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.
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.
Social media are increasingly entrenched in politicians’ campaigning. Yet even as they become more ubiquitous, evidence suggests widely used platforms normalize rather than equalize the existing power dynamics of the political landscape. Our study of New Zealand’s 2017 general election uses a mixed-method approach including analysis of five Party Leaders’ (PLs) public Facebook wall posts, campaign coverage in four newspapers and interviews with Party workers and MPs. Our findings show PLs seldom interact with citizens and mostly use posts to promote campaign information. Citizens are more likely to ‘like’ a PL’s post than share or comment and there are important divergences between Party and media agendas. These findings demonstrate not only the importance of social media for Parties’ attempts to control messaging and disrupt journalistic interference, but also highlight that neither Parties nor citizens seem much invested in dialogue. However, understanding which posts excite citizen engagement may help all Parties more effectively promote participatory democracy globally.
Airing for over 50 years, New Zealand’s Country Calendar (CC) television show tells the stories of those who live and work on the land. This article presents a thematic analysis of 25 years of programme content, identifying a balance of ‘connection’ and ‘progress’ themes across this time frame, linked to the political economy of NZ broadcasting and agriculture. The concept of the rural idyll helps explain the connection theme’s focus on family, community, a passion or dream, and history and tradition. However, CC’s version of the rural idyll goes beyond nostalgia and the expression of shared social ideals to include the practical, day-to-day ‘work’ of contemporary farming. Ultimately, CC’s content is shaped by the broadcasting and agricultural policies and structures which impact its funding, subjects and socio-economic environment.
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