JMAD New Zealand media ownership report 2014

Pacific Journalism Review, 11 (1), 2005

Much communications research is in agreement about the failure of the mass media to adequately facilitate a public sphere of open and reflexive debate necessary for strong democratic culture. In contrast, the internet's decentralised, two-way communication is seen by many commentators to be extending such debate. However, there is some ambivalence among critical theorists as to the future role of the internet in advancing the public sphere. On the one hand, the internet is providing the means for the voicing of positions and identities excluded from the mass media. On the other hand, a number of problems are limiting the extensiveness and effectiveness of this voicing. One of the most significant problems is the corporate colonisation of cyberspace, and subsequent marginalisation of rational-critical communication. It is this problem that I focus on in this article, with reference to examples from what I will refer to as the 'New Zealand online public sphere'. I show how online corporate portals and media sites are gaining the most attention oriented to public communication, including news, information, and discussion. These sites generally support conservative discourse and consumer practices. The result is a marginalisation online of the very voices marginalised offline, and also of the critical-reflexive form of communication that makes for a strong public sphere. I conclude by noting that corporate colonisation is as yet only partial, and control of attention and meaning is highly contested by multiple 'alternative' discursive spaces online.

NZ Sociology , 2013

Pacific Journalism Review : Te Koakoa

As this edition of Pacific Journalism Review went to press, Fiji was in the throes of conducting a census. Technology is helping the process. Technology is often associated with democratising the political proc- ess, decentralising the status quo, upholding free speech, promoting direct democracy and amplifying voices that often remain silent. Regardless of the potential of technology to deliver these freedoms, the issues that existed before the advent of the internet, e.g. access to technology (affordability and availability, including the issue of electricity in developing nations), user motivation and skill in using these new gadgets still stand. This edition, jointly produced with University of the South Pacific media staff, publishes a series of articles addressing these issues. On Media Freedom Day, 3 May 2006, the Fiji Media Council, assisted by USP’s regional journalism programme, organised a panel on ‘Media and alleviation of poverty’. The panel—men from the developed world...

MEDIANZ: Media Studies Journal of Aotearoa New Zealand, 2016

Pacific Journalism Review, 2014

As pared-down newsrooms across the United States increasingly gener­ate content for pay-walled online platforms, some of the country’s best journalists are instead joining public interest start-ups in the hope of pur­suing the type of investigative journalism projects the mainstream media is increasingly struggling to fund. The likes of Propublica, the Center for Public Integrity and the International Consortium of Investigative Journal­ists have found a viable niche in the US media ecosystem, one built on innovation, collaboration, and philanthropic support. Could the success of these foundations be mirrored in a small country like New Zealand, where the media faces the same resourcing pressure but little philanthropic money goes into media-related ventures? This article is based on the author’s Fulbright Harkness Fellowship-funded research trip to the US, visiting the organisations mentioned above and others, and suggests that while the US model of public interest journalism is un...

In New Zealand the state has always been a dominant actor in the ownership and governance of broadcasting, and the orthodox tropes perpetuated by public service broadcasting have reflected the state's role in society. Since the establishment of television in 1960, to the de-regulation of broadcasting in 1989, the state held a monopoly over New Zealand terrestrial television. Despite a commercial imperative within the governance structure of the state broadcaster, television's initial period was typified by a paternalistic ethos, with educative and high culture values being significant in programming and scheduling decisions.

Media Studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 2010

Print media is dead! At least that is what many ‘pundits’ continue to argue. But, if that is the case, why is Rupert Murdoch, managing director of media conglomerate News Corporation, still buying up so many newspapers around the world? And, if print media have become so inconsequential, then why even study them? Because even if the transmission of some printed words moves from paper to pixels, the power of words to transform society remains perpetually strong. Whether on T-shirts, magazines, bumper stickers, books, billboards, newspapers, fliers, posters or newsletters, print media extend into almost every corner of our lives.

Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy, 2005

Australia's media policy agenda has recently been dominated by debate over two key issues: media ownership reform, and the local content provisions of the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement. Challenging the tendency to analyse these issues separately, the article considers them as interlinked indicators of fundamental shifts occurring in the digital media environment. Converged media corporations increasingly seek to achieve economies of scale through ‘content streaming’: multi-purposing proprietary content across numerous digitally enabled platforms. This has resulted in rivalries for control of delivery technologies (as witnessed in media ownership debates) as well as over market access for corporate content (in the case of local content debates). The article contextualises Australia's contemporary media policy flashpoints within international developments and longer-term industry strategising. It further questions the power of media policy as it is currently con...

MEDIANZ: Media Studies Journal of Aotearoa New Zealand, 2016

He researchers in the fields of global journalism, indigenous education, intellectual property protection, and political communication. See his latest book, Patents, Pills and the Press, from Peter Lang Publishers. Dr Sarah Baker is a lecturer in the AUT School of Communications. She is the co-founder of the AUT Popular Culture Centre and a member of JMAD and the AUT Media Observatory Group. Her research interests include political economy, current affairs television programmes, and popular culture. Her doctoral research examined the impact of deregulation on current affairs programmes in New Zealand and is titled The Changing Face of Current Affairs Television Programmes in New Zealand 1984-2004.

2015

A tragic result of the repressive media environment in Fiji has been a huge brain drain within the industry. Many of the best and experienced media workers most have left or been forced out. In fact, Australia and New Zealand have benefitted by the migration of some of Fiji's senior media workers from as far back as 1987, the year of the first two military coups by Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, and more so in the past eight years since the Voreqe Bainimarama coup in December 2006. Those who have remained have either been moved to non-controversial roles or mellowed to the point of silence.

2012

2016

Media convergence within the news and current affairs landscape over the past two decades has opened opportunities for competing newspapers, television stations and online publishers to form alliances to approach digital and editorial challenges with innovative strategies. The partnerships have often enabled journalists to embrace multimedia platforms with flexibility and initiative. This has fostered a trend in 'gatewatching' and a citizen responsive and involved grassroots media rather than legacy mainstream gatekeeping, top-down models. Such committed media attempts in search of investigative journalism accompanied by 'public' and 'civic' journalism engagement initiatives have also been emulated by some journalism schools in the Asia-Pacific region. This has paralleled the evolution of journalism as a research methodology with academic application over the past decade. Selecting two New Zealand-based complementary and pioneering Pacific digital news and analysis publications, Pacific Scoop (founded 2009) and Asia-Pacific Report (2016), produced by a journalism school programme in partnership with established independent media as a combined case study, this article will demonstrate how academia-based gatewatching media can effectively challenge mainstream gatekeeping media. Pacific Scoop was established by an Auckland university in partnership with New Zealand's largest independent publisher, Scoop Media Limited, and launched at the Māori Expo in 2009. The article also explores the transition of Pacific Scoop into Asia-Pacific Report, launched in partnership with an innovative web-based partner, Evening Report. The study analyses the strategic and innovation efforts in the context of continuing disruptions to New Zealand's legacy media practices related to the Asia-Pacific region.

Pacific Journalism Review

This survey of NZ journalists completed in late 2015 shows the impact of the rapid move to a digital news environment. Journalists are more educated, but working longer hours and feeling more pressure, both ethically and resource-wise, than they were only two years ago. Technological changes are felt acutely, particularly the use of social media and user-generated content. Journalists are concerned that advertising and commercial pressures are stronger, while overall standards are weakening. This study also shows, for the first time, that women are seriously disadvantaged in pay and promotion despite making up the majority of the workforce. Despite these challenges, overall job satisfaction remains at similar levels to previous surveys, and journalists’ own commitment to ethical standards and journalism’s Fourth Estate role remains strong.

Pacific Journalism Review : Te Koakoa, 2005

Review of Media Law in New Zealand (5th ed.), by John Burrows and Ursula Cheer and The Journalist's Guide to Media Law: Dealing with Legal and Ethical Issues (2d ed.), by Mark PearsonBurrows and Cheers have provided a greatly expanded analysis of the developing area of privacy law, an area watched with trepidation by the news media after several high profile court cases, both in New Zealand and overseas. Pearson also deserves praises for his clear chapter on the freedom of the press, a fundamental concept that is too easiy glossed over in benevolent democracies.