REVOCACIÓN DE CERTIFICADOS

values and power are produced, distributed, exchanged and enacted and how these elements interrelate in the social world (Mosco, 2009). In its more specific application to the study of media, a political economy approach examines aspects of social and historical change, patterns of media ownership and revenue and the political and economic factors that affect media content and operations (McChesney, 1998; Mosco, 2009). Hallin and Mancini (2004) focus on specific political contexts in their analysis of Western media systems. With this approach, they demonstrate their claim that

understanding a state’s political systems and its other social structures as well as the interconnections of its economic and political interests is essential to an analysis of its news media.

While traditional political economy analysis, in its Marxist iteration, has focused on the determining effects of the economy, other studies of the political economy of the media have dealt primarily with the structuring influences of institutions, especially in relation to corporate-owned media systems and government involvement in aspects of media production and regulation (Mosco, 2009). Furthermore, researchers have found that examination of the political economy of media institutions offers some insight into the role economic and political forces have in shaping media systems and calls into

question journalists’ claimed fourth estate ideals of independence, objectivity and public service (McChesney, 1999; Schultz, 1998).

Many scholars have taken an explicit political economy approach to analysing New Zealand’s media system (see Baker, 2006, 2007; Ellis, 2010; Hirst, 2012; Hope, 1996, 2012; Kemp, 2010; Norris, 2002; Rosenberg, 2008; Thompson, Mason & Chase, 2002). This literature has identified at least two implications that stem from the oligopolistic market structure and the resulting concentration and consolidation of media ownership that are important in the context of this study: the first implication is a reduction of pluralism and diversity in the representation of alternative perspectives and the second is an increased regionalism and homogenization of mainstream journalism.

New Zealand’s media system has been described as following an Anglo-American Liberal Model system similar to that of Britain and its former colonies such as Ireland,

Australia and Canada (Hallin & Giles, 2005; Hallin & Mancini, 2004). As Hallin and Mancini (2004) have explained, the Liberal Model system is typically characterised by market-driven, self-regulated media; a strong degree of journalistic professionalization marked by distinctive values, standards of practice and independent news operations management; and journalists who assert a public service role and engage in a “strong tradition of ‘fact-centered’ reporting” (p. 246). As the following discussion will show, while New Zealand’s media system displays these characteristics as well, the structure of the journalistic field is also distinguished by an especially dominant free-market logic.

A strongly market-oriented notion of society and of the public as consumers has been the foundation of recent government media policy in New Zealand. In his account of the history of the political economy of New Zealand’s media environment, Hope (2012) describes how political policies resulted in the corporatization of state-owned media during the 60s and 70s and, in light of subsequent neoliberalized trends in government, facilitated an increasing commercialization and concentration of the media during the 1980s and 1990s. For instance, the News Media Ownership Act, which limited foreign shareholding of newspapers, was repealed in 1974 removing all restrictions. Before then, New Zealand companies had owned all the metropolitan newspapers, and almost 30% of the country’s other smaller daily newspapers were independently owned and managed (Ellis, 2010). Throughout the last half of the 20th century, economic pressures and lack of regulatory constraints led to increasingly higher levels of foreign ownership of print and broadcast media. The result has been an unprecedented concentration of the majority of the country’s print and broadcast media under foreign control.

The outcome of these neoliberal policies of deregulation and privatisation can be seen in the consolidation of media outlets in the hands of a few overseas conglomerates. For instance, of the newspapers that are used for this study, only one, the Otago Daily Times, is owned by a New Zealand company, the Dunedin-based Allied Press. The others are controlled by a duopoly of Australian corporations, namely Fairfax (owner of the Dominion Post and The Press) and APN News & Media (owner of the New Zealand Herald and the Listener), which together hold more than 90% of the country’s

metropolitan and provincial newspaper and magazine publications (Ellis, 2010; Rosenberg, 2008). Cost-cutting measures have resulted in the restructuring of newspapers with layoffs of reporting and production staff and the discontinuation or

merger of media outlets, leaving most major metropolitan centres with only one regionally-focused news publication (Hope, 2012). This situation has reduced

competition and decreased resources for news reporting in the mainstream print media.

The concentration of foreign ownership of New Zealand’s broadcast media is similar to that of the print media. Like the newspaper market, commercial radio in New Zealand is divided between two foreign owners, in this case the Australian-owned MediaWorks25 and The Radio Network (TRN), a subsidiary of another Australian company (Ellis, 2010). The non-commercial networks, National Radio and ConcertFM, operated by Radio New Zealand, a public service broadcaster and Crown entity, provide the primary competition for these two foreign-owned commercial radio conglomerates.26 Of the four free-to-air television networks, TVNZ, a state-owned broadcaster, manages TVOne and TV227, and MediaWorks, an Australian company in which the Canadian broadcast company CanWest is a majority share-holder, owns the other two channels, TV3 and C4 (Rosenberg, 2008).

With the broadcasting reforms enacted by Helen Clark’s Labour-led government, previous hardline neoliberal policies of deregulation and privatisation gave way, at least within the public sector, to a “third-way” approach combining neoliberal economic and public service principles (Thompson, 2004). In a politically motivated display of democratic ideals presented as a corrective for the distortions in social and cultural policies of the previous decades, the government sought to reclaim a public service role by restoring public service goals to the state-owned broadcaster. As part of these

25

In 1991, Canadian broadcaster CanWest Global Group bought 20% of TV3 and then acquired 100% ownership in 1997. The company expanding its presence in New Zealand broadcast market, purchasing MORE FM Group and RadioWorks New Zealand Limited. In 2004, the company combined TV3 Network Services and RadioWorks to form MediaWorks and, as CanWest MediaWorks (NZ) Limited, acquired the New Zealand radio and television businesses of CanWest Global Group (MediaWorks, 2012; see also Myllylahti, 2011).

26

As part of the data discussed in Chapter 4, some survey respondents refer in general to radio and to certain radio broadcasters. However, this broadcast medium has not been examined as part of this thesis. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that radio occupies a significant niche in New Zealand’s media

environment. As Rosenberg (2008) has explained, New Zealand’s highly concentrated commercial radio

environment was also highly saturated with a large number of licensed radio stations, over 320 in 2006, including a number of small, local radio stations. Besides these smaller community-oriented commercial radio stations, there are also non-profit, Community Access Radio broadcasters that operate as public service entities under the provisions of the 1989 Broadcasting Act to serve the needs of particular sectors of communities, including women, children, persons with disabilities, religious groups and ethnic minorities (Rosenberg, 2008). These community-based radio stations are primarily run by volunteers and supported by funds from New Zealand On Air, an independent crown agency that supports programmes and projects that have a local content focus (NZ On Air, 2009).

27

The only commercial-free public service channel TVNZ7, that provided 24-hour news and information coverage, was launched in March 2008, but was closed down in July 2012.

broadcasting reforms, TVNZ, restructured as a Crown entity in 2003, would receive some public funding and offer public service oriented programming directed by a prescribed Charter.28 The broadcaster would also maintain its commercial operations and continue to pay dividends to the Crown.

As Thompson (2004, 2005) has argued, however, contradictions existed in this hybrid approach to public service broadcasting. In its 2003 discussion paper, the Ministry for Culture & Heritage acknowledged the “areas of tension” in the principles and goals of private and public broadcasting, but asserted that combining the two systems through “a balance of public and private principles within a mixed economy” would establish a commercially viable public service broadcaster capable of “promoting and protecting the core values of civil society” (cited in Thompson, 2004, p. 63).29

Underlying this position then, Thompson (2004) notes, is a presumed “compatibility between commercial and cultural-democratic principles and policies” (p. 82).

Overall, the objectives outlined in the TVNZ Charter resonate with the government’s broader cultural policy agenda concerned with promoting New Zealand’s creative industries and national identity (Skilling, 2005; 2008). Besides seeking to inform, entertain and educate New Zealand audiences, the Charter also included directives that called for programming to provide high standards of quality; serve a range of interests not addressed by other broadcasters but also extend viewers’ range of ideas and experiences; demonstrate “editorial integrity” and “independent, comprehensive, impartial, and in-depth coverage and analysis of news and current affairs in New Zealand”; encourage “informed and many-sided debate”; present “shared experiences that contribute to a sense of citizenship and national identity”; and encourage and support the arts (TVNZ, 2003). Chapter 5 of this thesis will consider aspects of the TVNZ Charter in relation to the broadcaster’s arts and current affairs coverage of et al. and the Venice Biennale.