Plenary Presentations: Shaping Media Diversity (Part 2)

After a brief intermission for morning tea, Everyone took their seats and the Plenary continued.

The first speaker to the podium to resume the conference was Rob Cover, Associate professor at UWA. He completed his PhD in media theory and queer theory at Monash University. He addressed issues such as fake news and how the circulation of fake news has arised as a result of pressure on journalists to provide content and therefore neglect fact checking.

The increasing polarization of media outlets is at the center of fake news in that it promotes the idea of “subjective truths” and that the flexibility of facts. Using the current trend of reporting on “African Gangs” in Melbourne as an example, he illustrated how fake news is sometimes crafted to reinforce a negative stereotype. The impact of these types of negative fake news stories can spread to migrant communities.

He also illustrated the new roles of migrant media organisations in an effort to combat the issue of fake news, below is a brief summary of the points:

• Better fact checking
• Better social media presence
• Assuring audiences that they are the alternative with evidence based stories
• Providing better social connectivity for communities to aid against micro aggressions

Our next speaker to the podium was Tibor Meszaros, Community Television Broacaster and Manager. Tibor has been in community broadcasting since 1982 and has spent time in both the community radio and tv sectors.

Spending a large percentage of his career in community television, Tibor spoke of the struggle people in the sector face in regards to financial support and licensing.  He then moved to discuss the integration of the digital sector with community broadcasters and the potential risks with migrating to digital media applications. More specifically he warned of the idea that utilizing new technologies to create content can face financial difficulties.

He rounded of his speech discussing the future of community television and the importance of reporting truths in community media organisations.

Jim Remedio was our third and final speaker to take the podium before the conference broke for lunch. Jim was chairman of the peak body the National Indigenous Media Association of Australia (NIMAA).

“We need to ask ourselves whether we are going to be a better country after this Plenary”. Jim posed this question at the beginning of his speech and began by talking about the conferences main theme Shaping Media Diversity in relation to the indigenous community. He touched on many issues facing indigenous media organisations such as one he is involved with, QRAM. QRAM is a remote indigenous media organisation that he stated had received no formal funding and was completely funded by the people involved. QRAM provides a variety of services including Black Star Radio, training, 24 hour news and much more.

“Empowerment for a lot of our people, is just to work”. Jim made many compelling points throughout his speech about the current issues facing indigenous media organisations and capped of his speech highlighting some of the great things coming out of QRAM, including a new Black Star App that is available now in the App Store.

If you missed any of the conference, you can watch the speeches here.