Susan Fountaine

Retrieving public service broadcasting: treading a fine line at TVNZ

When New Zealand led the world in its deregulation of broadcasting in the late 1980s, the publicly owned but commercially oriented Television New Zealand (TVNZ) became uniquely popular, attracting two-thirds of the national audience and returning substantial profit dividends to the government. However, in 1999, partly in response to concerns about quality, an incoming centre-left government decided to reverse the trend and reinstate public service values in television through a controversial charter. This article examines the three-year battle to establish the Charter in the mixed broadcasting sector and looks at the possibilities of success in New Zealand’s small market. TVNZ continues to rely on advertising funding and may have been assigned an impossible task, given the government’s commitment to supporting private creative industries combined with an arguably tardy response to the structural and funding challenges imposed by Charter obligations in the new configuration of state-owned television.

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.

Beyond the Feel-Good Factor Measuring Public Journalism in the 1996 New Zealand Election Campaign

The promise of public journalism is that it makes politics “go well.” However, empirical evaluation of it has been fragmentary. The introduction of a new electoral system in New Zealand saw the print media experiment with the new model. In our study, we examined the journalistic interpretation of election campaign issues under the new circumstances and compared conventional coverage with the use of public journalism. The findings reveal that public journalism provided readers with a different, more constructive framing of political news.

Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling in the Ivory Tower Using a Case Study to Gain New Understandings of Old Gender Issues

The Problem. Universities are patriarchal institutions. More males reach upper levels of the academic hierarchy than females. The authors were concerned that their university had a marginally lower percentage of female professors than others in their country and used a survey and interviews to explore the facts behind the figures. The Solution. Statistics showed that though fewer females applied for promotion, proportionately more female applicants were successful. The authors researched what helped female professors and associate professors gain promotion and explored views on the spillover between work and family/community roles. Promotion enhancement factors included encouragement from department heads and senior colleagues. Family/community roles were seen to spillover positively to work, though work could negatively affect time for family and community involvement. The Stakeholders. These findings could encourage proactive mentoring of female academic staff by managers, and increase HR and HRD support for family-friendly policies and training programs.

On-Screen Politics: The TVNZ Charter and Coverage of Political News

Concern about falling standards and ratings-driven political coverage was behind Labour’s introduction of a public service charter for state broadcaster TVNZ in 2003. But has the Re been any real change in the nature of political reporting on television? This article explores contemporary political coverage on New Zealand television news from a variety of perspectives. First, using results from a content analysis of One News and 3 News in 2000 and 2003, along with comparable figures going back to 1985, it charts the decline in political coverage on television news and its replacement by tabloid subjects and sports news. It then examines the nature of political coverage on the two channels, looking specifically at the kinds of stories making the headlines and the top part of the news bulletin, and the role of political correspondents. A brief discussion of election year coverage highlights the conclusion that any Charter-driven changes to political coverage have been limited. The political furore surrounding the resignation of TVNZ’s CEO Ian Fraser in late 2005, and the return to a strongly commercial news format, has underlined TVNZ’s continued reliance on ratings. At this stage New Zealand seems, if anything, to be retreating from the public service ideals of in-depth, comprehensive political coverage promised by the Charter.

What’s not to Like?: A Qualitative Study of Young Women Politicians’ Self-Framing on Twitter

ABSTRACT Twitter provides women politicians with a platform for practising political public relations and the opportunity to circumvent traditional barriers to their visibility. To explore how young women use Twitter to frame themselves during election campaigns, this study undertook a thematic analysis of tweets sent by politicians Nikki Kaye and Jacinda Ardern during New Zealand’s 2014 general election campaign. A likability frame dominated their messaging, supported by subsidiary frames of the busy local MP and the relational politician. Choices of interpersonal and intimized situations showcased these attributes. Although the messaging was arguably effective, there are longer-term consequences for women with respect to the likability/competence double bind. Further and systematic incorporation of gender into the field of political public relations would strengthen this emerging discipline and add value to existing research around women’s electoral viability.

The journey to ‘next journalism’ in New Zealand: political editors’ tweets from the 2013 Labour leadership campaign

ABSTRACT Twitter has been identified as a potential game changer for reporters and a way of shifting to the values of ‘next journalism’, where newsworkers spend less time lecturing and more time in dialogue. However, there is little local research about its use by Kiwi journalists. This article documents emerging journalism practice by exploring how Twitter was employed, by the political editors of the country’s two major television networks (TVNZ and TV3), in covering the inaugural Labour Party leadership campaign in 2013. Both Corin Dann and Patrick Gower used Twitter to inform their followers about new developments in the story, and to promote their networks’ news coverage, and their sources were predominantly institutional. However, TV3’s Gower was markedly more active and interactive on Twitter, with a broader range of people, than TVNZ’s Dann. Both journalistic persona and organisational influences appear to impact on Twitter use. The paper concludes that while New Zealand journalists are using Twitter to ‘bear witness’, they are currently falling short of realising the full democratic potential of this form of social media.

Politics in the provinces The Otago Daily Times and Manawatu Standard coverage of Election 2014

Local newspapers play an important role in the democratic process but they are under threat in a rapidly changing media landscape. This study examines the locally produced Election 2014 coverage of two different newspapers in New Zealand: the Otago Daily Times, a metropolitan daily with a strong emphasis on regional coverage; and the provincial daily Manawatu Standard. Content analysis shows some similarities between the publications (broadly similar story size and authorship patterns) and some of the differences (number of stories and amount of coverage) accounted for by circulation. However, the two newspapers also enacted ‘localness’ in diverse ways. Nearly 80% of election stories produced by Manawatu Standard staff had a city or regional focus, a finding consistent with 2011 election data. In contrast, befitting its metropolitan status, the overwhelming bulk of Otago Daily Times’ election coverage was nationally focused, produced by its Wellington-based political reporter. However, despite its long-established commitment to Otago, more local staff and bigger news-hole, it produced considerably fewer election stories with a city or regional focus than the Standard. We consider the possible impact of other influencers on local election coverage, such as the newsworthiness of electorate races and competing regional stories, but conclude that despite its purported importance, local political news continues to occupy a tenuous position in the modern newsroom.