Voice of the Voiceless : The Pacific Media Centre as a Case Study of Academic and Research Advocacy and Activism

For more than a decade, the pioneering Pacific Media Centre at Aotearoa’s Auckland University of Technology led the way in journalism research and publication, publishing the globally ranked peer-reviewed journal Pacific Journalism Review, monographs, and a series of media and social justice books and documentaries. Perhaps even more important was the centre’s role in nurturing young and challenging Asia-Pacific student journalists and communicators seeking social change and providing them with the opportunity, support, and encouragement to enable them to become confident changemakers and community advocates. This article is a case study of a style of academic advocacy and activism that was characterised by its own multiethnic stakeholders’ advisory board as “the voice of the voiceless.” A feature was the “Talanoa journalism” model (Robie 2014), focused more on grassroots people and community resilience, especially faced with the global COVID-19 pandemic and climate crisis. The inspired initiative ended with a change of management to a more neoliberal approach to education at the university with scant appreciation for the vision.