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Transnational Broadcasting in the Indo Pacific
“Alexandra Wake draws on her considerable experience in journalism and education to argue an all too simple proposition. That Australia should more adequately
fund credible international media to promote peace and avert war, building trust
and understanding with those who live without a free media.”
—Barrie Cassidy, Award winning Australian journalist, Australia
“Almost every Australian knows about the ABC, and almost every Australian has
an opinion about it. Far fewer know much about the ABC’s role to broadcast into
countries in the Indo-Pacific region. Important though it is as an arm of soft
power diplomacy, the ABC’s international service has a record that may be long
and, in many ways distinguished but it has also been troubled by repeated funding
cuts that are aggravated by the international service’s near invisibility to the
Australian public—its ultimate funders.
Alexandra Wake is an expert in this field who is able to draw on her experience
working at the ABC and buttress it with reflection and scholarship. She has
brought together a team of leading contributors to explore the urgent need to
adequately fund international broadcasting.”
—Prof Matthew Ricketson, Journalism Academic,
Author of Who Needs the ABC?, Melbourne, Australia
“This book makes a significant contribution to knowledge about media in the
Indo-Pacific, a region where trustworthy information is fundamental to securing
peace inside and beyond the boundary.
Alexandra Wake and her fellow authors examine how the many different news
ecosystems are facing the challenges brought about by social media, propaganda,
misinformation, and disinformation.
The authors are calling on the Australian government to take back its role in
helping to resource trustworthy broadcasting into the region, as a means of offsetting the advances currently being made by other regional players such as the China
Global Television Network.”
—Prof Colleen Murrell, Journalism Academic, Author of Foreign
Correspondents and International Newsgathering, Dublin, Ireland
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Alexandra Wake
Editor
Transnational
Broadcasting in the
Indo Pacific
The Battle for Trusted News and Information
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CHAPTER 1
Australia’s Voice in the Indo-Pacific
Alexandra Wake
While so many are beating the drums of war in the Indo-Pacific, there is a
role for those who believe in the power of words to ensure peace and security in our region. Never has it been more important for Australia to have
a well-funded transnational public service broadcaster—free of government interference—that can broadcast to our neighbours and support
journalism in those countries which do not have their own strong and
independent news ecosystems. That means provision of objective and factual journalism delivered by traditional or digital forms, which can be
trusted when it is received by audiences, anywhere. It also requires attention to be paid to methods of distribution, not just radio, television, and
digital channels that currently exist, but to those who own or control the
technologies that are increasingly being used to broadcast to the region.
Australia may be a middle-rank nation at the bottom of the world—or
as our former Prime Minister Paul Keating once said, the “arse end of the
earth”—but we have an opportunity to lean into the unique strategic
advantage granted to us by our economic and geographical place in the
region. We do not need to be held hostage to the priorities of a popularly
A. Wake (*)
RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
e-mail: alex.wake@rmit.edu.au
1
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A. WAKE
elected president in another country or simply sign up to the whims of an
old colonial master in another country. Australia must tell its own story to
our friends in the region, be a partner to those who are our neighbours,
and support those that have not yet developed their own strong journalistic voices.
Australia’s transnational broadcaster of choice, the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), must stand as an independent entity,
act in the interest of the Australia public, and provide trusted impartial,
high-quality news and current affairs. It must never be considered a mouth
piece of government. Far from it. At times the ABC must report on stories
that do not sit well with the domestic government of the day, its foreign
office or defence department. It is the role of independent broadcasters to
question Australia’s foreign and defence policies. For example, our journalists should ask if it is sensible to buy nuclear-powered submarines which
can sit with missiles ready for months under the sea off Taiwan, or if there
is another way, perhaps through talking to our neighbours? This is why
Australia needs a broadcaster that has funding guaranteed from government, quarantined from government funding cuts and protected
from internal ABC management decisions. It also needs a guaranteed way
to provide those broadcasts to our regional neighbours, and to ensure that
the technology that conveys those broadcasts cannot be turned off by
dictators in other countries, or at the whim of a tech entrepreneur, without regard to the security and peace of the region.
This book argues that Australia needs its own appropriately funded
voice in the Indo-Pacific to broadcast Australia’s views to the world, and
to support neighbouring countries which do not have press freedom.
While there has been some increased support from the current Labor
Government for transnational broadcasting, the safety and stability of
Australia, and the region more generally, needs understanding and trust
between countries and citizens. Through broadcasting to the region,
Australia can rebuild its position as a provider of trusted independent
news, and can support journalists across the region to produce free and
fair journalism in an increasingly difficult news environment punctuated
by bad actors peddling fake news. The following chapters work together
to make the case for a fully funded Australian broadcaster that should not
be treated as a plaything at the mercy of the government of the day.
Theoretically, this book sits within a tradition of advocacy for the positive value of public broadcasting, in accord with the original BBC Reithian
standards. However, it also acknowledges the entanglement of this
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AUSTRALIA’S VOICE IN THE INDO-PACIFIC
3
tradition with Western colonialism, placing it in a complex relationship
with post-colonial struggles for independence. Australia has been a coloniser itself and through its transnational broadcasting, has, over many
decades, contributed to representations of people in the region as inferior
‘others’. While the Reithian and post-colonial perspectives have often
seemed to be opposed, there is also considerable potential for positive
integration. While colonial thinking may linger in some parts of the
Australian media, that way thinking has changed over time, particularly
within the ABC, as journalists and other staff have moved to work with
our Indo-Pacific neighbours on broadcast partnerships. To that end, this
work is self-consciously a book of advocacy for the very best of our colonial past (public service media) and continuing efforts to develop postcolonial perspectives and standards.
Chapter 2, ‘The Indo-Pacific’s Broadcast Landscape, Its Strategic and
Military Value’, identifies the transnational broadcasters currently operating in the Indo-Pacific, lists the countries being considered in this book,
and discusses the fast-changing media landscape in the region. It pays particular attention to the strategic importance of the Indo-Pacific and notes
how the rise of the People’s Republic of China and changes to broadcast
technologies have raised security concerns for US-aligned nations.
Chapter 3, ‘Distribution via Shortwave, Satellites, and Social Media’
outlines the development of broadcasting in the Indo-Pacific from shortwave to smart phones and low-earth satellites, to show how transnational
broadcasters not only need to consider how their product is distributed
but how it is being received. While various scholars have provided detailed
accounts of broadcasting history from a country-specific point of view,
little has been written about newer ways of making and distributing news
and current affairs. Drawing on literature and interviews with leading
journalists and news managers across the region, this chapter also documents how governments determine if they will use the technology to
block or support information being sent to populations. This chapter adds
to the argument that Australia needs appropriate and secure funding to
work transnationally across radio, television, and digital platforms.
Chapter 4, ‘Transnational Voices in the Indo-Pacific’, discusses the
major broadcasters that are government or state supported. It features
interviews with journalists working in state broadcasters funded by Russia
and China, and contrasts their views from journalists at Qatar’s Al Jazeera.
This chapter is focused on those broadcasters which produce news and
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4
A. WAKE
current affairs in and for the Indo-Pacific with a particular emphasis on
those that have editorial independence and show that Australia’s voice has
been missing in the region.
In Chap. 5, ‘The Rise of China’s International Broadcasting Services’,
authors Xiufang (Leah) Li and Juan Fang map the expansion of China’s
transnational broadcasting service networks. They discuss Beijing’s intentions and the implications for the world. With a focus on the English-­
language international offering provided by the four state-run Chinese
media outlets, known as the ‘Big Four’, including Xinhua News Agency,
Central China Television (renamed as China Global Television Network),
China Radio International, and China Daily, Li and Fang explore the
broader implications of the rise of transnational broadcasting services for
international relations.
Authors Xiufang Li and Alexandra Wake embark on a critical examination in Chap. 6, ‘Diplomacy, Propaganda, and Journalism in the Digital
Landscape’, of the interplay among news networks, ownership, and the
deployment of public diplomacy tactics in contemporary transnational
broadcasting. Looking at the current thinking around public diplomacy
and journalism as well as the three models of international broadcasting in
public diplomacy, the chapter puts forth the emerging model for guiding
the engagement of international broadcasting with mediated public diplomacy within the digital media landscape.
Award-winning journalist Drew Ambrose writes in Chap. 7, ‘Social and
Mobile Media in Times of Disaster’, about the practical concerns faced by
broadcast journalists using social and mobile media in their reporting, particularly in times of disaster in the Indo-Pacific. Using interviews with
investigative journalists from news outlets tasked with crisis reporting,
Ambrose examines how social media platforms have changed the way journalists collaborate with communities. He examines the massive shift in the
production of journalistic content from professional journalists to ordinary
citizens, and some of the problems that present themselves in the region,
through the increase in the availability of raw, unique eyewitness material.
In Chap. 8, ‘Fact-Checking and Verification: The Changing Role of
Professional Journalists’, authors Alexandra Wake, Drew Ambrose, and
Damian Grenfell examine the impact of fake and false news on Indo-­
Pacific communities. They acknowledge that media literacy is a problem in
much of the region and argue for greater fact-checking and verification
training of journalists Pacific. This chapter adds to the argument that professional broadcast journalists can play a vital role in helping produce
trusted news and current affairs content.
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AUSTRALIA’S VOICE IN THE INDO-PACIFIC
5
The need for transnational broadcasting is articulated in Chap. 9, ‘A
Case Study of Media Tensions in Solomon Islands, China and Australia’,
with authors Alexandra Wake and Lucy Morieson looking at how the tensions are playing out in one Pacific country. This small island state has
attracted considerable international attention since it switched diplomatic
allegiance from Taiwan to China, and has been accepting a range of aid
from a number of countries, including media aid from Australia.
Author and editor Alexandra Wake concludes in Chap. 10, ‘The Future
and Funding of Transnational Broadcasting and Soft Diplomacy in the
Indo-Pacific’, reiterating that communities in the Indo-Pacific are under
intense pressure from a range of actors, and need access to independent
and trusted news and current affairs. The boost to Australian transnational
broadcasting in the region, and specific funding for aid, is welcomed in
this chapter, but she argues it is clearly not enough to support the many
and varied countries of the Indo-Pacific, and leaves the future of broadcasts at the mercy of Australia’s internal domestic politics. Australia has an
opportunity to be the trusted broadcaster for the Indo-Pacific but needs
substantial support for its public service media work, guaranteed ongoing
funding, and continued independence.
In sum, this book argues that with the war drums beating in some
countries there is no time to waste in appropriately funding a fully rebooted
and independent Australian broadcasting voice in the region. While the
efforts of the current Australia government are welcome, and the efforts
of the ABC management laudable, the most recent funding boost is inadequate to fully broadcast our Australian voice to the entire Indo-­
Pacific region and further, that the funding remains at the whim of the
ruling government. With fraught relations between nations, and a complex political and media environment, Australia must act now to rectify the
mistakes of the past by increasing transnational broadcast funding and
protecting that funding from future government cuts. If Australia is to
meet China’s strategic ambitions for the region, Canberra must also have
the long-term vision that Beijing brings to all its decisions, including
the media.
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