While the audiences for news and current affairs on the Internet are small, there is evidence from the United States that some online media are having a disproportionate influence on public affairs through their impact on the widermediasphere. In particular, weblogs are credited with fact-checking the news media, widening the news agenda and forging new kinds of information networks. What is far from clear, however, is whether these new media contribute to a different quality of public debate or merely add a few extra voices. This paper explores the impact of weblogs on public affairs in AotearodNew Zealand through an analysis of the blogging of the 2005 general election.

Digital communication has become ubiquitous to the non-profit sector, globally, and non-profit organizations (NPOs) have adopted multiple digital media channels and platforms in attempts to connect with and influence external stakeholders. This article examines how non-profits in New Zealand (NZ) are using metaphoric language around their deployment of digital media channels. Since its inception, digital information technology has been explained in terms of transport metaphors such as information superhighway and digital traffic. These metaphors have become largely invisible. A combination of empirical and interpretative analyses was deployed to examine the metaphorical framework at work in NPO discussions of their digital media engagements. The analysis uncovered rhetoric that valued movement over destination, de-emphasized the stakeholder perspective and narrowly restricted the power to contribute to organizational meaning.

This article analyses two of New Zealand's foremost political blogs on public affairs in the four weeks prior to the 2008 New Zealand general election. The 2008 election represents, we argue, a moment when the scale and reach of blogging propelled it to a position of significance in New Zealand media. The study uses content analysis to track the material posted on these blogs and in their comments sections. It is concerned primarily with quantifying the kind of debate to be found there and, through that, analysing how these blogs contribute to the quality of public life. The findings show that while a small number of blogs dominate, one blog's comments section has seen significant growth in the number of individual commenters participating in political discussion. It therefore stands as a useful case study of how blogging has found a place within this country's mediated politics.

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