Pop, Power and Politics: Kiwi FM and the ‘Third Way’ in New Zealand

In 2005 a major multi-national media company launched a New Zealand radio network that played only New Zealand music—Kiwi FM. Within a year it was clear that the experiment had failed, with the network attracting only negligible audience ratings and unsustainable commercial revenue. It was at this point that the New Zealand government stepped in, granting the network free broadcasting spectrum and significant funding in return for the ongoing promotion of New Zealand music. How this happened provides critical insights into ‘third way’ approaches to the creative industries, and in particular, local music as a cultural, political and economic commodity. Kiwi FM raises questions about national musical cultures and how artists, governments and businesses interact in these contested spaces. This article explores Kiwi FM as it moved from being a commercial enterprise to a government partner from behind the scenes, using previously unseen documents and interviews with key players in order to interrogate the utility of ‘third way’ approaches to promoting and supporting the creative industries

Bailouts in a common market: a strategic approach

Governments in the EU grant Rescue and Restructure Subsidies to bail out ailing firms. In an international asymmetric Cournot duopoly we study effects of such subsidies on market structure and welfare. We adopt a common market setting, where consumers from the two countries form one market. We show that the subsidy is positive also when it fails to prevent the exit. The reason is a strategic effect, which forces the more efficient firm to make additional cost-reducing effort. When the exit is prevented, allocative and productive efficiencies are lower and the only gaining player is the rescued firm

Understanding the interplay between social and spatial behaviour

According to personality psychology, personality traits determine many aspects of human behaviour. However, validating this insight in large groups has been challenging so far, due to the scarcity of multi-channel data. Here, we focus on the relationship between mobility and social behaviour by analysing trajectories and mobile phone interactions of ∼1000 individuals from two high-resolution longitudinal datasets. We identify a connection between the way in which individuals explore new resources and exploit known assets in the social and spatial spheres. We show that different individuals balance the exploration-exploitation trade-off in different ways and we explain part of the variability in the data by the big five personality traits. We point out that, in both realms, extraversion correlates with the attitude towards exploration and routine diversity, while neuroticism and openness account for the tendency to evolve routine over long time-scales. We find no evidence for the existence of classes of individuals across the spatio-social domains. Our results bridge the fields of human geography, sociology and personality psychology and can help improve current models of mobility and tie formation

Radio New Zealand and the Internet: Ten Years of Transformation

In 2007 I surveyed Radio New Zealand audience data to interrogate how its relatively new website was being used by listeners. That research found that ‘the majority of New Zealand users accessed the Radio New Zealand site to engage in activities complementary to the actual linear, geographical broadcast, while only around 10 per cent used the digital audio and time-shifting features of the website’ (Mollgaard, 2007). A decade later, I revisit audience use of the Radio New Zealand website with new tools such as Google Analytics and Radio New Zealand’s own reporting regime as well as other sources to demonstrate how New Zealand’s only public broadcaster has met the challenges of digital transformation. In a sense, Radio New Zealand has ‘rebelled against itself’ in creating a contemporary and captivating web experience for its current and emergent audiences, in the face of financial hardship, staff revolts and government indifference. This research reveals the key drivers of change at Radio New Zealand over the past decade as it has realigned itself to growing online audiences, the increasingly visual nature of media cultures, the potentialities of new internet developments and the changing nature of audiences in the digital age. This research reveals significant changes in both the amount of people using the website and how it is used, as well as definitive shifts in the design and use of audio and other content elements available through the website. The remarkable increase in audience uptake of web-based programming generated by Radio New Zealand is a complex reaction to critical changes at the organisation, but also changes in digital technologies and how contemporary media audiences use them. This research provides more insights into how radio is transforming in the multi-platform, and arguably, increasingly platformneutral digital environment

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