Page 128 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

Conclusion

Benjamin Cole

Non-state combatants and the media in Asia
The analysis in this book has demonstrated that groups and minority communities
engaged in, or suffering from, violent political activity across Asia are attempting
to access the media. They attempt to use the media for broadly similar purposes:
to highlight their grievances; to publicise their objectives or ideology; to publicise
their violence as a means to intimidate public, elite and political opinion; and to
build popular support both within and outside of their natural constituency,
including international support from governments or other militant groups. The
ability of any group or community to achieve these purposes depends upon the
nature and extent of the reporting of their conflict, and in Asia this varies widely.
Virtually all of these groups and communities have been able to successfully
access the media and influence its agendas, through using violence. However the
level of access that different groups and minority communities have to the main-
stream media varies widely between states and even between different groups
within the same state. Since most of these governments work to deny these groups
and communities access to the media and attempt to control media outputs, the
level of access that each group or community has is primarily determined by the
extent of media freedom in each state. At one end of the spectrum, the Filipino
media gives the spokesmen of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the
Communist Party of the Philippines-New Peoples Army (CPP-NPA) extensive
access, and similarly the majority of the Indian media reported the politically
inspired anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat objectively. At the other end of the spec-
trum China has the most restrictive media, giving the Xinjiang separatist move-
ment no direct access. Indonesia is an interesting anomaly because Jemaah
Islamiyah (JI) has successfully publicised its messages in the mainstream
Indonesian media, but local elites and the military have denied similar access
to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). But whatever level of access any of these
groups has, it is far outweighed by the access accorded to their respective
governments and other elites.
The level of access that a group or community has also tends to vary between
different sections of the media, which can have a significant impact on determin-
ing which audiences see their messages. In Gujarat for instance, the bulk of the