscutindo a mestiçagem no Brasil: Identidade nacional versus identidade negra. Autêntica Editora. Nascimento, A. (2018). O genocído do negro brasileiro: processo de um racismo mascarado. Perspectiva. Pinheiro, J. d. J. (2019). Alma preta e afirmativa: experiências contemporâneas de mídias negras na luta contra o racismo. Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia. Pinto, A. F. M. (2006). De pele escura e tinta preta: A imprensa negra do século XIX (1833–1889). Universidade de Brasilia. Prandi, R. (2000). De africano a afro-brasileiro: etnia, identidade, religião. Revista USP, 46, 52–65. Schwarcz, L.  M. (1993). O espetáculo das raças : cientistas, instituições e questão racial no Brasil, 1870–1930. Companhia das Letras. Schwarcz, L. M. (2012). Nem preto nem branco, muito pelo contrário: cor e raça na sociabilidade brasileira. Claro Enigma. Simões, N. (2019, October 18). ‘Um dos sonhos dele é morar fora do país’, conta companheira de Rennan da Penha. https://almapreta.com/editorias/realidade/um-­d os-­s onhos-­d ele-­e -­m orar-­f ora-­d o-­p ais-­c onta-­c ompanheira­de-­rennan-­da-­penha Sodré, M. (2015). Claros e escuros: identidade, povo, mídia e cotas no Brasil. Vozes. Vianna, H. (1990). Funk e cultura popular carioca. Revista Estudos Históricos, 3(6), 244–253.

CHAPTER 14

Understanding Ethnic Journalism in an Extinguishing Print News Media Landscape: Japanese-Language Newspapers in Brazil Jessica Retis A De-Westernized Perspective to Analyze Ethnic Journalism in the Global South This chapter presents preliminary findings of a larger ongoing research project on Asian Latinos and the media in the transpacific area and is part of a decade-long scholarship that seeks to analyze diverse and heterogeneous Latinx communities’ mediascapes in “global cities” (Sassen, 2009, 2012), located both in the Global North and in the Global South. There is no extensive literature on international migrations and the media connecting Latin American and Asian regions; thus, with the objective of advancing the studies about less explored migration and mobility patterns, this larger project seeks to examine the rise and evolution of Asian Latinidad through translocal cultural circuits in the urban settings of global metropolises (Retis, 2017, 2019a, 2019b). It seeks to examine

J. Retis (*) School of Journalism, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_14

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diasporic transnationalism formations and the role of news media by incorporating a larger historical perspective and multi-sited fieldwork in the scope of the analysis. Drawing on critical studies, this perspective interrogates the ways in which ethnic journalism face an agonistic landscape in the digital age (Budarick, 2019) and examines why ethnic media tend to lack the technological know-how and the human financial resources necessary to create and maintain online content (Matsaganis et al., 2010; You & Matasagnis, 2019); furthermore, it seeks to advance the debate on whether ethnic media are a part of or isolated from the broader public sphere (Bailey & Harindranath, 2006; Browne, 2005; You & Matasagnis, 2019). From a political economy perspective, it looks at the pressure for providing higher profits in times of convergence and digitization (Wasko, 2005; Hallin & Mancini, 2004), the fragmentation of audience, including ethnic media (Sinclair, 2009), and how these trends are affecting bilingual print media. It also examines the role of ethnic media in the lives of their audiences in an increasingly globalized world, and how generation shifts among immigrants and ethnic populations might influence current ethnic “news desertification” (Abernathy, 2018; Miller, 2018), particularly related to language and technological barriers. International migrations across the transpacific have been occurring for more than a century; however, their studies are yet considered as a relatively recent field as most of the leading literature has concentrated the attention on the Global North (Retis, 2019b). The analysis of migrations and news media in the Global South demands de-westernizing media and communication studies (Waisbord & Mellado, 2014). It also requires implementing comparative analysis, emerging methodologies and new conceptual directions, which push the work beyond particular regions or languages. Significant work has addressed noteworthy nodes of global and transregional networks, even though they are often perceived as unusual combination of sites for comparative research (Lesser et al., 2017). Such work has the potential to trouble naturalized divisions of East/West as well as those of North/South. It harbors the possibility of redrawing global maps and of breaking open wonted intercultural connections and trajectories (Bachner & Erber, 2017). This thrust can help us rewire how we imagine global connectivity by incorporating studies on less conventional and less explored migration and mobility patterns, such as the real and imagined space and place between Asia and Latin America. Moreover, as return migrations have been

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receiving more academic attention (Achenbach, 2016), results of comparative studies have addressed the importance of problematizing the equation between country of birth/origin and home, and also relativized the stages of migrations. The simultaneity of migrants’ lives, their ongoing ties with the receiving society, and the country of origin does not end as a result of the return process, and contextual factors are crucial in the understanding of all these stages (Levitt & Glick Schiller, 2004; Zana & King, 2017). The multi-sited fieldwork in Japan and Brazil, in which this chapter is based on, seeks to further the analysis of complex dynamics in transnational diasporic contexts and advancing pioneer studies that have explored socioeconomic and political frameworks of Japanese-Brazilians (Sasaki, 1995; Koyama, 1998; Tsuda, 2004; Roth, 2002; Linger, 2001), political construct of Latino Nikkeijins (Latin Americans of Japanese descent) (Yamanaka, 1996; Ishi, 2003; Carvalho, 2003) and the role of mainstream and ethnic media in this scheme (Sakuma, 2011; Tsuda, 2004; Komaki, 2013; Forero-Montoya, 2012). Exploring the cultural logic of the Latino Nikkeijin collective constructions poses significant challenges. This research project seeks to understand not only diasporic formations, but how immigration and media intertwine in transnational contexts. In studies about key moments in the migrant experience, arrivals and departures are often perceived as new beginnings or endings; however, they are also interlaced from a conceptual, political, and material standpoint. As Hegde annotates, the regulation of migration and mobility, systems of representation, and the cultural production of diasporic communities are shaped within the overlapping space of transnational geographies and shifting media ecologies. Bringing media and migration into the same frame forces a rethinking of systems of exclusion and inclusion: “migrations troubles assumptions that sustain singular conceptualization of community, identity, and linear notions of communication. Mapping the perspectives of those who live transnationally throws light on the contradictions and tensions that characterize mobile locations” (Hegde, 2016, p. 106). Based on mixed qualitative research methods conducted in Japan and Brazil, this research project explores how Asian Latinos engage with a wide range of cultural and creative industries interrelated to cultural, artistic, or heritage-related nature, such as performing arts (live music, dance, theater), music and entertainment (recording and publishing), visual arts (museums, photography, design activities), publishing (books, textbooks, reports), and news media (newspapers, radio, TV, online, digital, social

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media) (Retis, 2019a). This chapter centers the attention on analyzing how Japanese-language news media produced in São Paulo became the voice and main reference for first-generation immigrants. It also explores the challenges ethnic journalism faces in trying to adapt to demographic and technological transformations, particularly demanding in the digital era. Furthermore, it examines the challenges faced by ethnic journalism in an extinguishing print news media landscape, how this is leading to “news deserts” (Abernathy, 2018; Miller, 2018) for Japanese-speaking communities, and how it could affect civic engagement in transnational contexts.

Ethnic Journalism and the Japanese Diaspora in Brazil Throughout these last decades, multiple studies have analyzed how the establishment of ethnic media in diasporic transnational formations helps migrant communities construct, revisit, and/or redefine collective hybrid identities here, there, and in between (Retis & Tsagarousianou, 2019). Research has also demonstrated how during the first stages of settlement, immigrants organize collectively among ethnic neighborhoods, establish migrant associations and ethnic businesses to access a selection of commodities that cash in on migrant nostalgia and longing from the homeland (Hegde, 2016; Matsaganis et al., 2010; Karim, 1998; Riggins, 1992), and how in their availability and presence in everyday life, ethnic media become mechanisms for the emergence of imagined communities (Anderson, 1983; Georgiou, 2006; Shumow, 2010; Retis, 2019c). In seeking to analyze the diverse cycles of launching, closing, and relaunching of Japaneselanguage and bilingual news media in São Paulo and their role in the communities they serve, I propose to incorporate a larger historical periodization and an extended geographical scope; furthermore, variables such as language, age, migratory projects, as well as digital media literacy and access to new technologies, particularly significative in the last decade (Retis, 2019a). An agreement signed by the Japanese and Brazilian governments in 1907 permitted Japanese migration to Brazil. The end of feudalism in Japan thrusted international migration flows, whereas in Brazil, the expansion of agricultural industries, the abolishment of slavery, and later on the lessening of immigrant workers arriving from Europe provoked shortage on plantations. These concomitant contexts coincide in time and resulted

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in new population movements from Asia to South America. Until the end of the 1930s around 164,000 Japanese landed in Brazil, with the majority of them settling in São Paulo. Since the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants to Brazil in 1908, the formation of Nipo-Brasileiros (Japanese-­ Brazilians) has elapsed through several historical phases (Raisa, 2016). These phases have influenced Japanese-language journalism production, distribution, and consumption in Brazil, and more specifically in São Paulo. By the early years of the twentieth century, during the period of setting roots and upon their arrival, first-generation Japanese immigrants (iseis) established immigrant associations (Nihonjinkai), Japanese schools (Nihongakko), and a growing infrastructure for the production and distribution of Japanese publications—newspapers, magazines, and books— along their ethnic neighborhoods’ cultural circuits. Between the 1910s and 1930s, most Japanese children born in Brazil—second generation (niseis)—attended schools founded by Nihonjinkai. In this context, Japanese schools and Japanese-language news media played a central role in the maintenance of homeland language and culture. During those years, most immigrants embraced the idea of Brazil as a temporary home and idealized the hope to return to Japan as soon as new conditions allowed the journey back to Asia. The growth of Japanese ethnic journalism was led by the increasing presence of Japanese communities in the city. They became part of the Brazilian mediascape but providing bilingual information with a Japanese-­ Brazilian agenda. The first Japanese-language news outlet in Brazil, named Nambei (South America), was founded in 1916. It was a weekly publication devoted to informing about Japan and world news, but also about activities organized by Japanese immigrants in Brazil (Koshiyama, 2004). That same year, the weekly Nippak Shimbun was created with the main objective of distributing news related to Japanese immigrants, their process of settlement, and the exploration of new immigration enclaves in Brazil. By 1917, the official journal of Iju Kumiai (Emigration Association) was launched with the name of Burajiru Jiho (News from Brazil) (Carvalho, 2003). It was the first one to establish a news press and hire qualified workers. It became the largest publication, with 4000 copies regularly distributed in the community. The Japanese-Brazilian news ecosystem in the Global South comprised hyperlocal ethnic media outlets that enabled their readers to be in two places at once and provided important dimension in the processes of making sense of the encounters during the consumption of their contents

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(Tsagarousianou & Retis, 2019). The 1920s were particularly prolific, with the launching of several Japanese-language news media outlets: Seishu-Shinpo, Nambei Hyoron, Nambei-Shinpo, and Nihon-Shimbun, among others. In this context, as most scholars agree, three main newspapers became strong due to their distribution and consumption among the community: Nippak Shimbun, Burajiru Jiho, and Seishu-Shinpo (Koshiyama, 2004). During those years, Brazilian-based Japanese-­ language newspapers were widely read, mainly by Japanese native speakers, iseis. As Carvalho (2003) argues, these first newspapers were ideologically very different and editorial arguments were frequent. Most of their content tended to reflect the owners’ perspective and not necessarily followed objectivity in their news stories. In 1933, there were 5 newspapers and 15 magazines. In the 1940s the presence of the strongest publications were consolidated. In the state of São Paulo, the four major newspapers circulated more than 50,000 copies. Japanese-language print publications were fulfilling the needs of information and self-­representation of communities that were establishing important enclaves in Brazil, especially in the city of São Paulo. During those years, as most immigrants could not understand Portuguese, these publications became the main vehicle of communication and access to information about Japan and the Japanese communities in Brazil. Fieldwork conducted during for the last decade in Latinx enclaves in global cities has helped demonstrate how immigrants tend to conceive the first stage of the international migration process as a temporary phase, keeping in their hopes for a possible return to homeland once secured enough social capital to restart a better life back home (Retis, 2006, 2017). Through interviews in São Paulo this study could demonstrate similar expectations within the Japanese migrant community, especially during the stage of settlement. In the early years of the last century, as immigrants were eager to return to Japan, consequently, they seemed to remain indifferent to improving their long-term life prospects in Brazil (Sasaki, 2013). Such an attitude was criticized by the educated members of the Japanese migrant community, especially editors of immigrant newspapers, leaders of immigration organizations, and Japanese diplomats: “During the 1920s and 1930s, immigrant newspapers took it as their primary duty to analyze the life of the Japanese in Brazil and to critique their behaviors. Usually featured on the front page, opinion editorials often sought to pinpoint the problem with the wider Japanese migrant community and even provided detailed guidelines on what constituted desirable

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attitudes and behaviors. In this sense, the newspapers were not mere disseminators of information but a means of moral guidance” (Sasaki, 2013, p. 24). During those years, Japanese-language newspapers such as Burajiru Jiho (Brazilian news) and Nippak Shimbun (Nippak journal) were intensely influential among the migrants. “Despite their diverse social origins and political orientations, the editors agreed that the migrants should abandon their “sojourner mentality” (dekasegi konjo) and instead uphold the “determination for permanent settlement” (eijuu ketsui)” (Sasaki, 2013, p. 24). During this first historical phase of the Japanese migratory process in Brazil, community members settled in Japanese ethnic enclaves where they launched and developed a series of cultural circuits in Japanese. Ethnic journalism became central for the communities as they covered their information and communication needs. The second historical phase, characterized by quotas act, nationalizing and isolation (Raisa, 2016), started in mid-1920s and lasted until the end of the Second World War. The exponential growth of Japanese cultural circuits was abruptly stopped during the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas. In this period, due to the effects of discrimination policies, Japanese schools and Japanese-language media were banned in Brazil. In 1937, teaching foreign languages was forbidden, and the following year a directive was issued restricting the rights of foreign language publications. At first, they were required to produce half of their contents in Portuguese, but later they were banned entirely (Carvalho, 2003). These new conditions limited access to Japanese-language academic instruction and cultural consumption. Japanese-language newspapers, along with other ethnic media outlets—German and Italian mainly—were prohibited. As a consequence, Japanese steadily became a language of communication mainly in private spaces, at home, in family reunions, or in Japanese associations’ activities. The third historical period, the years during the post-war phase and until the migratory wave ended in 1970, was marked by the arrival of new Japanese immigrants and the mass urbanization of Japanese-Brazilians (Raisa, 2016), which increased their visibility. During this period, most of them finally abandoned the dream of returning to Japan and embraced the idea of Brazil as a permanent home (Raisa, 2016; Sakuma, 2011; Carvalho, 2003). In this context, the remaining interest of the Japanese-Brazilian communities in seeking information about Japanese affairs in Japan, Brazil, and Latin America, commanded to new ethnic journalism projects. The forced ethnic news desertification during the dictatorship was

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followed by a new age where Japanese entrepreneurs started new ethnic media ventures. It is during this phase that ethnic news outlets went back into circulation and became prominent voices for the Japanese-Brazilian community, but having to face the gradual change of their audiences, with less people fluent in Japanese and a large proportion of Portuguese-only speakers in the Japanese communities, mainly second- or third-generation Japanese-Brazilians (nissei and sansei). By the end of the 1970s, a new phase in the migratory and mobility interconnections between Japan and Brazil established. During the late 1980s and 1990s, while Japan experienced the improvement of its economy and its openness to international commercial trade, particularly important in manufacturing and technological industries, Brazil faced economic, political, and social struggles. These concomitant contexts led to the dekasegi movement: many Japanese-Brazilians went to work to Japan. First-generation Japanese migrants in Brazil undertook return migrations, while second- and third-generation Japanese-Brazilians emigrated to work in Japan a century after their ancestors initiated international migrations to Latin America. This phase extended in time until nowadays, and its effects on ethnic journalism production, distribution, and consumption in São Paulo and Tokyo is the central object of analysis for the larger research project this chapter is based on (Retis, 2019a).

Birth and Death of Print Newspaper São Paulo Shimbun The history of Japanese ethnic journalism in Brazil is not a static photograph, but an evolving pendular drive of synergies that depend on historical phases influenced by socioeconomic, cultural, and political variables. After the post-war era, diasporic conditions were transformed not only by the decrease of Japanese-language proficiency but also by the gradual transformation of being Nipo-Brasileiro. How did these sociodemographic changes impact the production, distribution, and consumption of ethnic journalism in São Paulo? What challenges do ethnic media face as print news vanishes from the media landscape? These are the research questions that lead this contribution. As Sakuma (2011) explains, during the post-war era, the decision of embracing the idea of Brazil as a permanent home triggered a further shift in identity. Japanese immigrants were not dekasegi imin (temporary

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migrants) in Brazil anymore and started identifying themselves as Koronia-­ jin (people of the colonia—the colony) as well as Nikkeijin (people of Japanese origin), even though the Brazilian society at large continued to define them as Japonês (Japanese) or disparagingly Japa. Furthermore, the local variety of Japanese influenced by Portuguese started to be recognized as Koronia-go (language of the colonia). As occurred to Latinos in the US, due to discriminatory linguistic policies, younger generations became less likely to be fully bilingual, and these demographic changes affected ethnic news media consumption by younger generations of migrant descent. The decrease of Japanese-language proficiency after the years of dictatorship prevented the growth of bilingual readership. Consequently, ethnic Japanese newspapers started relying mostly on isseis as primary audience while trying to engage niseis, sanseis, and even yonsen (fourth-generation Japanese descent). When generational and language gaps triggered further development of Japanese-language publications, editors and reporters became proactively looking for attractive content in both their Japanese- and Portuguese-language sections. The reality is that bilingualism, and particularly language proficiency in Japanese, is indispensable to be able to read and comprehend a newspaper written in Japanese. There are three different sets of characters needed to learn the language. Hiragana and Katakana are the basics. The third one is composed by many thousands of kanji characters that are derivatives of Chinese language but keep the original traditional shape. It is estimated that one needs more than 3000 kanji characters to read a newspaper. And even with this amount of learned characters one won’t be able to read a 100% of the news due to irregularities with the written language. Most interviewees of this study addressed language proficiency as the main advantage or barrier when reading São Paulo Shimbun or Nikkey Shimbun, the two remaining print newspapers in the city of São Paulo. Older interviewees will deeply read the Japanese-language pages, while younger Japanese-Brazilians will be able to read only the Portuguese-language content. Moreover, bilingual journalists in Brazil needed not only to speak fluently, but to write in proper Japanese language. With the decrease of young professionals who could do it, the trend became to bring young Japanese trainees for two or three years to practice the so-called hasami press (scissors press) with news clipped from newspapers published in Japan (Carvalho, 2003). As a result, since the second half of the twentieth century until nowadays, bilingual ethnic journalism production, distribution, and consumption have been experiencing a multiple overlapping of

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language communities, news agendas, and news engagement. And while in the early years Japanese was prominent in the ethnic news media landscape, with the passage of the years Portuguese surpassed it in relevance as a language of news media interactions. During the afterwar years, and with the shift of embracing the idea of Brazil as a permanent home, Japanese communities rebooted their cultural activities, including for instance the launching of new publications. Moreover, the decree prohibiting Japanese newspapers was rescinded, even though the law requiring content to be published in Portuguese remained in force. As Carvalho (2003) annotated, this was not the result of governmental imposition, but the effect of the law never being revoked. Furthermore, as Tigner (1981) explained, the degree to which the closure regulations were enforced in 1942 varied with the geographical location, with a more rigid enforcement in the larger metropolitan centers like São Paulo. Fukasawa argues that due to the traumatic experience of being forced to shut down during the wartime, when government executives allowed to resume publications in 1946, they made it a complete taboo to criticize the Brazilian government as they thought that it would lead to termination of their business. Most Japanese papers were censored, so the management was summoned by the censor board for any suspicious act (Fukasawa, 2018). In sum, adding to the language aspect to the bilingual journalism production, political contexts would also become an influential variable in the editorial decisions and the reporting. The sentiment around Japan winning of losing the Second World War confronted both who believed and refused the reality, and the need for information became evident. In addition, the closure of Japanese schools during wartime produced a notable impact on the Japanese-language proficiency among the bilingual communities, particularly those who could read well. Still, a major number of Japanese immigrants were seeking information in their native language, particularly isseis. In this context, three new daily newspapers were launched between 1946 and 1948. These publications became competitors for readership and remained circulating in the community for almost fifty years. While the first edition of São Paulo Shimbun, in October 1946, had no reference to the end of the war, Journal Paulista (Paulista Newspaper) launched its first issue in January 1947 with the headline “90 per cent of Japanese do not believe in Japan’s defeat” in its intent to help Japanese immigrants accept that Japan was not home anymore and to encourage the idea of Brazil as a permanent residence. As Carvalho (2003) annotates,

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these examples help understand how these two newspapers were ideologically opposed, and traces of their early divergences remained for various years. The third Japanese-language newspaper during this period Diario Nippak was founded in January 1948, with the majority of its content devoted to sports and cultural events rather than political issues. The three newspapers became leaders in the community and competed until 1998, when Diario Nippak and Journal Paulista merged to launch Nikkey Shimbun (ニッケイ新聞, Nikkei Shinbun) (Nikkey’s Newspaper). São Paulo Shimbun (サンパウロ新聞 Sanpauro Shinbun) (São Paulo Newspaper) was launched in 1946 by businessman Mituto Mizumoto in the heart of the Japanese neighborhood in São Paulo, Liberdade (リベル ダージ), the name of a district in the subprefecture of Sé, considered for many years the world’s largest ethnic Japanese enclave outside Japan. The central location of the area, close to Avenida Paulista and the historical downtown, and the relatively low cost of rentals, made it attractive for Japanese immigrants since the early 1910s. By the mid-1940s there were temples, Japanese gardens, markets, commercial stores, and restaurants, where most Nipo-Brasileiros would find products and services linked to their homeland and nostalgia. Also in 1946 was inaugurated Sol Bookstore (Taiyodo), where Japanese-­language books were available for bilingual readers. The growing significance of Japanese culture in Liberdade prompted the launching of several cultural associations and sport activities organized by and for the Japanese community. The gradual growth of the community in the area prompted the creation of the Japanese Cultural Association of São Paulo (Bunkyô), opened in 1964. São Paulo Shimbun was reaching a total of 80,000 copies sold by the mid-1960s, making it the most important opinionated newspaper in the Japanese language of the Nikkei community around the world (IPC Digital, 2018). With the passage of the years, the need to document the history and cultural relevance of Japan in Brazil led to the creation of the Museu Histórico da Imigraçao Japonesa no Brasil (Historical Museum of Japanese Immigration to Brazil), on June 18, 1978, by the Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura Japonesa (Brazilian Society of Japanese Culture) in commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of the Japanese migration to Brazil. The inaugural ceremony was presided by then heir Prince Akihito of Japan and the Brazilian President Ernesto Geisel. In the 1970s, international migration flows from Japan to Brazil started declining. Still, a large group of first-generation Japanese native speakers

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would seek to grab their newspapers in the local newsstands in the main streets of Liberdade and the surrounding areas. Due to the fact that Japanese instruction was prohibited during wartime, linguistic gaps started growing among nieis, sanseis, and yonsen. It became difficult to find young people able to speak and write fluently in Japanese. Therefore, young Japanese people would arrive to Liberdade to work as reporters. They would mainly use Japanese newspapers published in Japan as sources of their news content for international coverage. Bilingual reporters would take care of translating some of the information from Brazilian newspapers to include domestic coverage. Local coverage of Japanese-Brazilian communities would be part of the ethnic journalism practices in the area. Mainly culture, sports, and association activities were covered by the newspaper, while political content would be restricted to Japanese issues, Japanese leaders, or issues of interest for the Japanese community. Between the 1990s and 2000s, the community entered a new phase that affected the production, distribution, and consumption of Japanese-­ language newspapers in Liberdade. The worsening of Brazilian economy and the prosperity of Japanese industries led to the emergence of the dekasegui movement. The decrease of Japanese speakers immediately began to impact the survival of São Paulo Shimbun. During fieldwork, observations in the streets of Liberdade neighborhood in 2018 helped examine the importance of the Japanese-language newspapers in the community, particularly significative with elder members of the diaspora. On regular basis they will read those stories informing about Japanese affairs. Conversations with workers in the local newsstands confirmed how mainly elder people would be the ones interested in still buying the Japanese print publications, while younger generations would be more attracted to other types of publications, mainly published in Portuguese. In 2018, it was estimated that descendants from third generation onward were less likely to consume Japanese print media. It was calculated that they were only 10%, against 90% of the readers of the first generation (Mundo Nipo, 2018). In-depth interviews with a dozen reporters and editors of Japanese publications, as well as observations in their headquarters’ newsrooms, most of them in or close to the Japanese neighborhood in 2017, helped confirm how they were trying to survive in an increasingly demanding conjuncture. Reporters and editors were aware that the aging of their readership would lead to a sharp drop in circulation and were afraid of having to stop publishing in Japanese. In addition to this, the decrease of advertising in the print news market was impacting ethnic media as well.

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Apart from the generational and linguistic gap, bilingual journalists were also facing the fact that newer generations became most likely to ignore print editions and instead look for online content and social media interactions. Some of these legacy media started exploring online versions. In the following years, and as most ethnic news media in urban settings, these publications struggled with the advent of the digital era and became a victim of ethnic news media desertification. The last issue of São Paulo Shimbun was printed on January 1, 2019, with no specific plans on how to continue its operations online. Helena Mizumoto, daughter of founder Mituto Mizumoto and owner of the newspaper, recalled how before Internet and cable television, immigrants would call the newspaper to figure out where they could find Japanese-­ owned business (South China Morning Post, 2019). Eduardo Nakashima, secretary general of the Brazil-Japan Cultural Alliance, recognized how the newspaper was instrumental in providing information to the Japanese people, particularly important up until the 1990s, when the Internet arrived in the community and the NHK Japanese news channel became accessible to Japanese-language native speakers (Caivano, 2019). Most interviewees contacted in São Paulo corroborated the perception that since the 1990s, with the dekasegui movement, the community started losing an important part of its members due to emigrations to Japan. Within this conjuncture, the gradual decrease of Japanese speakers in the community became evident. For the last two decades São Paulo Shimbun struggled with resisting the hardships of its readers’ sociodemographic transformation, the pressure of the print news media industry, and the advent of the Internet and social media. During its last years, São Paulo Shimbun was printed five days a week, and the average readership age was about 80 years, with a circulation that declined to about 10,000 copies. São Paulo Shimbun’s president, Masako Suzuki, was determined to keep publishing “even for the last single reader, but now I cannot do that” (Yamamoto, 2018). After the closure of São Paulo Shimbun, the Nikkey Shimbun became the only Japanese-language newspaper available in São Paulo. Suzuki regretted the end of the publication, but said that “times are different and there is not much to do”, and wished luck for the rival newspaper, Nikkei Shimbun (IPC Digital, 2018). At the peak of its evolution, in late decades of the twentieth century, São Paulo Shimbun published between 70,000 and 80,000 copies, becoming the highest circulating Japanese-language newspaper outside Japan. In 1977, it was awarded the Kikuchi Kan Prize, a prestigious recognition

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given to outstanding cultural activities. With the change of the century, as it has occurred other ethnic media in other global cities (Retis, 2019c), Japanese ethnic journalism in São Paulo started facing an agonistic landscape in the digital age (Budarick, 2019); their producers tended to lack the technological know-how and the human and financial resources necessary to create and maintain online content (Matsaganis et al., 2010; You & Matasagnis, 2019), in the extinguishing print news media landscape. Their pendular participation within the Brazilian news media ecosystem at some points led to their isolation from the broader public sphere (Bailey & Harindranath, 2006; Browne, 2005; You & Matasagnis, 2019); their efforts for survive as a print publication couldn’t resist the pressure for providing higher profits in times of convergence and digitization (Sinclair, 2009; Wasko, 2005; Hallin & Mancini, 2004). More importantly, the generation shifts among their community affected their substantial dependence on Japanese-language readers, which led to Japanese-language “news desertification” (Abernathy, 2018; Miller, 2018) in Brazilian global cities.

Conclusion Ethnic media do not only enable their audiences to be in two places at once, but give them the opportunity of producing new spaces where multiple remote localities and the experiences generated and shared by their inhabitants come together and become synchronized and related to each other; this is not only a rhetorical distinction but an important dimension in the processes of making sense of the encounters that take place during the consumption of diasporic media content (Tsagarousianou & Retis, 2019). By reviewing the history of the Japanese-language ethnic journalism in Brazil, this chapter examined the decline of ethnic newspapers in urban contexts. It analyzed how ethnic news media, like São Paulo Shimbun, have transitioned from being the main source of information for first-generation migrants to losing their connection with younger generations due to language and technological gaps. As described, most of the post-war Japanese-language newspapers continued having a central role as the pre-war period publications, with the exception of including more content in Portuguese. Until recent years, Japanese native speakers persisted seeking for these publications, but ethnic journalists confirmed the idea that the progressive declining of their readership due to the aging of isseis and the decrease in bilingual speakers determined their survival

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options. For seven decades, São Paulo Shimbun represented one of the key references for Brazil’s Japanese community; however, at the end of 2010s, this ethnic news print publication faced two concomitant challenges: on the one hand, the vicissitudes of the print news media industry, like the effects of the big recession in the decline of advertising investment, and the advent of the digital era and social media; on the other hand, the sociodemographic transformation of the Japanese-language readership, such as the aging of the first-generation Japanese immigrants and the growth of the language and technological gaps in bilingual ethnic news media consumption. Today, Liberdade continues to be a meeting point for many groups, especially young people interested in the Japanese culture, but not only for traditional food, temples, or ethnic stores, but also for Japanese comics (Manga) and cosplay interactions. However, Japanese-language publications produced in São Paulo have been gradually disappearing from the local newsstands as first-generation Japanese are gradually reducing their presence in the community, either due to their passing or because they are leaving to Japan, joining the growing flow of the dekasegui movement. The larger research project in which this chapter is based on examines how ethnic media evolve following demographic changes of their audiences. Comparative perspective, larger historical scope, and multi-sited fieldwork help advance the understanding of the collective construction of Asian Latinidad. In this context, the project is now seeking to examine the genesis and evolution to Portuguese-language and bilingual (Portuguese- and Japanese-language) news media produced in Tokyo. Ongoing findings suggest that ethnic print media are no longer central to diasporic communities but have left the space to the pre-eminence of digital and social media. As argued elsewhere (Retis, 2019a) it is essential to advance in the exploration of international migration, racism, and the media, as well as in the understanding of how the reconstitution and redefinition of space and spatial relations and the growing interconnections of places through intensified mediation have major implications for social, cultural, and economic life. Findings must be placed within a larger theoretical, intersectional, and interdisciplinary framework, shedding light in particular on issues of territoriality, hybridization, and heterogeneity, the latter introducing issues of gender, race, and class. If Latinidad is a category that is constantly negotiated, reconstructed, and reinvented, in the transnational context between Asia and Latin America, Asian Latinidad becomes a crucial field for further studies and continuing implementing everyday ethnographic

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practice to explore more in-depth cultural and media consumption practices; immediate, symbolic, and imagined spaces and locations; and sense of belonging in translocal contexts.

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Retis, J. (2019b). Homogenizing Heterogeneity in Transnational Contexts. Contemporary Latin American Diasporas and the Media in the Global North. In J. Retis & R. Tsagarousianou (Eds.), The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture (pp. 115–136). Willey-Blackwell. Retis, J. (2019c). Hispanic Media Today: Serving Bilingual and Bicultural Audiences in the Digital Age. Democracy Fund. Retis, J., & Tsagarousianou, R. (2019). Diasporas, Media, and Culture. Exploring Dimensions of Human Mobility and Connectivity in the era of Global Interdependency. In J. Retis & R. Tsagarousianou (Eds.), The Handbook of Diaspora, Media and Culture (pp. 1–20). London, UK: Willey-Blackwell. Riggins, S. (Ed., 1992). Ethnic Minority Media: An International Perspective. New York: Sage. Roth, J. (2002). Brokered Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Migrants in Japan. Cornell University Press. Sakuma, T. (2011). Language, Culture and Ethnicity: Interplay of Ideologies Within a Japanese Community in Brazil. Ph.D. Thesis, Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin. Sasaki, E. (1995). Dekasseguis: Trabalhadores nipo- brasileiros no Japão. Travessia: Revista do Migrante, 8(21), 20–22. Sasaki, K. (2013). To Return or Not to Return. The Changing Meaning of Mobility among Japanese Brazilians, 1908–2010. In B. S. A. Yeoh et al. (Eds.), Nationalizing Transnational Mobility in Asia (pp.  21–38). Duke University Press. Sassen, S. (2009). Cieites in Today’s Global Age. SAIS Review, 29(1), 3–34. Sassen, S. (2012). Cities in a World Economy. Sage. Shumow, M. (2010). A Foot in both Worlds: Transnational and Media use among Venezuelan Immigrants in South Florida. International Journal of Communication, 4, 377–397. Sinclair, J. (2009). Minorities, Media, Marketing and Marginalization. Global Media and Communication, 5(2), 177–196. South China Morning Post. (2019, January 7). Sao Paulo Shimbun: Iconic Japanese Newspaper in Brazil Closes After 72 Years. SCMP. https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/2180964/ sao-­paulo-­shimbun-­iconic-­japanese-­newspaper-­brazil-­closes-­after Tigner, James, L. (1981). Japanese Immigration into Latin America: A Survey. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 23(4), 457–482. Tsagarousianou, R., & Retis, J. (2019). Diasporas, Media, and Culture. Exploring Dimensions of Human Mobility and Connectivity in the Era of Global Interdependency. In J.  Retis & R.  Tsagarousianou (Eds.), The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture (pp. 1–20). Willey Blackwell. Tsuda, T. (2004). No Place to Call Home. Natural History, 113(3), 50–55. Waisbord, S., & Mellado, C. (2014). De-westernizing Communication Studies: A Reassessment. Communication Theory, 24, 361–372.

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CHAPTER 15

‘Here’ and ‘Back Home’: Imagining Diasporic Connections Through Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific News Media Tara Ross

Introduction There are significant differences in the ways that New Zealand’s Pacific news media and audiences imagine diasporic connections, which require different ways of thinking about the media of multigenerational migrant groups. By examining discourses of diaspora and Pacific identity in Pacific news media in Aotearoa New Zealand, and drawing on a qualitative multi-­ method approach grounded in Pacific people’s voices and practices, this chapter aims to demonstrate that Pacific news media are not only key sites where people negotiate identity and community belonging (Ross, 2017a), but also sites of diversity, complexity and dispute, which problematises assumptions about the traditional diasporic role of Pacific and other ethnic news media. For one, interviews with Pacific news media producers highlight differences in the way different producers deploy concepts of

T. Ross (*) College of Arts, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_15

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‘homeland’, Pacific identity and diasporic connection (Ross, 2014, 2017b). Moreover, focus group interviews with Pacific audiences demonstrate that, while audiences look to Pacific news media as key referents for identity formation and affective belonging, younger audiences, in particular, use Pacific news media to make connections that depart from media producers’ understanding of connection as ‘back home’. Often, it was assumed in producers’ talk that Pacific peoples would be interested in ethnic-­specific ‘news from home’, but focus group discussion suggests this is not always the case and that interest can be manifested in broader ways (ibid.). Indeed, younger focus group participants talked about making connections across ethnic categories, including a pan-Pacific category, which is not as well accounted for in the media literature on diasporic groups (which has tended to focus on a binary division between ‘homeland’ and host land media). The diverse practices identified here suggest a need for more complex explanations that can account for the heterogeneity of ethnic news media and their audiences, and the complexity and fluidity that typifies the multi-ethnic dynamics of diverse societies such as New Zealand.

The Aotearoa New Zealand Context Originally migrants to New Zealand, Pacific peoples make up the fourth largest ethnic group (8.1 per cent of the total population) behind Pākehā/ New Zealand European, Indigenous Māori and Asian ethnic groups (70.2, 16.5 and 15.1 per cent respectively1 [Stats NZ, n.d.]). As a group, Pacific peoples are diverse, comprising many different island groups (primarily Samoan, Cook Islands, Tongan, Niuean, Fijian and Tokelauan groups, with smaller numbers from Tuvalu and various Melanesian states [Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, n.d.]) with different ethnic, cultural, linguistic and geographic identities, and different colonial histories in relation to New Zealand. The Pacific population is also undergoing significant demographic change. Those who are New Zealand-born now outnumber migrant forebears, and Pacific peoples are no longer primarily defined in terms of their experience of migration from a distant homeland. Indeed, Pacific peoples in general now have varying degrees of connection to their ‘home’ islands and cultures (Bedford, 1997, as cited in Gray, 2001, p. 5). Research into Tongan migrant populations (Lee, 2004), for instance, 1  Where a person reported more than one ethnic group in the census, they were counted in each applicable group.

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found only a small minority of second-generation Tongans retained strong ties to their ‘homeland’. In addition, the Pacific population is also predominantly young—Pacific peoples had a median age of 23.4 years in the 2018 census, compared with 41.4 years for Pākehā and 37.4 years for the total population (Stats NZ, 2020)—and many Pacific youth have more in common with New Zealand’s young urban Māori than their island-born parents and grandparents, or island-based cousins. As this younger Pacific group becomes more numerous, they will become a more important focus for Pacific news media, which, until recently, have catered mostly to an older migrant audience. In the Aotearoa New Zealand context, the local mediascape2 is dominated by outlets that are largely Pākehā led (and, in the commercial sector, foreign owned). Pacific media account for a fraction of outlets, mostly in community media, and number a few, small media, ranging from small family and church-run newspapers and radio outlets, to a handful of digital media and state-funded broadcasters, including the country’s newest state-owned media outlet, the National Pacific Radio Trust, which runs the national Pacific radio station Niu FM and Auckland-based Pacific language channel Radio531pi. There is no Pacific television station, and only a handful of Pacific programmes on mainstream channels (for news, that is mainly Tagata Pasifika, a weekly news and current affairs programme, and Fresh, a state-funded Pacific youth magazine). There are currently two national print magazines (Spasifik and Suga); a handful of radio outlets (including Wellington-based Samoan-language station Samoa Capital Radio, Auckland-based station Radio Samoa and several radio programmes on community Access Radio); and a small but growing number of online media, such as E-Tangata, Moana TV, Kaniva Tonga and TheCoconet.tv. Census counts of Pacific media are difficult as many are too small to reach the threshold count in circulation audits or Nielsen audience measures, and turnover of outlets is high, reflecting the precariousness of serving small and fragmented audiences with low income and little advertiser support. Even well-established media outlets have proved vulnerable, with the longest-serving and last remaining Samoan-language newspaper in New Zealand, the Samoa Times, closing down in 2020 after struggling to withstand New Zealand’s COVID-19-lockdown and subsequent economic downturn.  Many first-generation New Zealand Pacific migrants also follow media produced in the Pacific Islands, largely newspapers, such as the Samoa Observer, Taimi ‘o Tonga and Cook Islands News, which can be followed online. 2

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Theory The scholarship on ethnic media is fragmentary and dispersed across different disciplines. Various definitions of ethnic media as diasporic, Indigenous, community or language media are an uneasy fit for the socio-­ economic context and practices of Pacific news media in New Zealand, as is the scholarly tendency to essentialise the ‘ethnicness’ of people’s media practice. As such, this chapter draws on lessons derived from problems posed in the literature (see Ross, 2017b, for a lengthier discussion), as well as people’s actual media practices (Couldry, 2004), to view identity as fluid and contested, Pacific media and audiences as diverse and not homogeneous, and to ground the following case study in its specific historical and cultural context. It also draws loosely on scholarship that focuses on the ethnic media uses of diasporic communities. As Georgiou (2007, p. 16) notes, that field has been exposed to critique from many different directions and there are certainly problems with the fit between a diaspora approach to media and some Pacific media and audiences. Nonetheless, as Adriaens (2012) argues, the concept of diaspora is a useful lens for obtaining a better grasp on the role of media in multicultural societies and it is the view here that it is a field of research that can helpfully open up our understanding of ethnic media. While this chapter does not locate itself within the diasporic media strand, it does draw on work within the field that challenges longstanding assumptions about ethnic media (particularly the homogeneity of ethnic groups and their media). There is a substantial amount of work on the uses of ethnic media and communication technologies, particularly in relation to questions of identity and belonging (e.g. Aksoy & Robins, 2000; Georgiou, 2006; Gillespie, 1995; Karim, 2003; Naficy, 1993, Tsagarousianou, 2001a, 2001b, 2004). The key to these works is the idea that identity and community are not necessarily linked to a territory, let alone the territory originally occupied by a group (Karim, 2003, p. 6), which helps to challenge the geographic confines of some ethnic media research. Media research on diasporic groups, for instance, has done much to challenge the nation-centric assumption that media operate solely within national borders and unitary, national public spheres. Georgiou (2007) calls on researchers to similarly rethink assumptions about the export of nationalism in the diaspora and the inevitable dependence of diasporic identities upon a ‘homeland’, both of which are apparent in Pacific media discourses.

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Other research into ethnic media and diasporic communities has also provided evidence that confirms media as important spaces and resources in the reproduction and transformation of identities (Tsagarousianou, 2004, p. 61). Early works have provided insights that underscore the fluidity and multi-layered nature of identity constructions, as well as the tensions within identities that can arise out of concerns about accuracy and authenticity (Ross, 2000). Other empirical studies (Ahmed & Veronis, 2017; Hargreaves & Mahjoub, 1997) have revealed significant differences in media consumption within ethnic groups that helpfully challenge essentialist notions about audiences and highlight the need for researchers to account for the heterogeneity of audiences’ media practices. Another strand of research, based on ethnographic methods and a focus on everyday uses of media, has critiqued too narrow an emphasis on identity and community building by foregrounding the ordinariness of diasporic audiences’ media consumption (see Aksoy & Robins, 2003; Madianou, 2005). Indeed, Budarick (2014, p.  148) cautions that we must not examine media in diasporic terms alone, as this limits us to the view that migrant audiences all (and only) behave “as the conventional and conforming members of ‘diasporic communities’”. What is needed are concepts and theories that can account for myriad contexts and forms of ethnic media.

Methodology This case study draws on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a range of Pacific media producers (n = 23) and 7 Pacific audience focus groups comprising 46 participants.3 The aim with media producers was not so much for a representative sample as a sample that would provide a window into different media (TV, commercial and community radio, print and Internet-based media) and which would help to reveal producers’ own sense-making and discourse about Pacific identity and their communities. Focus group discussions with Pacific audiences aimed to explore the role that Pacific media played in people’s everyday lives and sampling aimed for a mix of ethnicities and backgrounds in each group to ensure a variety of views on Pacific media would be heard (a mix of first-, second- and third-­ generation New Zealanders and a mix of Pacific ethnicities were represented). Focus group participants were found partly by tapping into 3  Interviews were conducted through 2010 and 2011; audience focus groups were held late 2012.

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existing Pacific groups and partly through a ‘snowball’ method, otherwise known as chain referral sampling (where participants help to grow the sample set through referral to other participants). Snowball methods have proved successful with hard-to-reach ethnic minority communities (Valerio et  al., 2016) and, by building on existing relationships, help to build strong connection to participants that is needed for the collaborative and reciprocal exchange of Talanoa4-based focus group discussion (Vaioleti, 2006). I established a Pacific Advisory Group, comprising community and media representatives, to oversee and provide advice on the research project as a whole, as well as Pacific communities’ participation. To ensure best practice, I also subjected my work to peer review by other Pacific researchers outside the advisory group. This was particularly important given my positioning as both insider (as a third-generation member of the diasporic Pacific community) and outsider (as someone who can claim only ‘part’ Pacific ethnicity and who doesn’t speak a Pacific language), which required extra care and reflection about the research process and interactions with participants.

Locating Place: ‘Homeland’, ‘Here’ and Further Afield Pacific media are diverse and often in contest with each other, and as this chapter demonstrates, they are differentiated by different discourses and practices of Pacific identity and ‘homeland’. Pacific producers demonstrated a range of interpretations of what the Pacific diasporic community was, and their desire for ‘homeland’ news, which makes it hard to categorise these media according to the definitions of diaspora often asserted in the ethnic media literature. Several producers said audiences wanted news from ‘home’, that is, the Pacific islands of origin, such as Samoa and Tonga: “We know that our audience loves stuff from the islands.” “People want to know what’s happening back home: the politics, the scandals.” Yet, a community radio producer, who catered for an older, mostly migrant audience, said too much news from ‘home’ annoyed her listeners:

4  Talanoa literally means talking about nothing in particular and refers to conversation and exchange of ideas, and interacting without a rigid framework (Vaioleti, 2006, p. 23).

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The feedback I get is that they’re angry. Why discuss the issues in Tonga and not discuss the issues that we have here like street kids, and so I don’t. I do a bit from Tonga, but mostly about the Tongan community in Auckland. Pacific media producer

Producers from newer media outlets, but even producers from Samoa Capital Radio (which caters to a mostly older, migrant audience), said it was news about New Zealand-based Pacific communities that was important: “If you come here you want to learn what’s happening here in your environment.” This contested discourse of ‘here’ and ‘there’, and what should take precedence in Pacific media texts, demonstrates the heterogeneity of Pacific media and the extent to which an emphasis on diasporas’ nostalgic backward-looking links with ‘original homelands’ (Karim, 2003; Naficy, 1993; Noronha & Papoutsaki, 2014) may be overstated, at least in the Pacific context. There was, in fact, great diversity in producers’ articulation of ‘homeland’ and little or no agreement on how to do ‘homeland’ news. Many producers spoke of difficulties finding the balance between news from the Pacific islands and news about New Zealand-based Pacific communities. Almost all of the media interviewed for this study included some news from the islands, demonstrating just how strong an ideological discourse ‘homeland’ is within Pacific spaces. For example, Spasifik magazine featured travel promotions and profiled island businesses and/or New Zealand Pacific peoples in the islands; the television magazine show Pacific Beat Street took presenters to Pacific islands to feature traditional culture; while Samoa Capital Radio broadcast a live news bulletin from Samoa every morning. In most cases, however, ‘homeland’ content made up the minority of content, indicating that Pacific communities, like other so-­ called diasporic communities (Sharma, 2007), are not primarily defined in terms of their distant homeland. Niu FM’s news mix on the morning of interviews at the national radio station, for instance, comprised seven New Zealand-based stories (only three of which might be loosely deemed ‘Pacific’), two stories about the Pacific region, and two about Australian or other world news culled from mainstream commercial news agencies. It is possible, in this light, to see ‘homeland’ news as playing a role in anchoring the Pacific identity of Pacific news media by providing a more obvious identity to the news than that provided by a ‘Pacific perspective’ or news frame, which is arguably harder to discern.

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‘Homeland’ may also be a resource with which producers meaningfully construct not just identity, but also community. Ethnic media research suggests that providing links with ‘home’ is an important function of ethnic media (Browne, 2005; Husband, 1994; Riggins, 1992). This study suggests that it may have less to do with imparting news and information as such and more to do with constructing connections between people, families, villages and networks. For instance, many Pacific media functioned more as community-messaging centres, handling birthday wishes for friends and relatives or good wishes for weddings and 21st birthdays. A producer for the website Pacific EyeWitness described acting as an information-­clearing house for overseas readers during the 2009 Samoan tsunami,5 where news was traded behind the scenes and not on the website. With the tsunami, there were family in Europe and a lot of soldiers in Iraq and in the Middle East who couldn’t obviously come home and had extended family and friends in Samoa and American Samoa and wanted to know. So, we used all our contacts to get information back and forth to them and much of that information wasn’t put on the site. Pacific media producer

Such practices are at odds with the ideals of independence, neutralism and detached news making that have shaped mass media (Zelizer & Allan, 2010, p.  97) and speak to the ways in which ethnic media are more entwined with their communities (Ross, 2017a). Radio Samoa broadcast a live 1½-hour connection with Radio 2AP in Samoa each week (and paid for the toll calls for people to ring in their wishes), while Koli Tala’aho broadcast a weekly live news hook-up with Australia. As weekly broadcasts, these programmes had less to do with relaying news, as audiences already knew much of the content; rather, they were primarily about enacting Samoan or Tongan identity and community. Lee’s (2004) research into transnational Tongan communities suggests the same—that Internet sites such as Planet Tonga and the now defunct Kava Bowl were more about performing identity and a new global “emotional” community than constructing active ties such as remittances or nation-building. In other words, Pacific producers deploy discourses and practices of ‘homeland’ or ‘diaspora’ as a symbolic resource used in the construction 5  An 8.1 Mw submarine earthquake in the Samoa region in September 2009 generated a tsunami that killed more than 150 people.

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of identities and communities—and do so for different purposes in different contexts. Many producers talked about the role of ‘homeland’ news in maintaining communities; for them, it was a tool for meshing disparate groups. For instance, a journalist described Pacific news media, especially online, as a modern platform (along with text, email and online social media) for long-held practices of maintaining family, church and village networks. The media to Pacific people is just another way of relaying the old messages that were once run by our young men … The real prize is the increased support provided by the sharing of information for increasingly widespread pockets of Pacific people (pers. comm. 16 September, 2011). Pacific journalist

Others described ‘homeland’ news as a tool for reinforcing the sense of Pacific audience identity necessary for Pacific media’s existence. Pacific homelands have considerable symbolic influence as ‘authentic’ referents against which Pacific identity is measured (the values and behaviours privileged as most truly Pacific tend to favour those in the homelands [Mila-­ Schaaf, 2010, pp. 208 & 219]), thus ‘homeland’ is a powerful symbol of each news product’s authenticity as a Pacific news medium. Interestingly, not one of the producers interviewed for this study elaborated on what constituted meaningful connections between far-flung Pacific peoples or what made a dispersed people a ‘community’. For many, the assumption was that ‘authentic’ Pacific peoples were connected across space, usually with ‘home’, and were therefore interested in news from ‘home’. However, this is not necessarily the case; Pacific people, especially New Zealand-born youth, are not axiomatically oriented to a ‘homeland’, and they connect with different groups (including Māori, New Zealand’s Indigenous ethnic group) in different ways. Indeed, Pacific people’s diasporic connections were imagined in quite distinct ways by audience participants. Where some defined the transnational Pacific community as being spread between ‘here’ and ‘home’—a binary that others have argued is not helpful when considering media consumption (Adriaens, 2012; Aksoy & Robins, 2003; Madianou, 2005, 2011)—others particularly younger audience participants described it as a much broader global community and had a sense of being part of a transnational group that extended as far as Australia, Hawaii and the USA.  Again, these tensions in the

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definition and doing of diasporic community suggest a need for theories that can more clearly account for and emphasise complexity and the term’s contested nature.

Community Connection, Rather Than ‘News from Home’ Pacific audience focus groups talked often about community and Pacific media, and for them it was in terms of the affective dimensions of Pacific media as a strategic resource for building Pacific connections and a secure sense of belonging (tu ̄rangawaewae6). A sense of belonging and pride in one’s group are key aspects of ethnic identity (Phinney, 1990, p. 507). In the New Zealand context where Pacific peoples are marginalised, Pacific media provide points of recognition through which individuals can affirm their self- and in-group identities: “It is that sort of familiarity and just the commonality that when you’re listening you say, ‘Oh yeah’. It’s sort of a sense of belonging.” At the most basic level, Pacific media restore Pacific peoples to the media frame and in doing so affirm identity: “I like seeing brown faces. I mean that’s really attractive to me”; “just seeing your own reflection”; “validation”; “I like watching him because he’s a Samoan. He’s brown”; “It’s the places and voices that are part of your everyday life.” By providing positive (or at least neutral) representations in the face of stigmatisation in other media, Pacific media also provide the positive in-group prototypes that enable in-group definition and internalisation of social identity (Mora & Kang, 2016). Participant 1: I always get a bit recharged watching [Tagata Pasifika] because it is positive, you know, and it makes you, you know, feel like you are, you know, you can do things and people out there are doing things— Participant 2: And the negative’s all already on. Participant 1: —because the negative, you can switch on any time— Participant 2: You’ve seen it already_Audience focus group

6  A place of strength and belonging, literally ‘a place to stand’, tūrangawaewae or tu’ungava’e refers to people’s places of empowerment and connection, such as marae, village or ancestral mountains and rivers.

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Pacific media also served a connective function for focus group participants to people elsewhere. Not only, as is sometimes assumed, from the ‘homeland’ but also (or instead) from Pacific communities scattered throughout New Zealand, Australia, Western USA and the larger metropolitan Pacific Islands, such as Hawaii and American Samoa. Participants talked about Pacific connection in a broad sense. They wanted to “hear about how our people are doing”, and “see how well our people are doing out there,” and their talk was about more than news from ‘home’; participants talked about looking for people and communities they knew as well as connecting with bigger or dispersed communities. For instance, among those based in Christchurch, where the Pacific population is relatively small, one participant looked in the international sections of Samoan-­ based media for people she knew from her Christchurch community to see how they connected elsewhere. Another followed Tagata Pasifika to connect to Pacific communities and culture in the North Island because, in Christchurch, “we don’t have a strong sort of Pacific,” and another looked to Pacific media to check how Pacific people fared in the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes. Younger focus group participants talked about making connections in ways that is not as well accounted for in the ethnic media literature. For a start, they looked for connections across ethnic categories, including a pan-Pacific category, and not just within specific ethnicities such as Samoan or Tongan: “It’s good to know from not just where I’m from but, you know, the rest of the islands”—and across a multi-ethnic space and not just their parents’ ‘homeland’ space. I think that in terms of the media that does really engage with the younger generations like us, programmes like Fresh that use to come up on Saturdays, those really engage with us … they covered like the Samoan and the Cook Islander—everything—and Tongans, like it was all good, eh. Audience focus group participant

Often, it was assumed in producers’ talk that Pacific peoples would be interested in ‘news from home’, but talk among audience focus groups suggested that interest could be manifested in broader ways. More recent work examining Pacific people’s social media interaction around media events (Ross, 2020) reveals strong connections and media-sharing between Pacific peoples of diverse identities across the Pacific, USA, Australia and New Zealand. Indeed, to have a sense of being part of a cultural group

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that extends to the Pacific rim, Australia and the USA is a participation in the transnational that is potentially quite empowering. It is possible there is something significant in people’s evolving notions of transnationality, in terms of both Pacific identity formation and the potential reach of Pacific news media, which requires further research to pin down. At the very least, it marks a break with producers’ instinctive sense of connection as being only about connections ‘back home’.

Conclusion Pacific audiences look to Pacific news media to ‘imagine’ their belonging and connection to Pacific communities and to build their secure sense of identity, giving producers’ media work an important community-building role (Ross, 2017a, 2017b). However, as this study observes, that role is potentially undermined if Pacific media producers use narrow or closed discourses of identity that fail to engage with those who cannot tick off conventional markers of Pacific identity, such as connection to an ancestral ‘homeland’. Much of the community-building work described by Pacific media producers was about what Putnam (2000) calls bonding capital—reinforcing the ties of those who already identify and connect in-group. In audience focus groups, however, younger Pacific audiences tended to be looking for what Putnam distinguishes as bridging capital, that is the work that reaches across groups or that attempts to build capital in a disparate or pluralistic group, such as the Pacific conglomerate. Yet, it was harder to see in a lot of producers’ talk or media practice the bridging work that allowed more complex views of Pacific community or inclusion of New Zealand-born English-speaking Pacific youth or those who identify with multiple ethnicities (who tend to be excluded by the conventional representations on which much bonding practice is built). Hatcher (2012) suggests that bridging capital may be contrary to the mission of news media that rely on a degree of homogeneity to build their sense of community, but without the more open discourse that bridging practices entail, Pacific news media may risk alienating some, especially younger, audiences. Further research is required to explore these tensions, but the analysis here helps to underline how ethnic news media are resources in the formation of identity and community belonging—and that a broader range of identities might be needed to better serve the youth of multigenerational migrant groups.

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By highlighting key differences in media producers’ and audiences’ orientation to ideas of ‘home’, ‘homeland’ and the Pacific diaspora, this chapter makes a case for re-theorising ethnic media in ways that can better account for diversity and complexity, as well as the changing nature of audiences, particularly in terms of transnational and inter-ethnic orientation. It also suggests a need for more nuanced ways of understanding the identity work of ethnic news media, whose locative practices encompass a sense of identity and connection that is not well accounted for in the existing literature. In fact, when we view people’s practices, as Couldry (2004) suggests, as media related rather than exclusively about media (whether media production or consumption), Pacific news media emerge more clearly, not as diasporic or ethnic, but as key sites of identity negotiation.

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Hargreaves, A., & Mahjoub, D. (1997). Satellite Television Viewing Among Ethnic Minorities in France. European Journal of Communication, 12(4), 459–477. Hatcher, J. (2012). A View from Outside: What Other Social Science Disciplines Can Teach Us About Community Journalism. In B.  Reader & J.  Hatcher (Eds.), Foundations of Community Journalism (pp. 129–153). Sage. Husband, C. (1994). A Richer Vision: The Development of Ethnic Minority Media in Western Democracies. Unesco Publications. Karim, K. (Ed.). (2003). The Media of Diaspora. Routledge. Lee, H. (2004). ‘Second Generation’ Tongan Transnationalism: Hope for the future? Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 45(2), 235–254. Madianou, M. (2005). Contested Communicative Spaces: Rethinking Identities, Boundaries and the Role of the Media Among Turkish Speakers in Greece. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 31(3), 521–541. Madianou, M. (2011). Beyond the Presumption of Identity? Ethnicities, Cultures, and Transnational Audiences. In V. Nightingale (Ed.), The Handbook of Media Audiences (pp. 444–458). Wiley-Blackwell. Mila-Schaaf, K. (2010). Polycultural Capital and the Pacific Second Generation: Negotiating Identities in Diasporic Spaces. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Massey University. Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs. (n.d.). About Pacific Peoples in New Zealand. http://www.mpp.govt.nz/pacific-­peoples-­in-­new-­zealand/ Mora, A., & Kang, S. (2016). English-Language Latino Themed Programming and Social Identity: The Relationship Between Viewing and Self-Esteem Among Latina/os. Howard Journal of Communications, 27(1), 16–37. Naficy, H. (1993). The Making of Exile Cultures. Iranian Television in Los Angeles. University of Minnesota Press. Noronha, S., & Papoutsaki, E. (2014). The Migrant and the Media: Maintaining Cultural Identity Through Ethnic Media. In G.  Dodson & E.  Papoutsaki (Eds.), Communication Issues in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Collection of Research Essays (pp. 17–37). Epress Unitec. Phinney, J.  S. (1990). Ethnic Identity in Adolescents and Adults: Review of Research. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 499–514. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon and Schuster. Riggins, S. (1992). Ethnic Minority Media: An International Perspective. Sage Publications. Ross, K. (2000). In Whose Image? TV Criticism and Black Minority Viewers. In S. Cottle (Ed.), Ethnic Minorities and the Media: Changing Cultural Boundaries (pp. 133–149). Open University Press.

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Ross, T. (2017a). Talking About Identity, Community and Belonging: The Locative Practices of Pacific News Media in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journal of Alternative and Community Media, 2, 1–12. Ross, T. (2017b). Locating Ourselves: An Analysis and Theoretical Account of Strategic Practices of Identity and Connection in Aotearoa/New Zealand’s Pacific News Media. PhD Thesis. Christchurch: University of Canterbury. Ross, T. (2020). Mapping a Hashtag Public: Identifying Pacific Audiences Via Twitter. Manuscript in Preparation. Sharma, S. (2007). Marketing Success, Defining Ethnicity: South Asian Print Media in the US. South Asian Popular Culture, 5(2), 179–191. Stats NZ. (2020). 2018 Census Ethnic Groups Dataset. https://www.stats.govt. nz/information-­releases/2018-­census-­ethnic-­groups-­dataset Stats NZ. (n.d.). 2018 Census Place Summaries: New Zealand. https://www.stats.govt.nz/tools/2018-­c ensus-­p lace-­s ummaries/ new-­zealand#ethnicity-­culture-­and-­identity Tsagarousianou, R. (2001a). ‘A Space Where One Feels at Home’: Media Consumption Practices Among London’s South Asian and Greek Cypriot Communities. In R.  King & N.  Wood (Eds.), Media and Migration: Constructions of Mobility and Difference (pp. 158–172). Routledge. Tsagarousianou, R. (2001b). Diasporic Audiences’ Media Uses and Constructions of ‘Community’: The Case of London’s South Asian and Greek Cypriot Communities. In K. Ross & P. Playdon (Eds.), Black Marks: Research Studies with Minority Ethnic Audiences (pp. 17–32). Ashgate. Tsagarousianou, R. (2004). Rethinking the Concept of Diaspora: Mobility, Connectivity and Communication in a Globalised World. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 1(1), 52–65. Vaioleti, T. (2006). Talanoa Research Methodology: A Developing Position on Pacific Research. Waikato Journal of Education, 12. https://doi. org/10.15663/wje.v12i1.296 Valerio, M., Rodriguez, N., Winkler, P., Lopez, J., Dennison, M., Liang, Y., & Turner, B. (2016). Comparing Two Sampling Methods to Engage Hard-to-­ Reach Communities in Research Priority Setting. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-­016-­0242-­z Zelizer, B., & Allan, S. (2010). Keywords in News and Journalism Studies. McGraw-­ Hill Education.

CHAPTER 16

Ethnic Media and Racism in Brazil: The Case of Black Nation TV Melina Santos and José Cláudio Castanheira

Introduction Despite being known both for its extensive territory and for its ethnic multiplicity, Brazil presents historical structural inequalities in relation to the access of part of its population to cultural and journalistic information. Currently, some producers of local or ethnic content are trying to gain more visibility, mainly due to the growth of digital media. The efforts to reduce the imbalance in the way certain population groups are represented in media have been producing positive results, expanding the reach of ethnic themes in Brazilian society. Nevertheless, media conglomerates are still a very strong reference when it comes to national issues or for a wider dissemination of information. Thus, when analyzing some of the outlets focused on black culture, it is inevitable to begin with a comparison with

M. Santos (*) Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul—PUCRS, Porto Alegre, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] J. C. Castanheira Federal University of Santa Catarina—UFSC, Florianópolis, Brazil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9_16

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the coverage made by mainstream media. Two recent cases may serve as example. In May 2020, CNN Brasil assigned the journalist and international correspondent of the station, William Waack, to analyze the protests against the murder of the American hip-hop artist George Floyd by the Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin (CNN Brasil, 2020). Internet users criticized CNN Brasil’s decision, as William Waack had already been fired from another broadcaster, Globo Network, in November 2017, after being accused of racism. The headline illustrating the story presented by Waack, ‘violent protest in the USA after the death of black person’, was also repudiated by Internet users for giving more prominence to the protests than to the murder of Floyd itself. June 2, 2020. The TV program Em Pauta, produced by Globo News (a cable channel, part of Globo communications conglomerate) was also criticized for discussing anti-racist movements within a group formed entirely by white journalists. The next day, Globo News selected five black journalists—Maju Coutinho, Flavia Oliveira, Zileide Silva, Aline Midlej, and Lilian Ribeiro—for an edition of Em Pauta on racism with the mediation of the black journalist Heraldo Pereira. The episodes described above illustrate that, in Brazil, ethnic-racial inequalities have been accepted and replicated within the construction of its project of society (Silva et al., 2011) since colonial times (1500–1822). This inequality can be easily perceived in the model of organization and functioning of the different media. Paiva et al. (2015) remind us that mass media in Brazil, following the country’s political dynamics, has always presented patrimonialist characteristics. Large communication organizations were commonly owned by family groups. These families, maintaining a relationship of exchange of interests with the different Brazilian governments, preserve, until today, the hegemony in terms of the media content circulating in the country. Some of these mainstream conglomerates still in operation: Folha Group controls the newspaper Folha de São Paulo (and its online version Folha.com), a news agency, and the Brazilian Internet content UOL. The Frias family has controlled Folha Group since 1921. Estado Group controls the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, news agency Estado, in addition to some radio and TV channels. The group belongs to the Mesquita family since 1902. The Civita family has the control of Abril Group since 1950. Abril Group publishes influent printed and online magazines in different areas, especially in journalism, and controls radio and TV channels.

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Bandeirantes Group belongs to the Saad family since 1937, and has among its companies some radio stations, television channels, and print publications. Finally, Globo Group, controlled by the Marinho family since 1925, diversifies its activities by different areas, with television production (both in journalism and in entertainment content) as its most well-known branch. Globo Group is considered the largest mainstream media conglomerate in Latin America (Paiva et  al., 2015). Most of these media groups established their headquarters in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo cities with subsidiaries in more distant regions. That concentration had effects on the kind of media content produced and on how it circulated in Brazilian territory. Local or ethnic related content was not only systematically excluded from traditional outlets, but it was also discouraged by public policies, which favored big media conglomerates (Paiva et al., 2015). The regionalization of content production has always been a difficult task to achieve, since both the economic power and the very location of the headquarters of these different communication groups inevitably lead to an agenda centered on issues, customs, or interests of the richest Brazilian states (Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo). Despite being considered, since the 1970s, an element of territory integration within the country’s development policy, free-to-air television has promoted national identity in a particularly biased way, highlighting the values and behaviors of just a part of its population as if they were common to all the inhabitants of Brazil (Rosa, 2008). In the last decades, especially because of the greater number of retransmitting companies in different parts of the country, there was an increase in the journalistic content produced outside the Rio-São Paulo axis. There have been some attempts to give prominence to local problems and to more regionalist approaches. The very adoption of TV presenters with different accents, from other parts of Brazil than that from the Southeast states, reveals a change of perception from large communication groups in relation to the great regional differences within the country. However, the main newscasts of each broadcaster, with nationwide reach, replicate the accent and, to a certain extent, the mannerisms of speech from the Southeast region. In addition, the concentrating model of media conglomerates in Brazil not only limited the coverage and visibility of most population groups in the country, but also addressed issues as if they were of national interest, regardless of regional differences. In general, the political and economic

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agenda dealt with by media has always endorsed the interests of the different political groups. In Brazil, broadcasting services, both radio and television, are concessions from the federal government and this fact has profound consequences on the diversity of topics covered by media and, mainly, on the very image of the country that has been consolidated throughout history. The lack of multicultural diversity in media organizations’ teams (both in terms of journalistic and other diverse contents) excludes black people from main discourse and from consolidated aesthetic standards. In addition to the lack of representativeness in mainstream images, the predominance of whiteness in media companies restricts the approach to guidelines on social inequality (Ferro, 2012). Brazilian ethnic-racial researchers have questioned ‘how racial relations targeted in the media can lead us to understand the multiple forms of feedback of racism’ (Borges, 2012, p. 186). Discourses about black women and black men circulating in television and radio programs, in advertising, in printed and electronic newspapers and in films replicate historical notions of black people’s role as ‘criminal and needy’ or ‘the (black) citizen of success, an example of overcoming’ (Ferro, 2012, p. 68). These representations of the black subject conveyed by the mass media are present in the discourse of Brazilian elite, which modulates the production and maintenance of racial prejudice, as mentioned by Ferro (Ferro, 2012, p. 78). Media discourses have reproduced this elitism ‘without making an intervention in favor of the underprivileged and failing to think about the conditions of use of communication, the contexts, the implicit intentions of speech producers and the circumstances in which meaning is produced’ (Ferro, 2012, p. 78). From the description of such an unequal panorama in terms of the territorial distribution of the mass media groups and, consequently, of the possibility of representing several of the social and/or ethnic groups, we suggest that the so-called ethnic media could be seen as a counterweight to the inequalities produced by the current political and economic system. To this end, we will observe the role of ethnic media—defined as forms of communication created by and for immigrants, ethnic and linguistic minorities, and indigenous populations (Katz et al., 2012)—in the rescue and celebration of black culture in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, localized in the South region of Brazil. Our case study addresses TV Nação Preta (Black Nation TV), an online communication channel situated in the capital, Porto Alegre, which seeks to give visibility to the history and

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presence of black communities in the constitution of southern Brazil. Rio Grande do Sul is considered ‘the most European [state] in the nation’ (Assumpção, 2014), due to the fact that immigrants—Germans and Italians mainly—are recognized as major contributors to local economic growth.1 Another important migratory flow, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is that of Azoreans (mostly Portuguese citizens) who arrived in the south of Brazil to consolidate the occupation of the territory by the Portuguese Crown. Despite a great influence on the local culture, the presence of black residents, coming from the Azores and from other regions of Africa, and their contribution to the socioeconomic process has been erased from southern history (Flores, 2010; Machado, 2010). Before a more detailed analysis of TV Nação Preta’s programming, it is important to revisit the notion of public sphere, not only following Habermas’ original conception (Habermas, 2014), but also from his different readers, especially with regard to the relationship between the State, media, and the different social sectors. This discussion concerns directly the least favored groups in terms of visibility and political representation. From this critical review, we envision the very notion of ethnic media as a means of expanding and decentralizing the topics discussed in society. From that definition, we propose that the State should be more effective in proposing policies of democratizing access to different types of media. Finally, based on two interviews with members of TV Nação Preta, journalist Fernanda Carvalho and the producer Gabriela Barenho, on the months of April and May 2020, and on qualitative analysis of its content, we will discuss the role of that kind of media—and the eventual problems with the generalized adoption of the term ‘ethnic media’—in Brazilian society.

Public Sphere and Ethnic Media The initial definition that Habermas (2014) proposes for ‘public sphere’, that of a group of individuals that is organized to discuss common interests to the body of society, has been reviewed over the last few years, especially considering the volatile dimension of the idea of ‘common interest’. The fact that, for Habermas, public sphere should not be immediately 1  Other states in the South region, such as Santa Catarina and Paraná, were also destinations for European immigrants, not only Germans and Italians, but also Poles, Ukrainians, Czechs, and so on.

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associated with the State, being preferably disconnected from it, has also been the target of criticism. Nancy Fraser (1990) reminds us that the bourgeois public sphere of liberal character has as one of its main aspects the exclusion of minorities or less visible parts of society. This exclusion favors the adoption of policies favorable to dominant elites, as well as the false notion of a homogeneous public. Thus, the exclusion of the State from the public sphere, at least as a mediator, would serve the purpose of maintaining different social actors in constant economic, social, and cultural imbalance. Fraser also reminds us that it is impossible to take the idea of the public sphere as a homogeneous element in any contemporary society. Instead, she proposes the notion of ‘subaltern counterpublics’ (Fraser, 1990), that is, groups that have their own identity, historically or geographically constructed, and that are able to present specific demands based on their own forms of expression. Such particular forms of expression use distinct outlets, within defined regions, aimed at these minority groups. However, this does not exclude the possibility or the need for a broader arena of debate on general and pertinent issues to a wider audience. Digital media, due to their decentralized characteristics and to the increasing accessibility of the population to the Internet, have been optimistically suggested as a response to the hegemonic discourse of large media groups (Deuze, 2006). The easier and more practical forms of producing local content and of publishing it on different digital platforms has encouraged the participation of those with less political and social visibility within the public debate. According to Deuze (2006), ‘becoming the media’ is part of a contemporary praxis, heir to the posture of punk culture, in which each person should be engaged in some type of media production: ‘becoming the media also refers to a perspective on the media audience as active producers of meaning from within their own cultural context’ (Deuze, 2006, p. 263). This type of positioning has a political dimension, implying the change from ‘informed’ citizens to conscious ones and defenders of their rights, which greatly affects the democratic dialogue between media, different social groups, and the State. Attributing the use of ethnic media to specific groups only, or stating that these groups do not make frequent use of mass media as well, is a simplifying view of their respective roles in the constitution of different social identities (Fraser, 1990; Budarick, 2016).

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However, the euphoria at the increasing popularity of digital platforms, not only as a way of producing alternative content, but also as a place of exchange between participants that are not visible in the mass media, has one important counterpoint. Digital communication also deals with a set of data mining strategies that large economic conglomerates develop, from the same tools, in order to meet their specific interests. Couldry and Mejias (2019) note that the widespread appropriation of data by digital platforms has placed a huge amount of data at the service of the State and of large corporations. That data, when properly analyzed, will not necessarily serve public interests. Digital platforms are the technological means that produce a new type of ‘social’ for capital: that is, the social in a form that can be continuously tracked, captured, sorted and counted for value as ‘data’. Platforms are a key means whereby the general domain of everyday life, much of it until now outside the formal scope of economic relations, can be caught within the net of marketization. (Couldry and Mejias, 2019, p. 86)

The flow of information between niche media and consumers, in the same way as in the massive model, meets a global demand for data that ultimately serve a homogenizing perspective of different social strata. Ethnic media is seen as a counterpoint to an absolute cultural universality inherited from European modernity (Wallerstein, 2006), however, they still work within a model of information circulation that refers to an abstract conception of a general public sphere and to an elastic definition of nationalism that, flirting with more globalizing perspectives, is unable to perceive its internal contradictions. As stated at the beginning of this chapter, that is an easily observable scenario in Brazil. The relationship between ethnic media and mainstream journalistic activities also presents conflicts from an ethical point of view. The neutrality defended by the ethical standards of media companies would limit the possibility for ethnic media professionals to cross into the hegemonic journalistic production ‘without abandoning their representative status vis-à-­ vis the minority community’ (Budarick, 2016, p. 16). The contribution of ethnic media in the dialogue between different audiences and in the discussion of social public policies for subaltern publics would therefore be limited due to the ethics of Western communication, to the ‘ideal of professionalism, particularly when it comes to journalism’ (Budarick, 2016, p. 16).

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A question arising from these considerations is: if ethics and freedom of communication are rights defended by democratic ideals, to what extent are they safe in the journalistic process, creating the possibilities of speaking and of being heard, when such speeches are conflicting with the editorial lines of the communication companies? In order that subaltern counterpublics are not ‘relegated to marginal voices with little political effect’ (Budarick, 2016, p. 23), it is necessary that certain ethical conditions are ensured, otherwise there will not be the expected dialogue between different audiences. Although many different ethnic groups form Brazil’s population that is not faithfully portrayed by mainstream media. Relatively recent surveys on the classification system of color or race tried to describe more efficiently the multicultural characteristic of Brazilian society. These surveys were the results of the policies of affirmation actions and promotion of equality in the access of the black and indigenous populations to universities and public positions initiated by the government of Luís Inácio Lula da Silva.2 It drew our attention that the 2008 survey on ethnic and racial characteristics of Brazilian population, conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), had no continuity after the publication of its results in the years 2011 and 2013. Although the criteria of ethnic-racial representation of Brazilians adopted by IBGE in household surveys included five categories: indigenous, brown, yellow, black, and white (IBGE, 2011), the analyses of collected data showed that many of the interviewees used different criteria when self-declaring their ethnicity. Many of them declared themselves as ‘pretos’ instead of ‘negros’ (what may cause some confusion, as both terms are translated into English as ‘black’), some as ‘afros’, and some as ‘morenos’ (which would mean something similar but not equal to ‘brown’). The answers related to the question about the combinations of origin and race declared by the interviewees can contribute to the understanding of the complexity of ethnic constitution in Brazil. While those who identify themselves as ‘white’ or ‘yellow’ are easily associated with one specific ethnic origin—Europe or Extreme East—for the three other categories, their ethnic origin can alternate from different combinations between European, African, or indigenous origins (Beltrão et al., 2013, pp. 135–136). In the specific case of Rio Grande do Sul, the IBGE research interviewees declared themselves as having an exclusive European origin. 2

 Former Brazilian president (2003–2006 and 2007–2011), from the Worker’s Party (PT).

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Also, the ways these groups make themselves visible, by producing and publishing their own media content still need a more comprehensive mapping within Communication Studies in Brazil. In the case of ethnic media, we did not obtain responses concerning number of outlets or their reach from Brazilian NGOs dedicated to the topic, such as Instituto Mídia Étnica,3 and from other research institutions in Public Opinion and Digital Communication such as the Brazilian Institute of Data Analysis—IBPAD.4 This leads us to believe that not only is there little information about the quantity and quality of production of ethnic media outlets, but the demand for such information is still not consistent in Brazilian communication research. Several problems with regard to information access in Brazil can be attributed to a structural digital divide. There are many possible causes for that: from the high cost of good Internet services to the precariousness of informational infrastructure in many parts of the country. Much of Internet access by low- or middle-income users is done through 3G and 4G services, provided by telephony companies. Usually, these companies offer a limited amount of data to be accessed, restricting its usage mainly to social networks or instant message platforms. The limitation of the reach of ethnic media among different audiences is in great part related to the unequal model through which data access is structured in Brazil. One in four people in Brazil does not have access to the Internet (Tokarnia, 2020a). In approximate numbers, 46 million Brazilians do not access digital networks because they live in rural areas (53.5%), because they do not know how to use technologies (41.6%), or because they do not feel the need (34.6%) (Tokarnia, 2020a). Despite having grown significantly in recent years, the broadband service in Brazil is still expensive and does not cover the entire national territory homogeneously. Research by IBGE shows that the use of cell phones to access social networks increased to 98.1%, from 2017 to 2018, among those who have some kind of daily Internet access (Tokarnia, 2020b). However, we must also consider that the distribution of Brazilian income is uneven and that the costs of 3G or 4G services, in addition to the costs of electronic

3 4

 https://www.brazilfoundation.org/project/instituto-midia-etnica/  https://www.ibpad.com.br/

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equipment such as computers and cell phones, are very high when compared to other countries.5 Income inequality affects the lives of young and/or uneducated people, with black subjects standing out as the most affected in this respect (Roubicek, 2020). Therefore, it is hard to overestimate the role of ethnic media in the lives of these specific groups when the democratization of media, in general, is not an established fact. Gabriela Barenho, the executive producer of TV Nação Preta, confirms it: It is as if digital media had finally come to put into practice the long-dreamed and talked about democratization of the media. Although there is also hegemony due to the resources available to produce content and to reach the public. It is very difficult to generate resources! Especially in our niche that cannot count on the interest of major sponsors. When you produce for a TV channel or radio station, or newspaper, you have a team, no matter how small, that in most cases you are not the one who is paying, or you are even paid for it. (Barenho, 2020)6

Producer Gabriela Barenho points out that the structural problems of segmented media have not yet been solved with the emergence of digital networks. The video ‘Help our Channel to Resist Campaign’ was released on December 6, 2019, on YouTube.7 It shows an interview by producer Gabriela on the free-access public TV program, Radar (TVE/RS), about the crowdfunding project to handle production costs of TV Nação Preta. The video has just 5 positive reactions and 27 views among the 2.35 thousand subscribers on the YouTube channel. About the campaign, the crowdfunding website states: For the maintenance of the channel, our goal is to produce from 2 to 3 of monthly journalistic reporting or news coverage videos, which requires a team of 3 to 4 people, on average, in addition to the maintenance and updating of the equipment. (Ajude a TV Nação Preta…, 2019) 5  Brazil has the second highest concentration of income in the world, according to a UN report released in 2019. The richest 1% concentrates 28.3% of the country’s total income, according to the ranking on human development. Brazil was second only to Qatar in terms of income inequality, where the richest 1% concentrates 29% of the income. More information at https://g1.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2019/12/09/brasil-tem-segunda-maiorconcentracao-de-renda-do-mundo-diz-relatorio-da-onu.ghtml. Accessed on 10 Jun 2020. 6  Interview granted to the authors. 7  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez-v5KC4zyM

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Jamil (2020) points out that—in the case of Pakistan—although ethnic media does not present the same amount of technological resources, its journalists have the same versatility than the professionals of mainstream media companies in terms of technologies usage. In the case of TV Nação Preta, all of its journalists have worked in the newsrooms of TVE/RS, that is, they have journalistic experience and master techniques of audiovisual content production. In this way, the biggest challenge faced by the channel team is the lack of financing of its structure and activities, since public support policies are being dramatically reduced by the current Federal Government.

TV Nação Preta (Black Nation TV) TV Nação Preta is a channel on YouTube platform that describes itself as ‘a space dedicated to history, culture and the black diaspora’. The channel offers different length videos, in addition to live broadcasts, always dealing with events and issues related to the black community in ‘different geographic locations’ (TV Nação Preta).8 The project is a continuation of the television program Nação (Nation), created by journalist Vera Cardozo and produced by journalists from the Piratini Foundation—TVE/RS,9 Fernanda Carvalho, Domício Grillo, and Fernanda Bastos, between 2015 and 2017, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS). The first audiovisual content released on the Nação Preta channel, on October 14, 2017,10 features 01:31 minutes of the interview with sailor João Cândido  (João Cândido fala sobre a Revolta da Chibata, 2017), leader of the 1910 Revolta da Chibata (Revolt of the Lash).11 The audio was recorded by historians Hélio Silva and Ricardo Cravo Albin, at the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS), in the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1968,  https://www.youtube.com/c/TVNA%C3%87%C3%83OPRETA/about  Fundação Piratini (Piratini Foundation) is a Brazilian foundation that developed public and educational broadcasting programs in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. TVE/RS (Educational Television of Rio Grande do Sul) was one of the broadcasters controlled by Piratini Foundation. 10  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMBXbZKpSfc 11  Revolta da Chibata (Revolt of the Lash) ‘was one of the great naval revolts of the twentieth century. Brazilian sailors had faced nearly a century of callous and violent treatment at the hands of naval officers. In their manifesto, rebelling sailors complained of poor pay, inadequate food, excessive work and the ongoing application of the lash to dominate the lower ranks’ (Morgan, 2014, p. 3). 8 9

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one year before the death of João Cândido. This excerpt of the interview is part of a special episode of the program Nação about the Revolta da Chibata, shown by the free-access public channel TVE/RS, on October 14, 2015  (Nação | TVE..., 2015).12 The journalist Fernanda Carvalho, participant of both projects, comments on this migration from open TV to the Internet: Still, when producing Nação, at TVE, we started publishing on the Internet the contents that were left out of the episodes and they were super accessed. We saw then that the Internet would be a good alternative for what we didn’t do due to lack of program time (it was 25 minutes a week) and also to shorten the distance, since many people asked us to show agendas from other states and we had no way of traveling, (Carvalho, 2020)13

The end of the Nação program in 2017 was due to the structural dismantling of Empresa Brasil de Comunicação—EBC (Brazil Communication Company) by former president Michel Temer  (EBC:  Desrespeito..., 2017).14 Since then, the project dedicated to the acknowledgment of black culture has been transferred entirely to the new YouTube channel TV Nação Preta. The extinction of the Ministry of Culture, in 2019, and the budget cuts in fostering culture have worried the artistic and journalistic segments. In an interview with Globo Network’s journalistic program Fantástico, the ex-actress and then nominated Secretary of Culture, Regina Duarte (2020), defended the extremist bias of the Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil’s president since 2019) by pointing out that cultural productions dedicated to minorities, such as blacks, LGBTQI+, and indigenous people would not be financed by the public budget. Such redirection of public policies has affected the continuity of the work of ethnic media, as pointed out by Fernanda Carvalho: 12  The special program received an honorable mention in the documentary category at the 37th Vladimir Herzog Journalistic Award for Amnesty and Human Rights (TVE-RS). 13  Interview granted to the authors. 14  EBC was created during the mandate of President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, in 2007. A federal public company, which manages the Brazilian government’s radio and television channels. The National Federation of Journalists (FENAJ) and the syndicates of journalists and of radio journalists have denounced cuts in the public financing, the dismissal of journalists, and the restriction of the autonomy in the production of journalistic content. Those measures took place during the mandate of provisional President Michel Temer, in May 2016 (Martins, 2016). Temer assumed the Presidency after the impeachment of Dilma Roussef, from August 31, 2016 to January 1, 2019.

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I think that this issue has been getting worse since the end of the PT government.15 We felt the cuts in the area of culture very strongly and since then the problem has been getting worse. Today, it is more obvious, so to speak. The tendency is to get worse because the secretary’s speech exposes the thinking of those in power. We have to keep resisting and showing that all manifestations are important and necessary and deserve support. (Carvalho, 2020)16

The low representativeness of subaltern groups in audiovisual production points to the maintenance of a Eurocentric and colonialist perspective in media culture and in cultural representations of emerging countries, as described by Ella Shohat and Robert Stam (2006). Researchers on ethnic-­ racial relations have pointed out that, in Brazilian media culture, textual and audiovisual discourses have made invisible the black subject in Brazil. The predominance of white men and women in journalistic, advertising, and cinematographic narratives has reinforced the imagination of a multicultural country where the black subject, nonetheless, would be an ethnic minority (Costa, 2012, p. 44). Otherwise, the small presence of black men and women in media corroborates racist discourses about the condition of being black in Brazil. The figure of the black people is associated, mediatically, with performance in sports (especially soccer), with unskilled and/or manual work, with the objectification of black women and with the figure of the domestic, protective, and submissive servant-maid—mammie (Silva et al., 2011). In the case of telejournalism, Ferro (2012) notes that stories about consumption habits present real-life characters to create empathy and closeness with viewers. However, black participants are not presented acting as ordinary citizens. White participants are normally the protagonists of humanized stories. This is Ferro’s conclusion, after analyzing 12 reports on quality of life in the elderly produced by the Globo Network program, Fantástico. Borges (2012, p. 186) asks the following question: with this discriminatory bias of the hegemonic Brazilian media, is it

15  PT—Partido dos trabalhadores (Workers Party). Political organization of ex-Presidents Luís Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Roussef, in mandate until 2016, when President Dilma was impeached, in what political scientists and economic researchers consider a parliamentary stroke (Rubim & Argolo, 2018; Bastos, 2017). 16  Interview granted to the authors.

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possible to construct other forms of discourse about black men in television programs, printed and electronic newspapers, advertisements and social networks? In the case of TV Nação Preta, black men and women have the space to share their life experiences, while creating guidelines for self-assessment of black culture and the condition of being black in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, as analyzed by producer Gabriela Barenho: More than reaching a target audience, our goal is that black people also produce the guidelines. Then, you overcome issues such as language adaptation. Our work is from black men and women to black men and women. So it is not difficult to know what needs to be shown or said. (Barenho, 2020)17

The channel TV Nação Preta, in addition to its original content, contains links to other online channels, such as: Cultne,18 Canal Preto (Black Channel),19 Papo Franco RS (Frank Talk RS),20 all related to black culture. One of the programs produced by the program Nação, from TVE/ RS (originally broadcast on November 9 and 16, 2016), and available on the TV channel Nação Preta, deals with violence against black population, especially young people, on the periphery of urban centers. The ‘Black Youth Genocide’ program is about 50 minutes long and is divided into two parts.21 The format is that of a conventional journalistic program, alternating the interview with a young black man—who tells his experiences in a poor area, living close to both crime and police violence—and a debate table with guests, recorded in studio. The panelists are a cultural producer, a psychologist (the only non-black one), and a sociologist. What is very clear, from the speeches of all participants, is the essential role attributed to arts and media in building a positive representation of black culture as part of the solution to racism and all the other problems associated with it, such as violence, social inequality, and lack of public social policies. The program also presents statistical data on the increase

 Interview granted to the authors.  https://www.youtube.com/user/Cultne 19  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCklJw4VffxmmEgH3lvlLyJQ 20  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLmaxZSvvSPDx0JNZTfkSAg 21  Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZWHKz1WXYM, and part 2: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxQiCH9WMyo&t=9s 17 18

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Fig. 16.1  Nação program, hosted by journalist Fernanda Carvalho (the third from left to right). (Source: YouTube)

in violence in Rio Grande do Sul (and in Brazil) and on the large percentage of black people among the prison population (Figs.  16.1, 16.2, and 16.3).22 Although the channel has 2.43 thousand subscribers, the episode ‘Black Youth Genocide’, parts 1 and 2, did not have many views or much engagement. The first part had just 51 views with 4 positive reactions from viewers. It had no comments from viewers. Part 2 had 858 views from YouTube users and 33 positive reactions. The only comment published by one of the viewers, who identifies himself as a teacher, congratulates the channel for the initiative and mentions that the content will be used in his classes as an anti-racist student awareness strategy (Fig. 16.4). Producing journalistic content of interest to the black public constitutes resistance to the historical traces of slavery in the existence of black men and women. Brazilian history is built upon the naturalization of violence in relation to black bodies, by the romanticization of miscegenation, as noted in the book Casa Grande e Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves), 22  TV Nação Preta, already as an exclusively online channel, recently produced a video addressing ‘the pandemic crisis for peripheral communities’, with special emphasis on the effects of COVID-19 on the black population. It was published on May 3, 2020 at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=khPshXAoTkw

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Fig. 16.2  One of the interviewees of the special issue of Nação program. (Source: YouTube)

Fig. 16.3  Statistics chart presented in the special Issue of Nação program. (Source: YouTube)

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Fig. 16.4  Comment on the content of the special episode of ‘Black Youth Genocide’. (Source: Youtube)

an influential work by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre (1986), first published in 1933. In the case of southern Brazil, the historical erasure of the role of black people in the development of the state of Rio Grande do Sul can be observed in two phases. The first would be the territory occupation with Azoreans, Germans, and Italians encouraged by Portuguese Crown to establish the nation’s racial whitening and to replace the slave labor (Herédia, 2001). The second is exemplified by the Guerra dos Farrapos (1835–1845), motivated by the dissatisfaction of the Rio Grande do Sul landowning elite with the Brazilian Empire’s fiscal policy. Guerra dos Farrapos used black and indigenous slaves as spearmen, fighting alongside the landowning elite with the false promise of freedom at the end of the war (Flores, 2010; Machado, 2010). The conflict led to the massacre of 100 black spearmen in a surprise attack by the imperial defense as an outcome, on November 14, 1844 (Flores, 2010). The episode of genocide of black combatants is reported by local ethnic media, such as TV Nação Preta, as a way of rescuing black protagonism in regional history: RS is a state that was whitened as a result of a political and social plan, but it has, like the whole country, very strong African roots. It is not difficult to show these roots when we propose to that, which was the case with Nação and the channel [TV Nação Preta] as well. The representativeness scenario here is bad, as in all of Brazil. But, if there is something that has changed and has been changing, it is that we blacks are increasingly aware of our strength, of our importance in this society and that we want to occupy all spaces. (Carvalho, 2020)23

 Interview granted to the authors.

23

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In the statement above, journalist Fernanda Carvalho clarifies the intersections between Brazilian historical process, the experiences of blackness in Rio Grande do Sul, and the diaspora of enslaved Africans in Brazil. Anthias (1998) proposes the use of the concept of ‘diaspora’ referring to transnational migration and ethnic relations instead of replicating forms that are still dependent on the notions of ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’. Although the diaspora is an esteemed issue to Cultural Studies (Gilroy, 2001; Hall, 2003), we will follow Anthias’ approach to the diaspora as a ‘condition’ and a ‘process’ within society, as it takes into consideration the spreading movement of ‘globalization and the growth of non-nation based solidarities’ (Anthias, 1998, p. 557). Therefore, we consider shifting diaspora ‘from a categorical descriptor applied to certain populations, to a fluid, multifarious way of being, formed through imagination, connection and identity’ (Budarick, 2016, p. 19). In other words, a current formulation of diaspora that fits into the Afro-Diasporic culture approaches suggested by the audiovisual content of TV Nação Preta. Journalist Fernanda Carvalho says that labeling the online channel TV Nação Preta as ethnic media can lead to essentialize its editorial line and its audience, which is not limited to minority groups: I confess that I never heard the term ‘ethnic media’, but I always considered the channel an independent and/or alternative media. Because these media, in my understanding, are those that end up giving space to agendas that do not find space in the mainstream media due to prejudice, for not bringing financial return (which is often a mistake). This is the case with guidelines linked to blackness. That is how I consider both actions such as Revista Raça,24 which already has a greater sponsorship structure, for example, such as Blogueiras Negras.25 But, there is also the Geledés Portal,26 the Mundo

24  Revista Raça (Race Magazine) is the first and most respected Brazilian publishing about Afro culture. The first edition released on September 1996 sold over 270 thousand copies. Official site: https://revistaraca.com.br/ 25  Blogueiras Negras (Blogging of Black Women) is originally a project created from the Collective Blogging of Black Women, organized to motivate the production of texts about ethnic relations and anti-racist dialogues. Official site: http://blogueirasnegras.org/ 26  Portal Geledés (Geledés Portal) is managed by Black Women Institute, founded on April 30, 1988. It is a civil society organization that fights against racism and discrimination that affects all people of color. Official site: https://www.geledes.org.br/

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Negro27 website. I classify them as independent media that address issues of blackness. I think the term ethnic media limits, it seems to me to be a media for a specific group and our channel (and also the Nação program) has always reinforced that we didn’t do content for a black audience, it was (or should be) for everyone. (Carvalho, 2020)28

Fernanda’s questioning of the essentialization created by the use of the concept of ethnic media is also present in other researches on the role of these media and their mediation of different instances of public sphere. Although ethnic media address their journalistic guidelines to subaltern counterpublics, we must take into consideration that the consumption habits and social interests of these groups are heterogeneous (Budarick, 2016).

Conclusion Fernanda Carvalho’s criticism can be analyzed from a decolonial perspective not only because it evidences the attempts to homogenize audiences and journalist practices in editorial production. The use of the concept of ethnic media may possibly cause a distancing from general audiences because of the historical process of denial of racism, of erasure of the protagonism of subaltern people—such as black and indigenous—and the romanticization of miscegenation as racial democracy. How to reach other audiences and increase the interest of people not familiar with Afro-­ Brazilian culture? It is worth asking if the term ‘ethnic media’ would not mainly attract the attention of people who make up specific social groups and/or who already have an interest in anti-racist perspectives in journalistic production. Segmented media seek to meet the demand for news coverage that approaches subaltern groups as ordinary citizens. At the same time, these media also want to dialogue with different social groups pertaining to a broader public sphere, even as a way of modifying preconceptions and ignorance about the cultures and ways of life of people on the margins of society.

27  Mundo Negro (Black World Site) is one of the first sites created in 2001 for Brazilian Black People. Official site: https://mundonegro.inf.br/ 28  Interview granted to the authors.

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Our interviewees anticipated in their responses a perception that we also noticed in many of the authors who contributed to this work (especially those from Global South): romanticizing the role of these alternative media and digital networks as stages of democratization may disguise the structural problems of access and distribution of communication and information technologies (ICTs) within countries like Brazil. Otherwise, ethnic and/or alternative media act as mediators for social mobilization processes since they foster debate on the needs faced by these unassisted parts of Brazilian society. TV Nação Preta assigns itself the task of removing black men and women from colonialist oriented social structures and from invisibility in media, humanizing them in their journalistic agendas, offering new forms of self-assessment of their culture and history. Alternative media (whether ethnic or not) are important means of communication to break with the methodologies of media production based on the Eurocentric idealization of beauty, language, cultural representation, and exoticization of minority groups commonly seen as ‘others’.

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Borges, R. S. (2012). Media, Racism and Representation of the Other: Light Reflections of the Image of Black Women. In R. C. S. Borges, R. Borges (orgs) Mídia e Racismo. D Pet Alii; ABPN, pp. 179–203. Budarick, J. (2016). The Elasticity of the Public Sphere: Expansion, Contraction and ‘Other’ Media. In M.  Griffiths & K.  Barbour (Eds.), Making Publics, Making Places. The University of Adelaide Press. Carvalho, F. (2020, May 3). Ethnic Media and Black Nation TV. Received by Melina Aparecida dos Santos Silva and José Cláudio Siqueira Castanheira. Email interview. Costa, K. R. R. (2012). When Plurality Reveals Invisibility. In: R. C. S. Borges, R. Borges (orgs) Mídia e Racismo. DP et Alii; ABPN, pp. 41–63. Couldry, N., Mejias, U.  A. (2019). Colonialismo de Datos: Repensando la Relación de los Datos Masivos con el Sujeto Contemporâneo. Virtualis, 10(18), 78–79. Deuze, M. (2006). Ethnic Media, Community Media and Participatory Culture. Journalism, 7(3), 262–280. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849606551 Ferro, R. (2012). The Black Without Color in the Brazilian’s Journalism TV. In: R. C. S. Borges, R. Borges (orgs) Mídia e Racismo. DP et Alii; ABPN, p. 64–83. Flores, M. (2010). Negros na Revolução Farroupilha. Traição em Porongos e Farsa em Ponche Verde. EST Edições. Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text, 25/26, 56–80. Freyre, G. (1986). The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization. University of California Press. Gilroy, P. (2001). The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness. Harvard University Press. Habermas, J. (2014). Mudança Estrutural da Esfera Pública: Investigações Sobre Uma Categoria da Sociedade Burguesa. UNESP. Hall, S. (2003). Da diáspora. Identidades e Mediações Culturais. UFGM. Herédia, V. B. M. (2001). A Imigração Europeia no Século Passado: o Programa de Colonização no Rio Grande do Sul. Scrypta Nova, 94 (10), 1. Retrieved July 13, 2020, from http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/sn-­94-­10.htm Jamil, S. (2020). Ethnic News Media in The Digital Age: The Impact of Technological Convergence in Reshaping Journalist´s Practices in Pakistan. Journal of Multicultural Discourses. https://doi.org/10.1020/1744714 3.2020.1756305 Katz, V., Matsaganis, M. D., Ball-Rokeach, S. (2012). Ethnic Media as Partners For Increasing Broadband Adoption and Social Inclusion. Journal of Information Policy, 2, 79–102. Machado, J. (2010). História Regional da Infâmia. O Destino dos Negros Farrapos (Ou Como se Produzem Imaginários). LPM.

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Morgan, Z. (2014). Legacy of the Lash. Race and Corporal Punishment in Brazilian Navy. Indiana University Press. Paiva, R., Sodré, M., Custódio, L. (2015). Brazil: Patrimonialism and Media Democratization. In K. Nordenstreng, D. K. Thussu (Eds.), Mapping BRICS Media. Routledge. Rosa, R.  A. G. (2008). Falhas de mercado e homogeneização da programação de televisão por radiodifusão no Brasil [Market failures and homogenization of broadcast television programming in Brazil].122f. Thesis (Masters in Public Sector Economy—Universidade de Brasília). Rubim, L., Argolo, F. (Orgs). (2018). O Golpe na Perspectiva de Gênero. EDFUBA Cult Collection. Shohat, E., & Stam, R. (2006). Unthinking Eurocentrism. Multiculturalism and The Media. Routledge. Silva, P. V. B. et al. (2011). Negras (os) e brancas (os) em publicidade de jornais paranaenses. In Batista, L. L., Leite, F. (org.). O negro nos espaços publicitários brasileiros: perspectivas contemporâneas em diálogo. São Paulo: Escola de Comunicações e Artes/USP: Coordenadoria dos Assuntos da População Negra. Wallerstein, I. (2006). European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power. New Press.

Websites Ajude a TV Nação Preta a resistir! (2019). Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https:// apoia.se/tvnacaopreta CNN Brasil coloca William Waack para comentar caso de racismo nos EUA. (2020). Catraca Livre, May 30. Retrieved July 13, 2020, from https://catracalivre. com.br/entretenimento/cnn-­brasil-­coloca-­william-­waack-­para-­comentar-­caso-­de-­ racismo-­nos-­eua/ EBC: Desrespeito com os profissionais e desmonte da Comunicação pública. (2017). FENAJ.  Retrieved July 13, 2020, from https://fenaj.org.br/ ebc-­desrespeito-­com-­os-­profissionais-­e-­desmonte-­da-­comunicacao-­publica/ IBGE  – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. (2011). Características Étnico-raciais da População: Um Estudo das Categorias de Classificação de Cor ou Raça 2008. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE. Retrieved June 13, 2020, from https:// biblioteca.ibge.gov.br/visualizacao/livros/liv49891.pdf João Cândido fala sobre a Revolta da Chibata. (2017). TV Nação Preta, June. Retrieved July 13, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= uMBXbZKpSfc Martins, M. Intervenção de Temer sinaliza desmonte da EBC. (2016). Observatório do Direito à Informação, Mai 25. Retrieved July 13, 2020, from http://www. intervozes.org.br/direitoacomunicacao/?p=29456

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Nação | TVE—Entrevista João Cândido—Conteúdo Extra de Revolta da Chibata. (2015, November 14). Retrieved July 13, 2020, from https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=y3lfcd9B0mE Regina Duarte. (2020). Você não vai fazer filme pra agradar a minoria com dinheiro público. Fantástico, March 8. Retrieved July 13, 2020, from https:// g1.globo.com/fantastico/noticia/2020/03/08/regina-­duarte-­voce-­nao-­vai-­ fazer-­filme-­pra-­agradar-­a-­minoria-­com-­dinheiro-­publico.ghtml Roubicek, M. (2020). A trajetória da desigualdade no Brasil. Nexo. Retrieved July 13, 2020, from https://www.nexojornal.com.br/entrevista/2020/02/20/ A-­trajet%C3%B3ria-­da-­desigualdade-­no-­Brasil-­segundo-­este-­economista Tokarnia, M. (2020a) Um em cada 4 brasileiros não tem acesso à internet, mostra pesquisa. Agência Brasil. Retrieved July 13, 2020, from https://agenciabrasil. ebc.com.br/economia/noticia/2020-­04/um-­em-­cada-­quatro-­brasileiros-­ nao-­tem-­acesso-­internet Tokarnia, M. (2020b). Celular é o principal meio de acesso à Internet no país. Agência Brasil. Retrieved from https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/economia/ noticia/2020-­04/celular-­e-­o-­principal-­meio-­de-­acesso-­internet-­no-­pais TV Nação Preta. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/ channel/UC_3nsZ8_PL_y_WbmJU4_t4A

Index1

A African communication education, 28 African ontologies, 29, 40 Afro-Brazilian Journalism, 239–253 Afro-Brazilian press, 241–245 Alternative, 158 alternative media, 130, 144, 172, 216, 219, 223–225, 227, 232, 239–253, 308, 310 alternative publicity, 164, 166 Anglo-saxon, 177 Aotearoa New Zealand, 5, 6, 198–210, 275–287 Asian ethnic groups, 276 Asian Latinidad, 255, 269 B Bashkir, 67, 72, 74, 76, 77, 79, 80 Blogs, 52, 234, 240

Brazilian funk, 241, 246, 247, 250, 250n6 Broadcast media, 27, 28, 53, 128n18 Bulgaria, 156 C Chuvash, 67, 72, 77–81 Citizen journalism, 3, 6, 52, 215–234 Civil society, 6, 26, 50, 142, 188, 219, 308n26 Cognitive dissonance, 203 Collective content production, 6, 215–232 Colonised minority, 200 Communication education, 28–30, 40 Community media, 2, 12–14, 31, 32, 36, 37, 50, 116, 141, 143, 144, 152, 217, 277

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Gladkova, S. Jamil (eds.), Ethnic Journalism in the Global South, Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76163-9

315

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INDEX

Community radio, 4, 27, 32, 141–146, 148, 183–185, 190–192, 279, 280 Contemporary alternative media, 240 Conventional broadcast journalism, 143 Convergence, 61, 231, 256, 268 Counter-publics, 49–62, 296, 298, 309 COVID-19 pandemic, 55, 221, 225 Critical studies, 256 Cross-border information transfers, 157 Cultural assimilation, 198 Cultural heritage, 55, 177 Cultural homogeneity, 124 Cultural identity, 12, 55, 132, 142, 143, 150–152, 175, 179, 204 Cultural norms, 60, 204, 205, 209 Cultural politics, 164 Cultural practices, 128, 144, 150, 173, 180, 203 Cultural values, 75, 198–210 D Democratic principles, 24 Desia community, 142, 143, 145–151, 153 De-westernized perspective, 255–258 Diaspora, 12, 14, 91–93, 96, 98, 99, 101, 103, 108, 175, 176, 217, 258–262, 266, 275, 278, 280–282, 287, 301, 308 Diasporic communities, 257, 269, 278–281, 284 Diasporic connections, 6, 275–287 Diasporic media, 10, 12, 13, 31, 175, 177, 217, 268, 278 Digital divide, 59, 82, 83, 145, 299 Digital era, 258, 267, 269 Digital inequality, 3, 69, 71, 84, 234

Digitalization, 82, 83 Digital media, 52, 70, 258, 277, 291, 296, 300 Dominant ethnic groups, 173, 180 E Economic challenges, 49, 57 Electronic media, 25–27, 31, 70, 77, 79, 80, 160 Engagement theory, 3, 30, 31, 40 Entertainment journalism, 293 Epistemologies, 28, 29, 40 Ethnic broadcast media, 27, 28 Ethnic community media, 141 Ethnic-cultural identities, 4, 141–153 Ethnic erasure, 115–134 Ethnic groups, 1, 4, 6, 7, 13–17, 33, 35–37, 42, 43, 52–54, 56, 61, 67–75, 77, 79, 84, 91–108, 144, 145, 155n1, 158, 164, 171, 173–176, 178, 180, 183, 184, 187–190, 192, 240, 276, 276n1, 278, 279, 283, 294, 298 Ethnic identity, 4, 6, 7, 15, 16, 50, 58, 91, 172–174, 180, 181, 284 Ethnicity, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 30, 38, 39, 53, 60, 68, 72, 73, 91, 95, 102, 106–108, 155–156n1, 173, 176–180, 182, 198, 239–241, 245, 279, 280, 285, 286, 298, 308 Ethnic journalism, 1–7, 9–18, 23–43, 59, 67–85, 171–192, 217, 226, 231, 255–270 Ethnic media, 158 Ethnic minorities, 4–6, 17, 49–52, 56, 57, 60, 62, 103, 128n19, 132, 133, 156, 160, 162, 165, 166, 172–175, 177–181, 184–186, 192, 303 Ethnic Minorities’ Portrayals, 164–165

 INDEX 

Ethnic minority media, 13, 114–134 Ethnic newsmaking, 6, 215–232 Ethnic-racial inequalities, 292 Ethnic representation, 36, 43, 52, 173 Ethnographic fieldwork, 156 European immigrants, 121, 239, 295n1 Exclusionary mechanisms, 117 F Financial challenges, 57, 227 First-generation immigrants, 258 Freedom of the press, 94 G Genocide, 14, 307 Geo-ethnic media, 50 Global context, 172–174 Global metropolises, 255 Global North, 10, 11, 13, 14, 159, 255, 256 Global South, 1–7, 10, 11, 14–18, 141, 159, 255–259, 310 H Hate speech, 69, 158, 223 Hermeneutics, 29, 40 I ICTs, 17, 69, 227, 231 Immigrant media, 3, 13, 14, 31, 145, 217 Independent reporting, 198 Indigenous languages, 3–5, 26–28, 30, 39, 40, 42, 43, 73, 130n23, 172, 173, 185 Indigenous Māori, 276 Indigenous pride, 200

317

Institutional culture, 25 Intercultural connections, 256 International migration, 159, 176, 255, 256, 258, 260, 262, 265, 269 J Japanese Brazilians, 12, 257, 259, 261–263, 266 Japanese diaspora, 258–262 Japanese immigrants, 239, 259, 261, 262, 264, 265, 269 Japanese-language newspapers, 255–270 Journalism education, 3, 23–43, 221 Journalism institution, 26, 33 Journalism training, 3, 24, 28, 31, 40, 42, 43 Journalistic norms, 5, 198–210 L Latino Nikkeijins, 257 Linguistic minorities, 10, 31–33, 294 Local community, 6, 42, 50, 55–58, 61, 142, 187, 188 Local indigenous communities, 121 Local language media, 25, 34, 41 Local media, 11, 14, 25, 31, 41, 54, 57, 73–75, 188, 216, 219 M Mainstream media, 2, 4, 7, 12, 17, 25, 32, 36, 37, 42, 43, 49, 52, 56, 58, 61, 92–95, 101, 105–108, 119, 125, 144, 146, 149, 151, 153, 157–159, 162–164, 166, 172, 177, 178, 199, 216–224, 230, 232, 239, 240, 250, 292, 293, 298, 301, 308

318 

INDEX

Mainstream races, 145 Mainstream society, 129, 200 Māori-language journalism, 5, 198–210 Māori-language reporting, 200 Māori values, 201, 203 Marginalisation mechanisms, 156 Mass migration, 215 Media concentration, 128n19, 131 Media content, 25, 26, 31, 32, 36, 41, 56, 57, 60, 84, 159, 163, 188, 224, 268, 292, 293, 299 Media coverage, 61, 98, 230 Media environment, 52, 58, 70, 74, 85, 131, 165, 240 Media representation, 15, 218 Migration, 6, 7, 14, 32, 102, 156, 159, 176, 215, 216, 223, 255–258, 260, 262, 265, 269, 276, 302, 308 Minority language, 172, 181, 184–188, 190–192 Minority media, 13, 31, 52, 62, 95, 103, 106, 114–134, 145, 176, 217 Mobility patterns, 255, 256 N National homogeneity, 157 National language revitalisation, 5, 198–210 News language, 206–208 O Objectivity, 25, 81, 164, 217, 260 Online ethnic media, 4, 155–166, 245 Organisational culture, 25 Ostracism, 118, 121

P Pacific news media, 6, 275–287 Physical marginalization, 132 Political economy perspective, 256 Political homogeneity, 124 Political ideologies, 117n8, 130n22 Post-racial society, 60 Print news media, 255–270 Private communication domains, 29 Privileged minorities, 134 Public sphere, 50–52, 58, 60, 61, 132, 186, 229, 256, 268, 278, 295–301, 309 R Racially discriminatory practices, 118 Racism, 4, 123, 124, 179, 201, 244–246, 249–252, 269, 291–310 Refugees, 6, 7, 91–94, 92n1, 96–108, 215–232 Refugees’ representation, 216, 218, 219, 222–225, 228 Regional media, 59, 77, 84, 162, 219 Regional news, 156, 162–163 Religious minorities, 158 Russia, 1, 3, 5, 67–85, 94, 107 S São Paulo Shimbun, 262–268 Self-identity, 155, 155n1, 173 Social control, 203 Social exclusion, 50, 114–134 Social mission, 2, 4, 5, 7, 67–85, 171–192 Social science paradigms, 117n8 Social well-being, 200, 201

 INDEX 

Story-telling conventions, 200 Symbolic annihilation, 118 Syrian migrants, 217 T Tatar, 67, 74, 77–80, 82 Technological gaps, 268, 269 Tongan migrant populations, 276

Translocal cultural circuits, 255 Transnational community, 157, 165–166 Transnational initiatives, 156 Turkish minority, 155 U Urban settings, 255, 267

319