Zealand Media Research Articles

Training journalists in New Zealand: The industry view of training 1979-2002

Commentary: What skills should student journalists and then working journalists be taught? This paper is an analysis of two decades of reports by editors in the New Zealand media on what they wanted to see. The reports were part of the annual Commonwealth Press Union review of the year. They show a focus by editors on the practical, craft skills of journalism, even as academics and teachers were questioning what was best. The reports cover the years 1979-2002. Many of the same issues then are still being faced; how do you ensure training is up to standard, what do young journalists need to know, how to deliver training to journalists during their careers, and how to ensure that a diverse range of people enters the industry? These questions remain today.

New Zealand's media and the crisis in the ocean: News norms and scientific urgency

Abstract To date, no studies have analysed New Zealand's media coverage of ocean‐related threats, potential harms, or sources used for their coverage. This is concerning given that marine media coverage is linked to public support, awareness of conservation issues, and policymaking. This research helps fill this gap, examining all ocean‐related articles 2 weeks before and after the 2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report's release on the oceans and cryosphere. It first analyses the media's reporting of threats, potential harms arising from the threats, and the sources on whom journalists relied and gave voice, then it tests a report of global significance for influence on reportage. Second, it examines whether the threats covered by media align with scientists' main concerns (from the IPCC report and a survey of New Zealand scientists). In contrast to previous studies on media sources for environmental conservation, this study found that journalists in New Zealand relied considerably on scientists as key sources. However, it found that coverage of ocean‐related threats did not match scientists' main concerns. Finally, the research found that the IPCC report appeared to influence coverage in two areas: reporting on threats to island nations, and multiple potential harms. Otherwise, New Zealand's media covered the IPCC report as any other news item, reporting on it and then shifting to other matters. The lack of coverage on primary scientific concerns and that a globally significant momentous report did not dramatically impact the marine media landscape is problematic for conservation of ocean habitats, species, and broader environmental and societal outcomes owing to poor understandings by policymakers and the public, which can lead to inaction and policy failures. The potential reasons and solutions to advance communication of marine conservation issues for a more educated and mobilized public are explored.

We Did It: A Content Analysis of Australian and New Zealand Online News Media Coverage of the Bid Process for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup

The purpose of this study was to examine online news media coverage of the Australia–New Zealand joint bid to host the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Following neoliberal feminist theory and a postfeminist framework, the meanings and discourses of women’s empowerment produced in, and disseminated by, Australia and New Zealand’s popular online news media were explored. A content analysis was used to examine 77 domestic online news media articles published in response to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup bid and hosting announcement. The findings revealed that the popular online news media centered on three themes: opportunities for women and girls in sport, legacy outcomes, and commercial benefits. However, there was a clear lack of critical engagement from the news media over the bid’s initiatives, claims, and promises. Only 2.5% of all online news media coverage engaged in meaningful discussion, analysis, and critique of the purported social and economic impacts of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. This study raises critical questions about the role of Australian and New Zealand (sport) media in (a) serving as a prominent forum through which the As One 2023 bid committee could circulate strategically crafted, preferred narratives regarding the event’s legacies and impacts to manufacture consent and public support for event hosting and (b) propagating a postfeminist celebration of women’s sport mega events that uncritically circulates specious claims of women’s empowerment, participation growth, and commercial benefits of the event.

P098 "It's just [complicated] sleep": Discourses of sleep and ageing in the media

Abstract Background Sleep disturbances have been reported to increase with older age. However, sleep-related beliefs and practices also appear to change with ageing and disease, having implications for measurement and management of sleep among older people. Analysis of sleep-related messaging within mainstream media contributes to understanding social discourses of sleep and ageing. Method Texts from New Zealand’s main free online news source “Stuff” were collated using key words “sleep” together with ''ageing'', ''older'', ''elderly'', or ''dementia'' between December 2018 and December 2021. A total of 38 relevant articles were collated. A critical discourse analysis was used to describe the texts then interpret them in relation to discursive practices and wider social explanations. Findings Texts were categorised under basic contextual themes: general ageing, disease, beauty, and treatments. Discursive constructions described an inevitable decline of sleep with ageing, including the tensions between a likely physiological decline alongside individual failures to achieve good sleep; sleep’s role as both a remedy and risk for diseases (such as dementia); and the simplification of solutions for self-managing sleep alongside recognition of the complexity of sleep. Conclusions Social discourses of sleep and ageing within the mainstream New Zealand media were subtle and contradictory. Punctured with tensions between endorsing sleep practices and purchases to prevent age-related decline whilst also asserting that decline is inevitable due to the complexity of the ageing body and modern society. Findings will inform future research in the field of sleep as a concept and practice among older people.

Googling it: While news search results can affect newsrooms’ perception of social issues, journalists mainly rely on it for complementary information

This article investigates the ramifications of search engine algorithms for journalism practice and its professional commitment to serving the public interest. Taking a discipline-transcending approach that combines quantitative data analysis with an exploration of the social forces shaping knowledge production in journalism, we examine a case study involving New Zealand media’s coverage of economic recession. This inquiry addresses the question of how journalists navigate the terrain of algorithms and respond to the challenges posed by programme-based news production in relation to their professional norms. Our study highlights the significant role of search engines, particularly Google, in shaping the journalistic newsgathering process and, consequently, public understanding of social issues. The computer-assisted analysis of Google’s ‘recession’ news selection revealed distinct patterns in the distribution of news content and geographical bias towards the United States within the selection algorithm. Ethnographic research at one Auckland newsroom revealed that Google Search is a fundamental tool for journalists, albeit used primarily for basic information-gathering and fact-checking rather than in-depth investigative work.

Shifting the dynamics in popular culture on Islamophobic media narratives

Prior to the Christchurch mosque massacres on 15 March 2019, studies on New Zealand media showed that representations of Islam and Muslims were largely negative. Muslims were depicted as terror-prone and a threat to democracy and free speech. This popular media culture of negative framing is not unique to New Zealand as global media studies show a consistent and disproportionately high negative labelling of Islam and Muslims compared with adherents of other faiths. This article focuses on the role of the government and media to shift the dynamics in popular culture in Islamophobic media narratives. A critical analysis of the actions of these powerful sectors at the Conference on Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism (CTVE) in 2021 showed an opportunity to address issues management and culture competence that could change the way Muslims and Islam perceived and represented the media.

Sport, Nationalism, and the Narration of Cultural Scripts: The Death of Colin Meads and the New Zealand Imagination

This paper explores the narrativization of sports icons within the context of nationalist discourse. The authors explore New Zealand media coverage surrounding the death of Colin Meads in August 2017. Meads, a former all Black rugby captain, coach and administrator, media pundit, and corporate spokesman, was a high-profile public icon. His death was met with saturation national media coverage. The authors’ cultural studies informed analysis of Meads’ narrativization is twofold. First, the authors contextualize the cultural scripts surrounding him prior to his death. Second, they critically read media narrativization following his death within the context ofnarratives of nation. They explore this mediation in the context of intersecting themes of rurality, Whiteness, masculinity, and rugby. Print media coverage widely articulated Meads to the nation as the archetypical “kiwi,” liturgized his contribution to rugby during and after his playing career, and his “no-nonsense” character. In doing so, it reinforced a selective national narrative, premised on a combination ofbothremembering and forgetting. This narrative reaffirms White-settler, male heroism, and rugby as central to New Zealand nationhood and assuages contemporary national anxieties and the cultural hierarchies they entangle.

Family violence in the news: an analysis of media reporting of family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT This study investigates whether coverage of family violence that resulted in a death event in New Zealand mainstream media is biased across a range of key factors – namely the gender, ethnicity and age of victims, as well as the victim’s relationship to the primary aggressor. Our results are derived from a cohort of 946 articles published online by New Zealand media outlets. Analysing the number of media articles relating to victims from each group (exposure), the polarity of language used within the articles (sentiment) and their online presence (prominence), we find that although media coverage is generally quite equitable, certain groups of victims are severely under-represented in terms of the media coverage afforded to them. In addition, there are significant differences in the sentiment of articles written about victims from different groups. This study, therefore, identifies an opportunity for raising accurate community understanding of family violence in New Zealand and for supporting victims through objective media coverage.

Racism and silencing in the media in Aotearoa New Zealand

Racism in the Aotearoa New Zealand media is the subject of scholarly debate that examines how Māori (Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand) are broadcast in a negative and demeaning light. Literature demonstrates evolving understandings of how the industry places Pākehā (New Zealanders primarily of European descent) interests at the heart of broadcasting. We offer new insights by arguing that the media industry propagates a racial discourse of silencing that sustains widespread ignorance of the ways that Pākehā sensibilities mediate society. We draw attention to a silencing discourse through one televised story in 2018. On-screen interactions reproduce and safeguard a harmonious narrative of settler–Indigenous relations that support ignorance and denial of the structuring force of colonisation, and the Television Code of Broadcasting Practice upholds colour-blind perceptions of discrimination and injustice through liberal rhetoric. These processes ensure that the media industry is complicit in racism and the ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples.

An intersectional approach to media coverage of politics in New Zealand: The case of Metiria Turei and Paula Bennett

This study analyses media coverage of two Māori women politicians in Aotearoa New Zealand. This article adopts an intersectional lens to critically examine the discriminatory ideologies at play in mainstream New Zealand media coverage of Metiria Turei and Paula Bennett. The analysis reveals that although the coverage examined in this article presents the Māori heritage of the two women very differently, the coverage pays close attention to both women’s gender and bodies while simultaneously diminishing their individuality by folding them into stereotypes. Classification and disempowerment of ‘stroppy women’/‘stirrer Māori’ are enabled by the intersection of racist, sexist and classist discourses.

Look at her, it’s the same old story

ABSTRACT The silencing of women’s voices and the objectification of women’s bodies have long been identified as ways in which society can facilitate men’s use of violence against them. The purpose of this article is to further this argument using salient examples and analyses from two different media forms exploring ways they might reinforce rape culture and thus violence against women in New Zealand. Drawing from two separate studies, this article looks at newspaper representations of rape and women on magazine covers; critically examining the depiction of women in these two distinct media forms across the same 40-year period (1975–2015). Both studies show silencing and objectification within the media forms in both obvious and abstract ways. Taken together, the findings provide insights into the pervasive nature of silencing and objectification of women in New Zealand media.

Mental health and the news media in Aotearoa New Zealand: Key informant perspectives

INTRODUCTION: Without personal experience or specific background knowledge of an issue, individuals exposed to news media are limited in their ability to gauge the accuracy of media content. The perception of people with mental illness as dangerous or incompetent allows for discrimination to occur, often resulting from inaccurate portrayals in the media.METHOD: A small, qualitative study was undertaken to explore key informant perspectives on the representation of mental health issues in the current Aotearoa New Zealand media context. Eight semi-structured interviews were carried out with key informants; each participant provided at least one of the following perspectives: mental health professional, mental health advocate, mental health consumer and/or media personnel.FINDINGS: The participants in this research found that news media strongly influence how the public views mental health, but believe media representation has improved in recent years. However, participants described an absence of stories illustrating successful interventions and felt that the portrayal of mental illnesses are still misrepresented and stigmatised by the media. Mental health services and mental health professionals were seen as poorly represented by the news media, which was thought to deter help-seeking and hinder trust.CONCLUSION: Public attitudes towards mental health have a significant impact on the lives of those experiencing mental distress. The news media have the ability to change public perceptions; however, this influence can be either harmful or helpful. Mental health stories need to be consistently contextualised and use inclusive language in order to a make a positive large- scale change in public attitudes.

The negation of babysitting: Deconstruction and care in early childhood

In April 2020, during the COVID-19 Pandemic, New Zealand media reports revealed competing discourses of care in education. Specifically, the media narrated an apparent resistance to care evident in a primary and secondary teacher resistance to a return to school. While the resistance was clearly and explicitly concerned with care for teachers and their communities, at the same time a negation of caring occurred in the positioning of babysitting and caregiving as unreasonable activities for teachers. In this paper these different discourses are explored through a deconstruction of care. The first section of this paper explores deconstruction through a range of texts that explain and explore Derrida’s thinking. The paper then presents a positioning of care through one news media article. An analysis of one text that speaks to the meaning and problem of care in early childhood provides not just a reading of care in and as education, but also a reading of deconstruction as care. Through a reading of deconstruction as care, this paper offers an understanding of the positioning of caring in relation to teaching. Taking deconstruction as more than an attempt to make a case for caring (the saving of caring so to speak), this paper also takes up the challenge of the relationship between caring and not-caring, or the uncaring. Caring in relation to uncaring provides a way past the prescription and exploitation of caring as teaching and recognises the limits of a professionalisation of caring for practices of care. In the sense that deconstruction is care, the paper concludes with a re-imagining of teacher education through deconstruction.

Assisted dying in the Aotearoa New Zealand media: a critical discourse analysis

ABSTRACT Death by assisted dying has long received media attention and remains a current socio-political health topic today. For many, understanding assisted dying is derived from media representations that position health, illness and dying in particular ways. These various stories shift and shape how we understand ourselves. With a Foucauldian lens, we explore what the media made possible for people to think, feel and do in relation to this phenomenon. From media articles collated in early 2018 we identify representations of a particularly individualised “autonomy’ which intersects with assisted dying as a ‘right’ and necessary ‘choice’ to control when, where and how to die. Those with mental illness were excluded from this discourse for lacking a ‘rational’ sensibility. From the autonomous right to choose discourse, two subject positions arose; my choice and mine alone and the defender of rights. A counter-discourse positioning assisted dying as perilous for society and the subject position of concerned protector emerged in resistance to the autonomous right to choose. A particularly Western and privileged subject was representative of those in favour of legitimating the practice. Non-Western understandings were absent, religious and spiritual considerations marginalised, the disabled body let die, and the older adult voice silent.

Mission impossible? Research praxis and activist interventions in New Zealand media policy

Over the last two decades, public media arrangements in many countries have been eroded by unsympathetic governments cutting subsidies/license fees or, in some cases, actively dismantling their institutional arrangements. The proliferation of online/mobile/interactive media has legitimated a view among some policy-makers and vested interests within the private media sector that public service provisions are an anachronism in the digital media ecology. In such a context, critical media scholars whose research is intended to not only inform the academic community but influence public policy face significant challenges. Drawing on the author’s own experience of praxis in the New Zealand media policy sector, the article presents three case studies: the campaign to save TVNZ7, the campaign to unfreeze Radio New Zealand’s funding and the Fairfax-NZME merger. These serve to highlight some of the practical and normative challenges for research praxis, particularly those encountered by scholars who engage with pro-public service media advocacy coalitions. In doing so, the analysis will identify several points of tension that arise when research praxis attempts to extend beyond describing the world to trying to influence the policies and practices being studied. These include questions of whether it is possible/desirable to sustain academic objectivity/neutrality in seeking to develop stakeholder relations or whether commitment to an ideological or politically partisan position is necessary or problematic. The complexities and compromises of seeking access to policy-makers as an ‘insider’ as opposed to neutral ‘outsider’ are also considered. The analysis concludes that there is no necessary contradiction between critical praxis and scholarly independence and, indeed, that praxis may serve to improve the quality of academic scholarship through stakeholder engagement.

The Christchurch mosque shooting, the media, and subsequent gun control reform in New Zealand: a descriptive analysis

In March 2019, a mass shooting at two Christchurch mosques, livestreamed to Facebook, resulted in the deaths of 51 people. Psychologically, this served as a focusing event with high threat salience, shocking a country unused to gun violence despite its comparatively lax firearm legislation. The unprecedented reluctance by the New Zealand media to feature the shooter as a protagonist or even publish his name, concentrating instead on victims and societal issues, helped promote a sense of collective responsibility for change. This was strongly modeled by political leaders. Within weeks, new gun control laws were introduced with bipartisan support. We present this as a national case study, considering psychological and societal enablers for legislative reform in response to extreme gun violence. The shooting also raised the intractable problem of the internet allowing terrorists to promulgate violent content and extremist ideology with regulation in this area harder to achieve than gun control.

New Zealand's Zombie Defamation Survival Guide: Solving the Grave State of Defamation Law with a Single Publication Rule

Zombie has long been the term used to describe the application of the multiple publication rule to defamation claims. While in New Zealand a defamation claim can only be brought within two years of publication of the defamatory statement, the multiple publication rule means that every time a new person accesses the defamatory material, there is a new publication. This renders the two-year limitation effectively redundant for online publications. Although both Australia and Canada take the approach used by New Zealand courts, the United Kingdom has followed the approach of the United States in adopting the single publication rule. The single publication rule means that publication occurs from the very first publication only. This paper argues that New Zealand should follow the United Kingdom in adopting the single publication rule to protect publishers from ostensibly indefinite liability. Firstly, this paper will outline the rule in New Zealand and how it applies. It will then compare this to the single publication rule as applied in the United States, pointing to the United Kingdom as an example of a jurisdiction which has implemented the single publication rule through statute. The paper will then highlight the problems with the multiple publication rule and why New Zealand should change, including examining the unjust consequences that could arise from failing to change the rule to meet modern technological advancements, how such change would relate to the New Zealand media law climate and close potential gaps in our system and other policy considerations. Finally, it will assess whether the New Zealand courts are ready and willing to accept a single publication rule, including considering why Australia and Canada have not followed the approach of the United Kingdom.

News media and the Muslim identity after the Christchurch mosque massacres

ABSTRACT This article discusses news about Muslims via one researcher’s social media news feeds after the Christchurch tragedy. Using intercultural and Islamic communication theories, the contents of several news stories are analysed for their contribution to the Muslim person’s identity. Findings reveal four main categories: Muslim women and hijab; religion and terrorism; media, government, democracy and the politics of oppression; and representation of the Muslim voice. Substantial news content also depicts peace, love and forgiveness in its presentation of the human angle in New Zealand media. There is a significant shift from the negative othering rhetoric of international media to an inclusive national approach in the tone of the New Zealand press. However, Muslim narratives reveal that structural discrimination and systemic oppression do exist and pose safety and identity challenges. While news continues to divide and unite people depending on the press agenda, their depictions of Islam and Muslims have potentially major influences and serious consequences on the Muslim person’s identity within the local and global Muslim communities.

How have MOOCs been portrayed in the New Zealand public media?

Reports of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) hit the news media from 2012 with messages of disruption to existing higher education systems. However, several years on their role is still evolving. Given the power of media to influence acceptance of new ideas, this research investigates New Zealand news media representations of MOOCs to the public. A document analysis of twenty seven newspaper articles published in New Zealand mainstream media between January, 2012 and December, 2016 revealed similar results to overseas research, in that MOOCs are predominantly reported as a catalyst for necessary change to higher education, with higher education commonly discussed in commodified terms. Previously published research focuses on the association of MOOCs and elite universities, whereas this research reveals that MOOCs are considered experimental within New Zealand’s higher education system. While New Zealand media present a more balanced perspective than previous research, dominant themes of MOOCs as revolutionising are likely to foster the public’s acceptance of radical changes to existing higher education structures.

The proximity filter: the effect of distance on media coverage of the Christchurch mosque attacks

ABSTRACT The intense media coverage in New Zealand and Australia of the Christchurch mosque attacks exhibited significant disparity in editorial decision-making between the two countries. This research interrogates the different approaches taken in newsrooms and how these differences were manifested in broadcasts and publications. New Zealand media were focused largely on empathetic coverage of victims and resisted the alleged gunman's attempts to publicise his cause while their Australian counterparts showed no such reluctance and ran extended coverage of the alleged perpetrator, along with material ruled objectionable in New Zealand. It finds the editorial focus in each case exhibits the effect of proximity, identified in literature on empirical ethical decision-making as a factor in applied ethicality. The authors conclude that a proximity filter was used by New Zealand media who identified the victims as part of their own community, but the events of 15 March 2019 were seen as ‘foreign’ by Australian journalists who used perceived distance as justification for extremely graphic content.