Facing up to Facebook: politicians, publics and the social media(ted) turn in New Zealand

Social media have an increasingly important place in the lives of citizens, and their potential to expand the reach of communication messages beyond individual networks is attractive to those looking to maximise message efficiency. The influence of Facebook in Obama’s 2008 campaign success galvanised many politicians into taking it seriously as a campaign tool. Our study explored the Facebook wall posts (1148 in total) of New Zealand Members of Parliament (MPs) leading up to the 2011 general election to determine posting behaviours and differences. Among other things, we found that women posted more frequently than men and that Labour MPs posted more than their National counterparts. Additionally, most politicians do not invite dialogue with readers of their posts, rarely get involved in comment threads and mostly take a monologic approach, using Facebook as a way of broadcasting information rather than as a medium enabling two-way flow. In other words, same old, same old

Reporting rural news : perspectives on public radio restructuring : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Business Studies at Massey University

This thesis looks at the restructuring of the rural programming on New Zealand's public radio station. National Radio. The overall aim is to provide a holistic account of the changes which includes establishing their impact on programme content, and documenting the reaction of the farming community, and other stakeholders (eg. rural reporters) to them. Content analysis, defined by Berelson as "a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication" (quoted in Kaid and Wadsworth, 1989, p.198), explores what the restructuring has meant for the content of Rural Report and Country Life (previously Country Saturday). While content analysis is central to the research, it is combined with other methodologies, namely a survey questionnaire and qualitative interviews, in an effort to more fully investigate the changes. The viewpoints of key groups are explored through a mail survey and qualitative interviews. Conference lists maintained by the Faculty of Agriculture at Massey University are used to survey members of the farming community as to their attitude toward rural programming and aspects of the restructuring. The interviews allow for input from one former and two current rural reporters, Rangitikei MP Denis Marshall, and Radio New Zealand's Programme Commissioner. The results demonstrate that the restructuring has impacted upon programme content (especially in regard to the number of stories covered, place of origin, story length and depth, issue coverage, source speaking time and use of the interview technique), and show differences between mainstream and specialist rural coverage which suggest Rural Report and Country Life are vital if National Radio is to maintain a comprehensive rural news service. Survey respondents are overwhelmingly disappointed with the restructuring and its results, while indicating that National Radio is one of the three most important sources of news for them, and the single most important broadcaster. In the interviews, reporters suggest the changes were motivated by management policy (particularly their desire to use the reporters' skills elsewhere, and a move toward de-specialising generally) and budgetary constraints. Radio New Zealand justifies the changes on the basis of income loss and the need to better cover the regions, and former Rural Report editor Peter Burke, and Rangitikei MP Denis Marshall, address wider issues, such as urbanisation. The financial and structural problems being faced by public radio have been referred to throughout the research, and these resource issues make it futile to recommend that the rural news service be restored to its previous level. However, the thesis is important for its use of content analysis to establish characteristics of rural news on National Radio, both before and after the restructuring, and its collection of a range of perspectives on the change. Despite the fact that the agricultural sector remains vital to the economic success of New Zealand, and is entwined with the history and psyche of those who live here, rural news has not been the subject of empirical inquiry here. Therefore, it is also hoped that the research, in identifying key areas of interest, will act as a springboard for further research into agricultural news

A ‘heart to heart’ on race relations: TVNZ’s State of the Nation as public sphere discourse

This article considers TVNZ's audience discussion programme, State of the Nation, as a moment of public sphere discourse. The programme's pre-broadcast branding and deliberate construction of a bicultural television space is examined, while particular attention is given to the hosts' framing of the discussion and the programme was a questionable public sphere contribution, partly because the structuring of the discussion reinforced the established polarities of the Aotearoa/New Zealand 'race relations' debate, over-privileged producer control at the expense of audience participation and was, more generally, indicative of the limits of TVNZ's post-Charter commitment to public service broadcasting.&nbsp

Women, politics and the media : the 1999 New Zealand general election : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Communication & Journalism at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

New Zealand's shift to a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system of government contained a two-fold promise for women. Explicitly, there was the prospect of increased electoral diversity, meaning more women in Parliament, and implicitly, there was a promise of better political reporting and therefore qualitatively better coverage of women. The country's second proportional representation election campaign, in 1999, appeared to deliver on these promises. The 1999 General Election was historically significant because it featured two women - incumbent Jenny Shipley and Labour leader Helen Clark - contesting the role of Prime Minister. Female politicians also featured in important electorate races, and made the headlines during New Zealand First's gender-based list controversy. According to one media commentator, women determined the outcome, dominated the news and changed the nature of the campaign (Harris, 2000). However, popular opinion that women influenced the character of the campaign, and especially that they dominated the campaign, is in contrast to empirical research, from around the world, which has consistently suggested women politicians receive less news coverage, are "framed" or packaged in stereotypically feminine ways, and ultimately disadvantaged by traditional news coverage (e.g. Bathla, 1998; Braden, 1996; Gidengil & Everitt, 1999; Herzog, 1998; Norris, 1997c; van Acker, 1999). Therefore, the main aim of this study was to explore, using a combination of corroborative methodologies, how and why the news media covered female politicians during the 1999 election campaign. Three methodologies (content analysis, qualitative interviews, and a case study), and a framing typology, were employed. Content and frame analysis showed that female politicians were used as news subjects to a comparable, if not better, extent than men but were marginalised as political news sources. In other words, there was a tendency for women to be talked about, rather than talked to. This reflects dominant news structures and, in some cases, the women's own approach to self-promotion. It was also revealed that female politicians were subjected to more polarised media coverage, influenced by status, incumbency and context, and again, partly a result of their own positioning. There were significant differences in media coverage of men and women, but framing of political news did little to advance women's perspectives, suggesting election campaigns that ostensibly feature women are not necessarily of a different nature. Overall, these results suggest a blurring of the traditional "public/private" dichotomy, as an outcome of changes in the media (such as the contemporary trends toward personalisation and "celebrification") and women's campaigning. Gender remains a factor in the presentation and interpretation of political women, by the news media (which, for example, portrayed the female leaders as Xena princesses) and by the women themselves (for example, Shipley portrayed herself as a mother figure). To some extent, there appears to have been a maturing of political journalism about women but it is too soon to tell if the shift to MMP has resulted in any significant longterm change for female politicians. However, this unique study, in examining the media-politics-gender nexus in the 1999 General Election campaign, focuses attention on the two-fold promise of MMP for women, and explores the extent to which the new political system and the media have begun to deliver. On a practical level, the thesis concludes that it is important to encourage female politicians to work within, and use the current system to their advantage. However, it also urges researchers to take a critical approach to exploring the systemic socialisation and pervasive news structures, processes and values that contribute to women's ongoing political marginalisation. Finally, the thesis considers the wider implications for women, the news media, and the electoral system

Moving forward through the mist: Reimagining strategic communication in the digital age

Despite integrating theories from multiple disciplines to expand its knowledge base, strategic communication, interchangeably called public relations, corporate communication or communication management, continues to face an identity problem. In the very first journal dedicated to this field, the International Journal of Strategic Communication , Hallahan, Holtzhausen, va n Ruler, Vercic and Sriramesh (2007) defined “strategic communication” as “the purposeful use of communication by an organization to fulfil its mission” (p. 3). Holtzhausen and Zerfass (2013) extended this concept to cover a range of contexts where set goals (e.g. business growth, reputation) are pursued, including for - profits, non - profits, government, activism, sports and entertainment. Nonetheless, the mainstream strategic communication literature has been criticised for three interrelated deficiencies. F irstly, its management discourse and organisation - centricity perpetuate narrow elite interest as a top priority and “control” as a “troublesome issue” (Murphy, 2011, p. 3). Secondly, the stabilised organisational interest is reinforced by a predominant research focus on the organisational site , especially large corporations, with poor attention to publics, communities and wider societies (Smith, 2010). The third resulting deficiency lies in the field’s lack of explanatory power in the informal, and sometime s discursive, role of strategic communication outside the ‘organisational box’ but embedded in everyday practice..

Women Journalists and News : Lessons from New Zealand and Australia

This chapter overviews the nature and complexity of gender balance in the news media industry and explores the status of women in journalism, using the media in Australia and New Zealand as case studies. Both countries record high rankings in global indexes for gender equality and human rights. Australia and New Zealand both have a healthy ratio of women in newsrooms, partly as a result of the internet and other digital technologies that have increased the scope for women journalists to report from home or to undertake work while balancing childcare responsibilities. There continues, however, to be notable problems for women journalists, such as issues affecting career progression, workplace harassment, and the relative absence of women in some fields, such as sport reporting. Additionally, the overall gender balance within Australian and New Zealand newsrooms does not translate to a gender balance of newsmakers in the media—the people who journalists quote or report about. This pattern in the Australian and New Zealand news media is in line with a recent global study of 114 countries, which showed that even though women hold many top political positions throughout the world, on average, for every woman who appears in a news story, there are three men who appear. The gender gap in news sources is smaller in both Australia and New Zealand, but even so, in both countries, for every woman who appears in the news, there are more than two men who appear. This illustrates that simply improving the numbers of women in newsrooms alone will not correct the continuing lack of balance of women as sources in news media reports

Three Book Reviews

This issue of the Archives contains reviews of three books: Robert Leestma and Herbert J. Walberg (Eds.), Japanese Educational Productivity, reviewed by Steven J. Fountaine, Thomas Sowell, Inside American Education: The Decline, the Deception, the Dogmas, reviewed by Susan Haag, Chester E. Finn Jr. and Theodor Rebarbar (Eds.), Education Reform in the '90s, reviewed by Kent Parades Scribne