Running the race: Competition discourse and broadband growth in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

The objective of this study is to understand key aspects of contemporary discourse surrounding telecommunications development in Aotearoa New Zealand after the privatization of telecommunications in the late 1980s. We identify various characteristics of discourse on competition and telecommunication and trace how competition discourse was rhetorically positioned in attempts to produce economic, political and cultural outcomes. In particular, we argue that a race metaphor underpinned discussions about competition in broadband development. The race metaphor itself was raced inasmuch as it tapped into national anxieties about Aotearoa New Zealand’s place in the ‘developed’ world in order to motivate action on broadband policy. We also found that competition discourse in relation to broadband policy exhibited inherent contradictions in promoting control, in the form of increased regulation, while simultaneously promoting freedom, in the form of ‘unbundling’. Implications for understanding broadband growth as well as competition discourse itself are discussed.