American Expert on TamilNet.com Not Sanguine about Ceasefire

By Shelton Gunaratne

(February 19, Washington, Sri Lanka Guardian) “The situation in the Vanni makes me very sad because of all those civilians, 250,000 at least, caught in the middle. I hope that some sort of cease-fire can save them, but I am not very sanguine,” said American academic Mark P. Whitaker, who became known for his anthropological study of TamilNet.com early this decade, in an e- mail interview.

Whitaker, an associate professor of anthropology at University of South Carolina Aiken, said that at the time of his study,TamilNet.com was quite successful in subverting international news coverage of Sri Lanka's civil war by making "ironic" use of the discursive styles of journalism and anthropology.

Whitaker said that this constituted a particular form of autoethnographic popular anthropology that challenged professional anthropology, and in some ways sought to replace it.

In Whitaker’s view, the genius behind this innovative genre of journalism was Sivaram Dharmeratnam, who hailed from Batticaloa and also doubled as “Taraki” for The Island newspaper until his murder in 2005 at the of 45.

Whitaker said he made these claims in his study published in the summer 2004 issue of Anthropological Quarterly titled “Tamilnet.com: Some reflections on popular anthropology, nationalism, and the Internet,” one year before Dharmeratnam’s murder.

What Whitaker did was to illustrate, ethnographically, how the creators of TamilNet.com, while deeply embedded in civil war and a world-wide diaspora, recognized this aspect of the Internet and used it—again, "ironically"—to construct a site that advances their own nationalist interest.

TamilNet.com is the Internet news agency put together by a group of wealthy expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils to address the Tamil diaspora and influence English-speaking elites worldwide.

Question Recent reporting style of TamilNet indicates to me that it no longer has any authoritative status because it has been publishing pro-LTTE stories violating the basic principles of news reporting, e.g., last Sunday’s story interpreting the electoral victories of the Rajapaksa government as another reason for an Eelam. This interpretation was attributed to an expat Sinhala academic who “did not want” his name revealed. I would like to know your current views on TamilNet.com.

Whitaker: I am no longer following TamilNet.com ethnographically so I can't really say how reliable or editorially independent of the LTTE it is at present. It still gets cited by the international press, however, because it is the only news service operating in the Vanni.

Question: What is your own assessment of the current situation in Sri Lanka?

Whitaker: What I do know, since I am following the situation for journalists in general in Sri Lanka, is that the quality of reporting internally is way down. I think this is because of attacks by all sides on the press -- though, recently, I must say, the Sri Lankan government has been doing the most damage lately by barring journalists from the war zone and through its direct legal and physical attacks (and tolerance of attacks) on journalists, Sinhalese and Tamil alike.

Question: Had your long-time friend, Sivaram Dharmeratnam (alias Taraki) lived to see the decimation of the LTTE, how would he have steered the course of TamilNet.com? What advice would you give those who currently run TamilNet.com?

Whitaker: As for what Sivaram would think of all this, I shudder to think. Most likely, though, he would be out hunting up a story.

The writer, Shelton A. Gunaratne, Professor of mass communications emeritus, Minnesota State University Moorhead


-Sri Lanka Guardian