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    Construction of health among the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh : a culture-centred approach : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Massey University, Manawatu, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2023-12-21) Rahman, Md Mahbubur
    Rohingyas, the majority of whom are Muslims (followers of the religion of Islam) are the ethnic minority group of the Rakhine state of Myanmar, where they have lived for centuries. However, Rohingyas lost their citizenship rights through a state sponsored apartheid-like system in 1982 and since then they have been stateless. As a result of organised state-led persecutions and even genocide for decades, Rohingyas are now the largest stateless community of the world. It is estimated that around 3.5 million Rohingyas are now scattered throughout the world. Among them, only an estimated 600,000 Rohingyas are still living in Myanmar. However, the exact figure of Rohingyas in Myanmar is difficult to confirm. The largest group, more than 1.6 million Rohingyas, is in Bangladesh. The majority of the Rohingyas once living in Rakhine state of Myanmar fled to Bangladesh after the latest genocide perpetrated against them by the Myanmar authorities from August 2017 onwards. Most of the Rohingyas who fled from Myanmar are now living in 33 makeshift camps at Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The Rohingyas have been living in the camps of Bangladesh for years without any citizenship rights or refugee status. In this thesis, the Rohingyas are deliberately designated as refugees as they fulfil all the conditions of refugees by various international laws. According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, "a refugee is defined as a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country or to return there because there is a fear of persecution" [Article 1(a)(2), 1951 Refugee Convention]. Bangladesh is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 protocol and has avoided labelling the Rohingyas as “refugees.” Instead, Bangladeshi authorities refer to the Rohingyas as “Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals” (FDMN) and do not afford them the right to work or freedom of movement. Rohingyas who fled persecution in Myanmar have reason to fear persecution if they return and so they have been staying in the camps for years. In the Bangladeshi camps, while the local authorities and international agencies barely manage to provide minimum basic needs, the Rohingya people suffer from a lack of provisions for long-term needs, such as adequate healthcare services and education. The current study explores various health issues concerning the Rohingya people living in 33 camps of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. To discover their health issues, the localised, lived experiences of Rohingyas have been studied to identify the current health policy approaches and interventions addressing their health needs. This research employs a Culture-Centred ethnographic data collection methodology, with 41 in-depth interviews including some Focused Group Discussions. Purposive and snowballing methods were used to identify and recruit the Rohingya participants. The researcher has applied the Culture-Centred Approach (CCA) to find out the Rohingya refugees’ health needs. The Culture-Centred Approach is a theory of health communication that works through centring culture along with structure and agency and believes the community should have a voice in defining their problems and finding solutions. This thesis argues that the construction of Rohingya healthcare services at the refugee camps of Bangladesh follow the top-down approach and the services are predetermined by the local authorities and international agencies. The Rohingyas are the passive users of all of their basic needs including the health needs. The voices of Rohingyas are not being heard and there is no attempt to hear them, even when critical decisions regarding their health and life are being made. From that point of view this thesis examines the lived experiences of Rohingyas living in the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh through dialogical exchanges between the researcher and the Rohingya refugees. The findings suggest a theory of “looking from below” through the lens of culture, structure and agency that enables a better understanding of Rohingya health issues in the ground-level micro-practices. The study demonstrates that, given proper opportunities to take part in the decision-making processes, the Rohingyas can improve their health utilising the existing health care facilities of the camps. This thesis also advocates the Rohingya refugees’ participation in any community engagement process so as to enable a better life for them in the refugee camps with the limited infrastructures and minimum opportunities. This study also argues for greater Rohingya involvement in medical care to provide facilities that may address the localised, culture-based health needs of the refugee community.
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    Theorising Māori health and wellbeing in a whakapapa paradigm : voices from the margins : a thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication and Journalism at Massey University, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE)
    (Massey University, 2022) Elers, Christine
    This thesis explores communication infrastructures at the margins of Indigeneity to understand Māori health and wellbeing meanings, challenges, strategies and solutions, articulated by whānau whose voices have been ignored, or not sought. Māori health and wellbeing understandings, forged amidst ongoing colonial processes of socioeconomic and health inequities, are best articulated by Māori with these lived experiences. The communication platforms established by the settler colonial state are infused with power dynamics that determine the communication rules including who can speak, what can be said and how that should be delivered. The privileging of communicative spaces to experts, leaders, and community champions, shaped by the underlying ideology of whiteness that organises the settler colonial state, forecloses the space to those not fitting these categories. Māori health and wellbeing meanings emphasise the totality of Whakapapa as a basis for communicating health and wellbeing. Kaupapa Māori theory, and Whakapapa as a super-connector of relationships both in the spiritual and physical domains, anchored the research. Rooted in Māori epistemology, the enduring intergenerational relationship between health and land formed the basis for the participants’ understandings of health and wellbeing. Positioned also in dialogue with the Culture-Centered Approach (CCA), we foreground whānau voices through the co-creation of voice infrastructures at the margins of Indigeneity, with whānau members candidly sharing lived experiences navigating health and wellbeing through the establishment of the Feilding advisory group. The interplay of land, rivers and health is a dominant theme. Strategies for improving health and wellbeing include co-creating communicative infrastructures, such as platforms for voices to emerge at the margins of Indigeneity. The campaigns documented buttress the importance of regaining stolen land, (re)connecting to land through the collective establishment of māra kai with the advisory group. Indigenous communication infrastructures disrupt hegemonic, top-down configurations of health and wellbeing campaigns, providing the impetus for localised strategies to emerge into mainstream communicative spaces. Voice and the right for the “margins of the margins” to be listened to by the Crown are also included as taonga in article two, Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The co-creation, resource sharing and decision-making about communicative infrastructures can be harnessed to drive health equity.
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    Integrated threat theory : exploring prejudice toward the “Other” during the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication and Journalism at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2023) Nguyen, Thao Thanh Thi
    Since the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, thousands of cases related to discrimination, racism, and hate crimes toward Asian community have been reported all over the world. Utilising integrated threat theory (ITT) as its theoretical backbone, this thesis considers the impacts of perceived threats on anti-Asian attitudes/behaviours spreading at the same time as the global health pandemic. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the following purposes. First, it is crucial to investigate the why Asian groups have been blamed for the spread of COVID-19 worldwide. Second, this study investigates how a contagious virus affects different levels of prejudice toward the “other”, particularly Asians, amid a global health crisis. Third, the author aims to assess the cross-cultural validity of the existing measures to discover whether they are equivalent and applicable in different cultural settings. Finally, this thesis aims to respond to the way that how theoretical concepts and theories have been shifted in thinking about prejudice during the pandemic. The findings support previous studies that showed the use of social media may enhance factors of intergroup threat which may lead to prejudicial attitudes and behaviours. Also, the results reveal that COVID-19 is a stigmatizing disease and perceived as a danger of contact. Therefore, the study findings suggest using ITT as a theoretical guideline to predict prejudice and how publics attribute blame to a specific target group. Besides, it is significant to look beyond theories to better our understanding of public stigma in such a pandemic like COVID-19 because there might be a relation between perceptions of threats and blame attribution. Key words: integrated threat, prejudice, ethnocentrism, media richness, blame attribution, COVID-19
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    Giving health news a shot in the arm : an audience study of journalistic techniques used in vaccination stories : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Studies in Communication at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2021) Shailer-Knight, Wendy Elaine
    The risks of infant vaccination have sometimes been overstated in vaccination news stories through construction techniques that emphasise controversy and conflict, or put an undue focus on the opinions of non-experts. This “false balance” may have contributed to the growth in vaccine hesitancy or refusal around the world. Some scholars have suggested adding interpretative elements to vaccination stories, balancing quotes in line with the known evidence on an issue, or using more photographs of vaccine-preventable disease. In this qualitative research, these approaches were explored in an audience study with individuals who read three versions of a news story about vaccination risks that exhibited varying degrees of balance and evidence. The first version exposed an audience to a falsely balanced story about the risk of the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine, featuring prominent opinions about the risk. The second version used evidentiary balance, where a greater space was taken up by experts quoted on MMR vaccine safety, mirroring the scientific consensus. The third version featured a balanced story with the addition of photographs of children showing symptoms of vaccine-preventable diseases. The mixed-methods study primarily used individual semi-structured interviews with 17 parent/caregiver participants, with support from two questionnaires. The goal of the research was to determine the audience responses to the stories, and if the three variations affected feelings of safety about the vaccine, or the reported vaccine intentions of participants. The research found that even vaccine-confident individuals responded to a story alleging vaccine risks with a degree of anxiety or unsettled feelings about the vaccine. Future vaccination intentions were not impacted, but some participants expressed a desire to look further into vaccine safety in the future. When exposed to the story constructed with a balance of vaccine safety content that better reflected the scientific evidence, anxieties were reversed and participants expressed relief. In contrast, the vaccine-hesitant and -refusing participants responded to the first story by agreeing with the allegations, and considered the second story biased. The third version, with photographs alongside the story, drew mixed responses: some participants were interested in the images and these reinforced their vaccination intent; others disliked them or thought they were manipulative. The results of the study suggest interpretative and evidentiary balanced approaches to vaccination stories, as well as careful use of photographs, do represent useful strategies for journalists to use in more accurately conveying risk in contested science or health stories, and could play a limited role in increasing the vaccination intentions of readers. The study findings highlight the potential falsely balanced stories have for sowing doubts about vaccine safety in news consumers or reinforcing vaccine-refusing attitudes. This research has added significance in light of the global Covid-19 pandemic and vaccine rollouts, and could inform news media’s use of balance in contested health or science stories in the future.
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    Tsunami preparedness communication : understanding the business audience : a research report completed in partial fulfilment of the Master of Communication degree at Massey University, Wellington
    (Massey University, 2018) Sheridan, Adrienne
    Previous research conducted by GNS Science pre and post the 2016 Kaikōura Quake identified that the New Zealand public does not sufficiently understand the risks posed by tsunami hazards, and in particular there is limited awareness about the different responses required for local, regional, and distant-source tsunami events. This research was undertaken to delve deeper and generate new insights into the reasons behind that finding, specifically for one key audience: business leaders. This audience was primarily chosen because businesses play a key interdependent role in disaster response and community recovery. An audience-centred communication approach was chosen over the traditional mass communication approach most often applied in emergency management practice to date. A qualitative approach was selected because of its ability to provide complementary data to existing quantitative studies. Data were collected from twelve business-focussed community leaders, and business owners/senior managers in coastal Tauranga (Pāpāmoa) and Wellington (Rongotai), through a series of semi-structured interview conversations and email questionnaires. The data gathering instruments were designed to better understand the participants’: (1) tsunami knowledge and awareness; (2) tsunami risk perception; (3) existing tsunami preparedness; and (4) behavioural intent for future tsunami preparedness initiatives. Field observations and engagement with emergency management professionals provided greater depth of understanding and enhanced the contextual aspects of the research. The overall findings and themes emerging from this research suggest that: ● As indicated in the wider survey, there is a lack of tsunami awareness and preparedness among the business audience More specifically in the audience-centred context: ● There is confusion surrounding the roles and responsibilities of official emergency management organisations ● There is a need for improved organisational Health & Safety understanding and compliance concerning natural hazards in the business community ● Different stakeholders, even within the business audience, have different tsunami preparedness wants and needs The research also identified that: ● Some business leaders are willing to act as conduits for tsunami preparedness in their organisations and communities; viewing it as part of their identity and responsibility as a business leader. Specific suggestions for improved tsunami preparedness communication include: ● Ongoing stakeholder engagement and tsunami education with proactive ‘opinion leaders’ in the business community ● Adopting further targeted audience-centred approaches to improve the spread of preparedness messages through society ● A revision of existing official tsunami preparedness material and tsunami mapping to better meet the needs of end users, such as with customised co-developed material for business community needs in different regions ● Enhancing preparedness communication through the researcher’s ‘Five C’s Model’