MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY: CONCEPT AND PACIFIC ISLANDS CASE STUDY

The concept of media anthropology, as it is perceived by this writer, was presented by illustrating its methods and its purpose through a case study in the Pacific Islands.;Placement of study information in both an academic and a public forum was used to test these two hypotheses.;A secondary hypothesis (H-3) stated: Test study data themselves can be made more thorough by applying media anthropological methods to the design and execution of the research. H-3 was to be accepted if any important piece of information was obtained from either the journalistic portion or the anthropological portion of the study that could not have been discovered using either method alone.;The case study involved a study within this presentation of media anthropology and deserves attention apart from it. The case study was a small part of a three-year-long research project of the East-West Communication Institute (EWCI), East-West Center, Honolulu, to discover the nature of the flow of international news and information among the Pacific Islands and between the islands and metropolitan countries that rim the Pacific.;Media anthropology was defined as the application of the concepts of anthropology to information; and the dissemination of that information to the general public. Two primary hypotheses were tested: (H-1) The information and insights of anthropology (and, thus, the possibility of an "anthropological perspective") will reach a wider audience by adding journalistic channels, styles and purposes to the traditional methods of researching and disseminating the information of a social science research study, and will do so without sacrificing anthropology's original academic function. (H-2) Journalism will broaden its educational capability by adding anthropological methods, subject matter, and perspective in researching and disseminating some of its information, and do so without abandoning its original journalistic purpose.;Content analysis of twelve island and rim-country newspaper, and sixteen months' participation and observation in Hawaii and in six South Pacific islands were the methods used. Two hypotheses were tested to help answer questions raised about information flow in developing countries by a modified Galtung-EWCI theory: (h-1) The flow of news will be primarily a one-way flow, from Center or Intermediate Center countries to Periphery countries. (h-2) There will be little news flow between Periphery countries and even less between British, American, and French blocs. Several other EWCI or Galtung ideas were considered.;Findings. Two primary Hypotheses concerning media anthropology were accepted. An article ("The News--A Pacific Perspective") was published in The New Pacific, a general interest magazine published in Honolulu. An academic paper with the same title was presented at the EWCI Flow of News Workshop in May 1978 and is included in the project reports with only slight modifications. There were additional academic and public uses of study information.;H-3 was accepted primarily due to the observation of a "newspaper ring" which exists among island newspapers (reminding the writer of the kula exchange ring observed by Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands).;Findings of the Pacific Islands data supported the EWCI-Galtung theory and both hypotheses were accepted by this research.;The conclusion of this study is that media anthropology is a workable profession. The case study illustrated how the media and anthropology might work together to enhance the development and usefulness of both academic studies and the communications media.