Zealand Newspapers Research Articles

New Zealand's representative: Jessie Mackay, the Self-Determination for Ireland League of New Zealand and the Irish Race Congress

AbstractIn January 1922, Jessie Mackay represented the Self-Determination for Ireland League of New Zealand (S.D.I.L.N.Z.) at the Irish Race Congress in Paris. Irish people around the world were invited to attend this grand ‘family reunion’, where delegates discussed ways to assist the Irish revival, created an international organisation to connect members of the Irish ‘race’ and enjoyed exhibitions of Irish art, drama, music and dancing. Among those who assembled in Paris were delegates from Australasia who represented the S.D.I.L.N.Z. and the Self-Determination for Ireland League of Australia. These Australasian delegates played a pivotal role in keeping the congress on course. This article interweaves the history of the S.D.I.L.N.Z. with biographical details of Mackay's life in 1921 and 1922. Drawing on new archival research and material from New Zealand newspapers and periodicals, it adds to previous treatments of the congress by offering a distinct Australasian point of view. It investigates the S.D.I.L.N.Z. and why Mackay was chosen to represent it, how she contributed to the congress and what she made of proceedings.

‘They are us’: Orientalist perspective challenged in New Zealand newspapers’ coverage

It has frequently been debated that western media coverage of Islam and Muslims constructs an Orientalist image of Islam – often that Islam is a threat to the West – that sidelines and dehumanizes Muslims. However, by examining the terrorist incident that occurred in Christchurch, New Zealand in March 2019, in which 51 Muslims were killed at a Mosque, this study discursively argues that an Orientalist view was not manifest in the coverage of New Zealand’s newspapers. Focusing on two mainstream newspapers, the New Zealand Herald and The Press, this study also argues that New Zealand’s newspapers played a constructive role in their opposition to and condemnation of the terrorist attacks. This study argues that, while covering the attacks, these media outlets fully supported and reinforced the view that the people of New Zealand belong to a society of which Muslims are an essential part. The way these newspapers framed the issue, the terminology used and the metaphors they selected to construct the terrorist attack challenged Orientalist perceptions, and thereby rejected any perceived clash of civilizations. The selected newspapers were supportive of the victims, the victims’ families and the Muslim community as a whole. This study also observes that a shift in media coverage from negative to positive perceptions of Muslims is possible.

Scandal frames (Political News)

Scandal frames (Political News)

Kemalist Propaganda beyond Borders: Narratives about Ataturk in the Turkish and New Zealand Newspapers in 1938

Employing the discourse analysis of the Turkish and New Zealand newspapers, this article evaluates the Kemalist propaganda’s influence on the formation of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s image in the New Zealand press of the late 1930s. It evaluates the positive image of the first Turkish president in both the Kemalist and New Zealand newspapers and elaborates their common features and divergencies. The article also explores the “discourse clash” of the Turkish and Western liberal narratives, which suggests the presence of Ataturk’s discrepant image in New Zealand, that featured both the discourse of the “Turkish national hero” and the “rude dictator” narrative. Although New Zealand was on periphery of Turkey’s foreign policy and their bilateral relations had rather short history, the Turkish propaganda’s projection of Ataturk’s positive image on the New Zealand press had some success.

Creating specialized corpora from digitized historical newspaper archives

AbstractThe availability of large digital archives of historical newspaper content has transformed the historical sciences. However, the scale of these archives can limit the direct application of advanced text processing methods. Even if it is computationally feasible to apply sophisticated language processing to an entire digital archive, if the material of interest is a small fraction of the archive, the results are unlikely to be useful. Methods for generating smaller specialized corpora from large archives are required to solve this problem. This article presents such a method for historical newspaper archives digitized using the METS/ALTO XML standard (Veridian Software, n.d.). The method is an ‘iterative bootstrapping’ approach in which candidate corpora are evaluated using text mining techniques, items are manually labelled, and Naïve Bayes text classifiers are trained and applied in order to produce new candidate corpora. The method is illustrated by a case study that investigates philosophical content, broadly construed, in pre-1900 English-language New Zealand newspapers. Extensive code is provided in Supplementary Materials.

Francophobia in the Antipodes: France’s Grab for the New Hebrides and the Dreyfus Affair in New Zealand Newspapers

This article explores the Francophobia which characterised the coverage in late nineteenth-century New Zealand newspapers of, firstly, France’s attempt to annex the New Hebrides and, secondly, the Dreyfus Affair. The intensity of the Francophobia suggests a French influence in the shaping of New Zealand’s national identity and further illuminates the dual national identity (British and New Zealand) pertaining in New Zealand at the time. The New Hebrides incident provides an example of how this double allegiance played out.

Children for sail: British child migrants as colonial commodities

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the historical geography of British child migration to New Zealand between 1949 and 1954; a period that marked the ‘beginning of the end’ of centuries of state-sanctioned emigration of unaccompanied, poor, British children. This particular child migration programme was executed under the dual motivations of boosting the New Zealand economy through population increase, whilst ‘rescuing’ British children living in poverty. This paper seeks to explore the concept of the commodification of children through an historical account based on thematic analysis of New Zealand newspaper articles published between 1910 and 2017. This analysis demonstrates the way newspaper stories both reflect social discourse – in this instance concerning the desirability of the hosting of British child migrants – and act as a socio-technical device that shapes them – marketing the children to potential host families. The paper demonstrates how transnational geo-political and geo-economic flows of unaccompanied children complicate biocommodification and caring relations.

The weather is never neutral: Then and now

Reporting on the weather may seem at first glance to be a very light story, but it can actually be a serious reflection of how we see ourselves and our changing perception of the world. In 1996, the author embarked on a light-hearted survey of 23 daily papers to find what New Zealand newspapers’ weather reports said about their attitudes to the world. In the middle of the 2020 COVID lockdown he re-ran the survey to see what had changed.
 

The Muhammad cartoon controversy in New Zealand newspapers

This study examines the construction of the controversy surrounding the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, as it appeared in three New Zealand newspapers and discursively identifies how three New Zealand newspapers framed Islam and Muslims from an Orientalist perception. This study argues that these newspapers framed the issue of Muhammad cartoon controversial image in a way that reinforces the notion of a clash of culture between Islam and ‘the West’ and identified that Islam is a threat to the civilization. The metaphors employed, the visual texts incorporated, the terminologies they imposed appear to dehumanize Islam and Muslims, which also violates the philosophical stand of the freedom of expression. The news frame that these newspapers adopted in covering the controversial cartoon issue also supports an elite political agenda without respecting the religious norms of a minority group. However, the dehumanization of Islam and Orientalist perception of clash of cultures were mostly absent in their editorials. Therefore, the news frame conflicts with editorials’ construction of the issue in most cases. Furthermore, while one newspaper’s editorials dehumanized Islam and Muslims by espousing Orientalist perception of clash of cultures, the other two played a constructive role towards Islam and Muslims.

An open window: women’s work in the women’s press in the aftermath of the First World War

ABSTRACT The notion of the First World War being emancipatory for women has been, if not dismissed, then highly qualified. Understanding the postwar renegotiation of gender roles, however, is a complex task, especially in a society in which women’s enfranchisement had long been secured. This article aims to contribute to debates about women’s experiences of the transition from war to peace and is based on the weekly women’s pages in two New Zealand newspapers for the 24 months after armistice. The columns reveal that for a time, higher education and careers were promoted to women, before such encouragement waned and more traditional roles once again dominated the columns. There was, albeit briefly, an ‘open window’ for women in New Zealand during which time wartime experiences and disruption of norms created an environment of emancipatory thinking.

OBSERVATIONS OF THE GREAT SEPTEMBER COMET OF 1882 (C/1882 R1) FROM NEW ZEALAND

In this companion paper to Kapoor's (2020) study of Indian observations made of the Great Southern Comet of 1882 (C/1882 R1), we examine observations of this comet made from another British colony, New Zealand. We review New Zealand newspaper accounts of this impressive comet, and we critically examine the popular claim that someone from Auckland, New Zealand, was one of the first in the world to see and report the comet. We conclude by reviewing the concept of nuclear splitting and the Kreutz family of sungrazers.

Injustice versus insecurity: Climate-induced displacement in the Fijian and New Zealand public discourses

Debate surrounding climate-induced displacement has attracted considerable critical attention in recent years. This debate has engendered diverse perspectives including the North-South divide, solidarity with affected people and climate justice. In this study, the authors consider how various policy advocates have attempted to influence public discourses about climate displacement in Oceania. Using Ulrich Beck’s concept of risk, we analyse discourse in policy documents and in Fijian and New Zealand newspaper articles. Our investigation found that climate action related to addressing the adaptation and insecurity of the affected people were prominent in the Fijian discourse. However, in the New Zealand discourse, action addressing climate displacement was less prevalent, but the displacement as a threat to the country’s national security was prominent. In this article, the authors analyse potential reasons underpinning these patterns of discourses.

Familiar Yet Foreign: Armenians in the New Zealand Imagination before the Armenian Genocide

Abstract This study of New Zealand newspapers explores the portrayals of Armenia and Armenians from relatively frequent media coverage dating from 1842 and leading up to the beginning of the 1915 Genocide. In this article, we analyze a sample of more than 35,000 archived news articles and discover recurring tropes about Armenians in both local and national publications. This article breaks new ground in the field of Armenian studies by shedding light on these narratives present in New Zealand. Furthermore, this article serves as an aide-mémoire of a special relationship between New Zealanders and Armenians, which has been lost in the reframing of history.

When being positive might be negative: An analysis of Australian and New Zealand newspaper framing of vaccination post Australia's No Jab No Pay legislation

Vaccination rates are an ongoing global concern. Many developing and developed countries have rates of vaccination below rates required for herd immunity, for differing reasons. One way in which to communicate information about vaccination to the wider public is via the use of the news media. Communication agenda-setting and framing theory generally hold that the news media sets the issues of importance to society and also tells us how we should think about those issues. Emphasis framing theory however, would suggest that positively-framed statements in the media may actually be viewed as persuasive in a coercing way, leading to resistance to the messages. Further, this theory claims that negative news media is viewed as more credible and therefore, more easily accepted. We were interested to explore the framing of news reports about vaccination and the potential effects this framing may have had on the wider public over the years 2016–2017 in both Australia and New Zealand (when changes in vaccination policy and publicity respectively were on the agenda). We undertook a content analysis of 197 articles and emphasis frame, type of message, and other variables recorded. In both Australia and New Zealand, the news media messages were predominately positively framed and yet the vaccination rates of New Zealand particularly (where no policy changes mandating vaccination took place) have been decreasing. We suggest the media emphasis on positive vaccination reporting may be having the opposite effect of engendering resistance to vaccination within those who are vaccine-hesitant.

Of sentimental value: collecting personal diaries from the First World War

ABSTRACT Weeks after the Armistice was declared, Principal Librarian William Ifould of the Public Library of New South Wales recommended to Library Trustees that the institution begin to collect ‘private and official documents’ produced during the war. By early December 1918, advertisements began to appear in Australian and New Zealand newspapers, encouraging returning soldiers to sell their personal diaries to the Library. Known as the European War Collecting Project, this acquisition program was the first of its kind in Australia. This paper explores the Library’s acquisition of personal diaries written by those who served and analyses the appraisal methodologies carried out by State Library staff. This case study underscores the recent archival debate which has re-assessed the role of archivists in assessment, appraisal, preservation (and privileging) of some collections over others and argues that archivists mediate and consequently shape the collections in their institutions.

Setting the agenda in a distant nation: The 2016 US presidential election in a New Zealand newspaper

AbstractExamining the coverage of the 2016 US Presidential election of the highest circulating New Zealand newspaper—the New Zealand Herald (NZH)—this study argues that this newspaper sets agenda against Donald Trump—the Republican Party candidate in the 2016 US election. Examining all news, editorials and photographs published in NZH, it discursively argues that this newspaper overshadowed and dehumanized Trump and especially his leadership ability. The other major candidate—the Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton—was applauded in the coverage. The NZH repeatedly focused upon the activities of Trump through news, views and images to dehumanize him. The repetition, therefore, does not necessarily mean that a particular media outlet favors a particular candidate. It also argues that the media outlet of a distant nation that cannot influence its reader to vote for a particular candidate may still set the agenda in favor of a candidate.

Indigeneity matters: Portrayal of women offenders in New Zealand newspapers

A growing body of research investigates women’s experiences within New Zealand’s criminal justice system, and several studies have addressed the misrepresentation of crime’s reality in news media. However, the discriminatory depiction of Indigenous women offenders in New Zealand’s press has yet to receive scholarly attention. Indigeneity and gender are both critical factors because Māori women constitute the fastest growing segment of New Zealand’s prison population, and media discourses help shape public consent to penal policies. To address this research gap, New Zealand newspaper articles featuring women offenders were collected over a 2-year period (2016–2018) and analysed for their use of neutralization and exacerbation techniques. The findings reveal that New Zealand newspapers distort our understanding of who is most affected by the criminal justice system and what crimes Pākehā1 and Māori women typically commit. Most importantly, stories about Pākehā women were more likely to use a favourable tone (56.5%), while stories about Māori women were more likely to take on an unfavourable tone (83.3%). Finally, motherhood, as an additional exacerbating factor, was mentioned nearly twice as often for Māori women. This article adds to the body of knowledge on the portrayal of Māori people in the media, linking it to public consent to governmental policies.

The political demise of Metiria Turei: “fraud, liar, cheat, ugh leftie”

ABSTRACT In this article, I describe a three-week analysis of newspaper articles from three major New Zealand newspapers relating to a statement made by New Zealand politician and Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei. Using a “figurative methodology” I argue that the emotionally-charged language used by the media to describe Turei during this period linked her to the affective figure of the welfare mother and, in the process, constituted her as deceitful, lazy and unfit to hold political office. I consider the welfare discourse featuring in articles that not only portrayed Turei negatively but also those that appeared to present Turei in a neutral or positive way. My interest is a consideration of the negative emotion implicit within such rhetoric that works to weaken sympathy for women dependent upon the state for support. I argue that the media reliance upon this language works to constitute welfare mothers in a specific and limiting way, and ultimately led to the end of Metiria Turei’s political career.

Perception and flagging of loanwords – A diachronic case-study of Māori loanwords in New Zealand English

This paper combines a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a diachronic corpus of New Zealand newspapers built to analyse the use of Māori loanwords in New Zealand English. We report findings in relation to flagging (marking of loanwords as being foreign material in a given language) and show that it is (weakly) predicated by frequency-of-use and by semantic category of the loanword (core loans are flagged more than cultural ones), but not by listedness. Alongside this trend, we note that perceptions of writers using the words vary enormously in regard to which loans are integrated and familiar, matching neither listedness nor frequency-of-use patterns. This indicates that in NZE, loanword use remains strongly tied up with socio-political identity and language ideology, rather than rooted in linguistic factors (such as, bilingualism or filling in lexical gaps).

What do New Zealand newspapers say about food tourism?

Food and tourism are the largest industries in New Zealand. While the interfaces between food and tourism have been extensively studied during recent decades, media representations of food tourism still remain as an unexplored issue. This paper studies the coverage that New Zealand daily print media carries out with regard to food tourism. The method design is based on a discourse analysis, and it encompasses the six newspapers with major circulation across New Zealand. The study period runs from 2000 to 2016. Results reveal that media coverage of food tourism in New Zealand newspapers is focused on three topics: food culture, regional development and international practices.