Zealand Media Research Articles

Is inguinal hernia mesh safe? A prospective study.

Hernia repair surgery using synthetic mesh is the standard of care in modern surgery. Complications from uro-gynaecological mesh have been reported in the New Zealand media and there is public concern regarding the use of any mesh for any reason. This study reports long-term outcomes in inguinal hernia surgery in a large cohort of elective operations using mesh. A prospective database of patients having inguinal hernia mesh repairs was maintained in a private two surgeon practice from 2002 to 2016. Patient demographics, method of repair, the pre-operative and post-operative pain scores and complications following surgery were recorded. A total of 1711 hernia in 1366 patients were repaired from 2002 to 2016. One thousand and forty-seven repairs were laparoscopic total extraperitoneal (LTEP), 333 were open. Post-operative pain scores were significantly lower than pre-operative scores in inguinal hernia repair by any method. Only 22% of patients described no pain pre-operatively and this rose to 76% post-operatively; conversely 7.9% described severe pain pre-operatively and this reduced to 1% post-operatively. The recurrence rate for open inguinal hernia was zero and for LTEP repair was 0.81%. Inguinal hernia repair using mesh does not appear to produce significant rates of chronic pain long term. Overall, the complications from open or LTEP inguinal hernia repair with mesh are low.

The New Zealand mosque massacre: 2. ‘End of innocence’ for media and nation

Commentary: The March 15 massacre at two mosques in Christchurch on 15 March 2019 forced New Zealand’s news media to rethink the way they work, whose voices they amplify—and why. Telcos, bloggers, advertisers and the government have all reacted in ways that changed what people see, hear and read. The author examines some of the ways the massacre has left a mark on the New Zealand media.

Responding to Risk: Regulation or Prohibition? New Zealand Media Reporting of Thoroughbred Jumps Racing 2016-2018.

Simple SummaryThe acceptability of jumps racing has been debated in the media due to the high risk of horse fatality. Investigation of jumps racing articles in New Zealand for the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 seasons demonstrated that this debate was vocal but localised and short-lived. Using rhetorical analysis, two different argumentative positions were identified, linked by a common acceptance of the inherent risks posed by jumps racing. Proponents of jumps racing advocated acceptance and minimisation of these inherent risks. This position was supported by emphasising the ‘wealth of expertise and care within the racing industry’ and was contrasted to the ‘naïve opinions’ characterising those who opposed jumps racing. Opponents of jumps racing personified the horse as a rights-bearing individual, resulting in the inherent risks becoming an unacceptable danger perpetrated by an exploitative racing industry for economic and personal gains. These different lines of reasoning provided a basis for arguments for and against the continuation of jumps racing in New Zealand.Jumps racing involves a higher risk of accident and fatality than flat racing. The wide accessibility of media, combined with alternate views regarding the place of animals in society, raises the question of the acceptability of the continuation of jumps racing. Racing data and media articles from Newztext and Google news search were collected for the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 jumps racing seasons, during which the fatality rate was 5.8 per 1000 starters. Jumps racing articles comprised 3.4% of all race reporting, and the volume of discussion about jumps racing was minimal (2.9% of jumps race articles related to the continuation of jumps racing), short-lived and related to horse fatalities. Articles were categorised and analysed using rhetorical analysis to determine the main arguments. The inherent risk posed by jumps racing to the horse formed a basis for two argumentative positions. Proponents of jumps racing argued that risks were reasonable, with risk minimisation measures best determined by expertise and care from within the racing industry, labelling opponents as naïve extremists. Opponents of jumps racing used anthropomorphism of the horse to argue that any risk was unacceptable and jumps racing should be banned. Horses were attributed with rights, and from this perspective, the racing industry exploited horses for entertainment. These two different arguments were used to shape claims for and against the continuation of jumps racing, allowing both to be built upon a shared acceptance of inherent risk.

Representations of Islam and Muslims in New Zealand media

In the global media scene, media ownership is controlled by groups with political agendas. Intolerance of ‘the other’, from Islam and migrants to people of colour, show the rise of fundamentally prejudiced groups who relate well to negative media representations of ‘the other’, further fuelling financial support for dominant public voices, at the expense of those silenced by discrimination. Media studies on Islam show negative portrayals in Western media which neglect the Muslim voice. Some reasons include news culture, lack of knowledge about Islam and unawareness of the consequences from such narratives. This article identifies the growing trend of stories in the New Zealand media relating to ‘Islamic terrorism’ and critically analyses a random sampling of five news articles between 2014 and 2016 in terms of the negative, positive and ambivalent news content, both in their use of the written text and visual representations of Islam and Muslims. The tendency to use negative framing is evident with the absence or manipulation of the Muslim voice. Using the Islamic perspective of dialogue and persuasion, the theory of Ta’will, and socio-political rationale, the effects of and motivations for the written and visual news content are discussed. A case is made for a greater understanding of the textual and visual elements and more ethical reporting through intercultural engagement.

Media reporting of health interventions in New Zealand: a retrospective analysis.

To evaluate New Zealand media articles on their coverage of key issues regarding health interventions and whether it is consistent with available evidence. A retrospective analysis was carried out of all articles published in five New Zealand media sources over a 6-week period between 15 October and 26 November 2014. Articles were included if their primary focus was on health interventions involving medications, devices or in-hospital procedures. Articles were assessed for coverage of key issues using previously validated 10-point criteria. A literature review was performed to compare content with scientific evidence. We identified 30 articles for review. Only 4 of 30 articles covered indications, benefits and risks, and of these, two were consistent with available evidence (7%, 95% CI 1%-22%). For articles that discussed at least one of indications, benefits or risks, and there was corresponding evidence available, there was a high level of consistency with the evidence (89%, 95% CI 77%-95%). The overall mean value of coverage from the 10-point criteria was 51% (95% CI 45%-58%). Single questions regarding the potential harm, costs associated with the intervention and the availability of alternative options were particularly poorly covered. They were rated as 'satisfactory' in 13%, 23% and 33% of the 30 articles respectively. New Zealand news articles covering medical treatments and interventions are largely consistent with available evidence but are incomplete. Vital information is being consistently missed, especially around the potential harms and costs of medical interventions.

The Panama Papers in New Zealand media: A modern diachronic corpus assisted discourse study

The Panama Papers in New Zealand media: A modern diachronic corpus assisted discourse study

A tale of two communities: B-race-ing disaster responses in the media following the Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes

New Zealand media reports have shaped public discourses on the role of community stakeholders in responding to the devastation caused by the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes and the Kaikōura Earthquake in 2016. Anecdotal evidence has also suggested that Māori disaster management responses to both contexts received differing levels of media attention and thus inconsistent recognition within the public domain. Iwi (Māori tribes) have historically enacted kaitiakitanga (cultural guardianship) for their respective regions. Contemporary iwi remain obligated to ensure the wellbeing of local Māori as well as the broader community and environment during adversity, and act accordingly. Media stories pertaining to Māori responders' actions in the aftermath of 2016 Kaikōura earthquakes, have highlighted the effectiveness of such community-led responses as well as the importance of maintaining a unified and well integrated approach to recovery management. In contrast, very few media reports provide comment on the Māori earthquake recovery response to the 2010–2011 Christchurch earthquakes. In this article, the ways in which Māori responses were represented by the media following both natural hazard events, are examined. Media conceptualisations of Māori disaster management leadership are explored through drawing on content and thematic analyses while constructions of Māori cultural identity are considered in the context of disaster management practices. Tensions pertaining to public recognition and legitimatisation of Māori response capabilities are also documented and will inform refinement of media approaches to disaster communication as well as national emergency management policy and protocols.

Competing Views on Media Mergers: A Comparative Analysis of New Zealand Competition Law

Recent merger activity and academic commentary has renewed public interest in the treatment of media mergers around the world. Yet, it is difficult to formulate robust competition policy for media mergers when there is a fierce divergence in views between businesses and regulators as to the current competitiveness of the media industry. This paper engages with this issue by examining two recent media mergers in New Zealand, the NZME/Fairfax and SKY/Vodafone mergers, which were controversially declined by the Commerce Commission. Through taking a comparative approach with United States antitrust law and how it was applied in the AT&T/Time Warner merger, the paper suggests there are weaknesses in the New Zealand competition law framework and how it is applied. These exacerbate already challenging conditions for New Zealand media firms, faced with tough competition from large international competitors, by limiting their ability to merge and seek economic efficiencies. The paper concludes that Government intervention is required to address these issues in competition policy.

Tanah Papua, Asia-Pacific news blind spots and citizen media: From the ‘Act of Free Choice’ betrayal to a social media revolution

For five decades Tanah Papua, or the West Papua half of the island of New Guinea on the intersection of Asia and the Pacific, has been a critical issue for the region with a majority of the Melanesian population supporting self-determination, and ultimately independence. While being prepared for eventual post-war independence by the Dutch colonial authorities, Indonesian paratroopers and marines invaded the territory in 1962 in an ill-fated military expedition dubbed Operation Trikora (‘People’s Triple Command’). However, this eventually led to the so-called Act of Free Choice in 1969 under the auspices of the United Nations in a sham referendum dubbed by critics as an ‘Act of No Choice’ which has been disputed ever since as a legal basis for Indonesian colonialism. A low-level insurgency waged by the OPM (Free West Papua Movement) has also continued and Jakarta maintains its control through the politics of oppression and internal migration. For more than five decades, the legacy media in New Zealand have largely ignored this issue on their doorstep, preferring to give attention to Fiji and a so-called coup culture instead. In the past five years, social media have contributed to a dramatic upsurge of global awareness about West Papua but still the New Zealand legacy media have failed to take heed. This article also briefly introduces other Asia-Pacific political issues—such as Kanaky, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinean university student unrest, the militarisation of the Mariana Islands and the Pacific’s Nuclear Zero lawsuit against the nine nuclear powers—ignored by a New Zealand media that has no serious tradition of independent foreign correspondence.

New Zealand media camouflage political lobbying

Political lobbyists are a part of government decision-making processes, and many countries have stringent regulations to ensure their activities are somewhat transparent, especially as some use ethically questionable tactics. In New Zealand, however, there are no similar legislative regulations and lobbyists can stay undetected while trying to influence policymaking. More concerning, however, is that the results of this study indicates that lobbyists are also able to skirt around scrutiny in New Zealand media because of current journalism practices. This research’s content analysis indicates the media neglects to identify lobby organisations, thereby allowing them to operate without detection of their agenda, leaving the public unaware of who is influencing decision makers.

The Rise of Tactical Partnerships: Media Converging Beyond Ownership

This qualitative research article explores New Zealand media convergence in an increasingly digital media environment. It considers media ownership convergence in the context of the Commerce Commission’s merger rulings in 2017. However, the focus of the research is on other kind of convergences. There is a lack in New Zealand academia of research in this field, and this article aims to help fill the gap. The research maps evolving convergences within New Zealand media sector by utilising Rick Gordon’s (2003) concepts of convergences as its analytical framework. It utilises document analysis method, and the primary data is collected from academic reports, corporate and government documents and news articles. The article finds that beyond ownership convergence, tactical and structural convergences are rapidly expanding in New Zealand media sector, and these arrangements may well expand as the Commerce Commission has denied major mergers. Content-sharing between media organisations has become more common because of the increasing importance of audience size and website traffic.

Special Issue: Agenda 2020 Imagining the Future of New Zealand Media

This edition of MEDIANZ was generated from papers, presentations and discussions at the Agenda 2020: NZ Media Futures Symposium at AUT in April 2017. The Symposium was designed as a forum to encourage debate about the media and its audiences in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This was thematically connected to the electoral cycle and engineered to look beyond it. The 2017 General Election has allowed media academics, workers, owners and audiences an opportunity to re-engage with media policy in New Zealand – an area that has slipped from political debate in recent years. This is critical work, as the way New Zealanders understand the issues that shape our society are heavily influenced by the media that they engage with. In the lead-up to the 2017 general election, we have had an opportunity to scrutinise political parties’ media policies and to see into the future of our critical media infrastructure in a time of change, disruption and challenge. The name Agenda 2020 was adopted to reflect both media power in framing information and the intention of the project – to meet, debate, and develop solutions to the media issues facing Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Distorted Direction: A Critique of the Convergence Agenda in Media Policy Renewal

In August 2015, a New Zealand Government discussion paper entitled Exploring Digital Convergence was released with the stated aim of generating public debate regarding the implications of digital convergence and any prospective government response. At face value, this convergence discussion offered a vital opportunity for a review of New Zealand media and communications policy that follows international precedent. While it is readily accepted that established media structures are being confronted with growing uncertainty and the formation of new media practices invites a regulatory response, this paper is critical of the specific application of convergence in the reimagining of media policy. Despite popular currency, convergence remains a highly contentious subject in media scholarship, open to diverse interpretation. Using official government documents, public submissions and in-depth interviews with broadcast industry stakeholders, this article provides a critical examination of convergence discussion in New Zealand. Consequently, this paper argues that a convergence approach to media regulation is constrained by the assumptive logic and contested meaning of the concept and not conducive to establishing meaningful reform for New Zealand’s unique media landscape.

The Misplaced Public of New Zealand Media: Notes Toward a Future Media Scene

This paper interrogates what we believe is an increasingly urgent task: to think about ways of revitalising public life in New Zealand beyond traditional defenses of public broadcasting. The concept of the public in public broadcasting is what is at stake: we argue that the public is an empty signifier, one that can be mobilised in the service of neoliberal power brokers to legitimise media monopolies and the closure of media spaces meant for civic discussions, and by activists, academics, politicians and media pundits, who call for a return to notions of the modern public sphere as a way to fight against the increasing commercialisation of media. We find that this debate falls short for it fails to recognise that we live in liquid times (Bauman 2007), and argue that we need to shift the discussion from the public sphere to that of citizen publics. This, we believe, entails a new commitment to rights and to democratic processes that creates a scene, breaks habitus, and engages in writing scripts. It is through this new commitment that we conclude by providing notes for a future media scene in New Zealand.

Pie in the Sky? The Political Economy of the Failed Vodafone-Sky Merger

In June 2016 Sky Network Television Limited, New Zealand’s predominant satellite pay-TV operator, and Vodafone Europe BV applied to the New Zealand Commerce Commission1 for clearance to enter into a $3.44 billion merger. The proposal was for Sky TV to acquire 100% of the shares in Vodafone New Zealand Limited while the latter’s European parent company would acquire a controlling 51% stake in the post-acquisition Sky Network Television Limited. The primary motive was the opportunity to develop new triple or quadruple-play bundles of landline, mobile, internet and audiovisual content in response to the emergence of new subscriber video-on-demand services. The ‘Skodafone’ application was opposed by rival commercial interests in the telecommunications and television sectors who argued that the merged entity would have the ability and incentive to develop bundles of services including Sky’s premium sports content (notably New Zealand rugby) against which rivals would be unable to compete. Sky and Vodafone argued that premium sports was not ‘must-have’ content for market entry into subscriber video-on-demand (SVOD) services, pointing to Spark’s development of Lightbox in 2014 and the launch of Netflix in 2015. After numerous cross-submissions from various stakeholders, in April 2017 the Commerce Commission’s final determination declined the application. Although Vodafone and Sky lodged a legal appeal against the ruling, they subsequently decided not to pursue the case.Arising in the same timeframe as the (also declined) NZME-Fairfax merger application, the Vodafone-Sky case is symptomatic of several intersecting structural conditions in the New Zealand media ecology: deregulation, financialisation and convergence. On one level, the drive for consolidation and vertical integration can be regarded as a direct response to these pressures. However, there are also institutional-level contingencies which shape how structural pressures are articulated into decision-making as well as contested normative and epistemic assumptions about the definition of media markets, the nature of the public interest and the implications of the merger for competition. Drawing on document analysis of the merger submissions, this article analyses the significance of the Vodafone-Sky case through a critical institutionalist perspective and examines the key factors shaping the outcome. It concludes that while the Commission’s decision was correct, it would be premature to conclude that existing competition law is sufficiently robust to prevent public interest considerations being subordinated to those of financial investors. Rather, the Commission’s decision serves to underline the extent to which the commercial imperatives of the corporate media have sought to secure the political-economic conditions for accumulation by exploiting New Zealand’s historically feeble regulatory framework.

Productivity and changing technology

An orbital-class rocket with a 3D-printed engine launches into space from the Mähia Peninsula. A self-driving car crosses the Auckland Harbour Bridge. A pizza company begins testing delivery using airborne drones. While these may sound like things of science fiction, they are in fact stories that have been in the New Zealand media over the last year. These stories provide a glimpse of how technology is changing. Changes are not just happening around the edges but could be as disruptive to models of production as earlier industrial revolutions.

Framing mass surveillance: Analyzing New Zealand’s media coverage of the early Snowden files

This research investigates how New Zealand media framed the mass surveillance debates in the immediate months following the June 2013 Snowden revelations up to the passage of the Government Communications and Security Bureau Amendment Bill 2013. A media framing analysis of news stories from two commercial newspapers and the national public broadcaster in New Zealand (N = 156) revealed frames of lawfulness, conflict, and democratic values dominated coverage; public radio drew upon one additional frame, Edward Snowden the individual. A comparative analysis reveals the commercial newspapers’ reliance on episodic frames opposed to public media’s thematic framing, yet coverage across both samples was overwhelmingly negative. Both samples also privileged official government and foreign media sources. Together, these strategies worked to distance citizens from the surveillance debate by framing it as a political – rather than a civic – issue to be resolved by government leaders. The media’s inability to build a consensus around the surveillance debate and engage citizen voices may at least partially explain the lack of coordinated public resistance against subsequent surveillance policy reforms that effectively expanded New Zealand’s intelligence community’s spy powers.

‘Its Neoliberalism Stupid’


 A commentary on the proposed merger between New Zealand Media and Entertainment and Fairfax. A move consistent with the inexorable neoliberalisation of Aotearoa New Zealand’s media culture.

Frontline: The Rainbow Warrior, secrecy and state terrorism: A Pacific journalism case study

France detonated 193 of a total of 210 nuclear tests in the South Pacific, at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, before halting them in 1996 in the face of Pacific-wide protests. On 10 July 1985, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, killing photographer Fernando Pereira, in a futile bid to stop a protest flotilla going to Moruroa. The author was on board the Rainbow Warrior for more than 10 weeks of her last voyage. He was awarded the 1985 New Zealand Media Peace Prize for reportage and investigations into the ‘Rainbow Warrior and Rongelap Evacuation’. The following year, the author’s book Eyes of Fire told the inside story of state terrorism in the Pacific. He has subsequently reflected on a 20-year legal struggle by Television New Zealand and other media campaigners to prevent the French spies gagging reportage of their guilty plea from a public video record and the lingering secrecy about the health legacy of nuclear tests in the Pacific. In the context of the Frontlineproject for journalism as research, his work inspired a microsite—a community-driven collaborative project in 2015 coordinated by the publishers, Little Island Press, interrogating participants over a three-decade period and ‘challenging the nature of mainstream media in New Zealand’ with an alternative reader’s media model.

Review: Merdeka: Media and the case for Papuan civil resistance

Five years ago the Pacific Media Centre and Pacific Media Watch published a ‘state of media freedom report’—the first such documentation in the Pacific region—and the most devastating section was about West Papua (Perrottet & Robie, 2011, 2012). The harrowing account of human rights violations and abuses of freedom of speech by the Indonesian military and security forces eclipsed comparable reports from the Pacific, including Fiji which was at the time a cause célèbre for free press champions. The theme of this report echoed many articles I have written over the years highlighting the ‘black’ or ‘blind spot’ demonstrated by New Zealand media neglect of covering West Papua and the self-determination cause (see Robie, 2011). Since then much has changed.