‘Hostility Won’t Deter Me, Says PM’: The Print Media, the Production of Affect and Waitangi Day

Abstract

This paper explores affect, discourse and emotion in national life. We focus on the print media's use of Waitangi Day as an affective-discursive distribution channel maintaining and reinforcing the hegemony of settler culture. Applying new thinking around affect, we consider how the cultural production of emotion in print media privileges settler identity, whilst simultaneously devaluing indigenous struggle. One hegemonic interpretive repertoire is discussed; that 'Waitangi Day is a day of conflict. ' Two subordinate repertoires are juxtaposed against this: that it should be 'a day of celebration' and that it should be 'a day of conversation. ' We argue that these repertoires and their associated affectivediscursive positions encourage readers to move into episodes of pejorative affect directed towards Māori 'ruining the day. ' Productive engagement with bi-culturalism requires a broader and deeper range of affective-discursive resources. Popular journalism fails its readers and limits debate through its narrow modelling of the emotional experiences Waitangi Day might evoke.

Settling space and covering the nation: Some conceptual considerations in analysing affect and discourse

“…But what is the broader significance of these repertoires and positions (and the affective-discursive canons they formulate and reinforce)? As noted in the introduction, the news media in Aotearoa New Zealand over the last 170 or so years has played a major role in legitimating, maintaining and easing the paths of settler society (Abel, 1997;Abel et al, 2012;Ballara, 1986;Day, 1990;McConville et al, 2014;Moewaka Barnes et al, 2012;Rankine et al, 2014;Walker, 1990). Newspapers parroted, shaped, initiated and followed public and official discourse, the language of policy-makers and the standpoints and interests of P akeh a citizens.…”

“…Our analysis is concerned with what we are going to call the 'affective-discursive canon' or 'emotion canon' found in print media coverage of Aotearoa New Zealand's national day (see also McConville et al, 2014 andAbel's, 1997, analysis of Waitangi Day on New Zealand television which found somewhat similar patterns). Our corpus of material focused on the newspaper output for 2013 with some additional material collected in 2014.…”

“…We argue that this media material continues a long tradition of 'settling space' as it 'covers the nation'. Our analysis focuses particularly on the emotional work involved in media accounts of the national holiday (see also McConville et al, 2014). We examine the assembling of affective-discursive orthodoxies and the construction of varied emotional citizens and affected figures.…”

‘Pissed Off and Confused’/‘Grateful and (Re)Moved’: Affect, Privilege and National Commemoration in Aotearoa New Zealand

“…While the Treaty was, in part, intended to establish bicultural equity around the building of a nation state (Orange, ), Māori were swiftly set aside by the rapid growth of Pākehā society and the cultural politics, laws, education systems and economic imperatives they implemented (Ballara, ; Belgrave, Kawharu, & Williams, ). As such, the privileging of Pākehā ways of life, and marginalizing of Māori, has meant that Waitangi celebrations have been marked by a long history of debate, protest, activism, and resistance, where historic injustices and Treaty breaches are highlighted (Yensen, Hague, & McCreanor, ), often in ways that reproduce Pākehā power (Abel, ; McConville, Wetherell, McCreanor, & Moeweka Barnes, ).…”

New light; friendly soil: affective–discursive dimensions of Anzac Day commemorations in Aotearoa New Zealand

“…We suggest that affect becomes patterned through practice into sometimes highly invested and disturbing, but reasonably ordered forms. We have a particular interest in what we call the ‘emotion canons’ of national commemoration – that is the hegemonic, taken for granted, ‘practiced’ modes of embodied being which are pervasive and which form emotional standards for understanding and accounting for one's response to events (McConville et al ; Wetherell et al ).…”