Exploring Self Through the Other: Shortland Street's Reception in Fiji (original) (raw)

2008

Abstract

Exploring Self Through the Other: Shortland Street’s Reception in Fiji Shortland Street (SS), the oldest soap opera produced in New Zealand, is the most watched and longest running entertainment program on Fiji’s national television. Shortland Street airs five days a week in the 8:30-9:00 pm slot on FijiOne, the only free channel in Fiji. Except some informational and educational programming in the three main languages used in the country (English, Fijian, & Hindi) there is no programming on FijiOne that can classify as totally locally produced entertainment. One of the several reasons SS got the prime time slot was its emphasis on inter-racial issues. This paper examines how the population in Fiji responds to the way racial issues are dealt within a show produced in a developed country. More importantly, it studies the idea of nationhood, if such a concept exits, during the times of Political Crisis . Now in its 15th year of production, SS inspires study guides, websites, theses, and exhibitions in New Zealand. The show is aired an array of countries that include both developed and developing nations, and countries that may or may not use English as their primary language. Some of the nations that SS reaches are the UK, Sri Lanka, Malta, Canada, South Africa, Seychelles, Indonesia, Ireland, as well as the smaller English speaking island countries of Fiji, Niue, the Cook and Solomon Islands and the Bahamas. Considering nation as a meeting place where regional, transnational and global overlap, this study analyzes the content of focus groups after a viewing of one SS episode , with an audience of diverse audience (lecturers, students, housewife, teaching assistant, cleaning lady, administrative assistant), that are representative of different religions, races, educational & economic background in Fiji. The basic predicament behind this study is that in the absence of any entertainment programming which directly reflects Fiji or Pacific culture , foreign programming becomes the main showcase and reflection of identities, which the audiences use to make sense of their lives. Questions asked in this study will be: Why does Shortland Street appeal to you (the participants in the focus group)? How does SS reflect Fiji, for the audience? And how do you see your identity as an Islander reflected in the soap? What messages in Shortland Street can be translated, and incorporated into life in Fiji? How would SS be different if it were produced in Fiji? This paper will have the potential to reflect not only on understanding a nation/self via foreign programming but also how one nation is viewed in another, as understood via a TV show. Entertainment shows, have the potential, more than any other form of programming on TV, to allow identification with the characters. Of a great relevance here is the introduction of an Indian character in the show. The analysis, mainly grounded in theoretical concepts like uses and gratifications, coding and encoding (Stuart Hall), will also focus on hybrid identity and locating nationality in a show based in another country.

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