Age and Environmental Citizenship: A Case Study of Media Coverage of the 2019 Local Body Elections in New Zealand

Amber Hammill,Verica Rupar,Wayne Hope

doi:10.3390/journalmedia2030019

Abstract

Environmental issues in the coverage of the elections are usually framed in relation to voters’ attitudes towards the specific problems, for instance, water quality or land use. The environment is not given standing in these discussions, rather, it is an instrument or resource for voters. In this article we investigate the relationship between news and politics by looking at media coverage of the 2019 local body elections in New Zealand. We follow a call to put place at the centre of journalism research and to investigate the emerging forms of environmental citizenship. We focus on a media market at each end of New Zealand’s two main islands and relate analysis of the coverage of local body elections coverage to related social groups engaged in environmental issues. The objective of our article is to consider the extent to which age plays a role in media representation of environmental issues in the context of local body elections.

Highlights

Introduction the2019 Local Body Elections in NewMany domains of social life consider local to be of a less importance than national.In politics, despite a notable transformation towards “bringing government closer to the people so as to promote greater participation and active citizenship” (Reid 2015, p. 45), voters weigh participation in local body elections as being of minor importance
In this article we investigate the relationship between news, politics and diversity by looking at the media coverage of 2019 local body elections in New Zealand
We focus on a media market at each end of New Zealand’s two main islands and locate analysis of the coverage of the local body elections as they relate to social groups referred to in the media coverage of environmental issues

Summary

Introduction

Introduction the2019 Local Body Elections in NewMany domains of social life consider local to be of a less importance than national.In politics, despite a notable transformation towards “bringing government closer to the people so as to promote greater participation and active citizenship” (Reid 2015, p. 45), voters weigh participation in local body elections as being of minor importance. 2019 Local Body Elections in New. Many domains of social life consider local to be of a less importance than national. 45), voters weigh participation in local body elections as being of minor importance. In the case of New Zealand, the voter turnout at the 2020 national elections was 81.54 percent (New Zealand Electoral Commission 2020), while at local body elections, only 42.2 percent of people cast their vote (New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs 2019). While there are national issues, pertaining to the democratic process, for instance, campaigns in local body elections are organised around issues that are inherently close to home—locally and geographically. While there are issues common to different local bodies and regions, they struggle to reach the national audience (Baker et al 2017) and rely heavily on local reporting to illuminate them. Local journalism is described in terms of the boundaries between communities that are served

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Results

Conclusion