Horseless Carriage & Cracked Mirror: The Electronic Media in the Pacific Islands

Abstract

Some of the problems of television, I believe, are the result of the uncritical transplantation of certain of the norms of radio. It is something like the early automobile, which was designed with features of its predecessor, the horsedrawn carriage … I want to argue that the carriage is not only horseless but driverless as well … it is my impression that television (especially in new and small nations) goes off on its own way, despite the best efforts of often capable and willful people. Television in new nation X, with all that nation's aspirations for indigenous cultural creativity seems to want to be like television everywhere else, and nobody seems able to stop it. Elihu Katz, ‘Television as a Horseless Carriage’, (1973 p381) Perhaps the most useful contribution TV can make to a community is the opportunity it offers for increased self-awareness. By ‘holding, up a mirror’ for a society, more effectively than any other medium, TV vastly increases the flow of information, ideas, entertainment, opinion, and can encourage involvement by all levels of society in the development of a sense of identity. But this is only possible if local people have control of the medium and access to it. Ian Johnstone, ‘From Closed to Open Television in the South Pacific’, (1973, p7) Colonialism is a communication system that presents cracked mirrors which distort reflections of our true selves. Lasarusa Vusoniwailala, Fijian Broadcaster, (1976, p4) I think media are so powerful they swallow cultures. I think of them as invisible environments which surround and destroy old environments, Sensitivity to problems of culture conflict and conquest becomes meaningless here, for media conquers all cultures. One may pretend that media preserve and present the old by recording it on film and tape, but that is mere distraction, a sleight-of-hand possible when people keep their eyes focused on content. Edmund Carpenter, Communications consultant to New Guinea Administration (1973, pp190–191)