What kind of country we want for our children: an analysis of media coverage of the 2017 New Zealand General Election

Abstract

This article is the third in a series investigating media reporting of New Zealand elections. Based on content analysis of 510 articles published in the New Zealand Herald, and thematic analysis of a subset of news stories related to young people, the study examines media coverage of the 2017 elections by looking at the topics of news stories, presence of party policies, diversity of sources and references to social groups. Comparing the 2017 results with the results of the Herald's coverage of 2014 elections, we register a shift towards a stronger presence of policy issues, more female voices in the reports and significantly higher reference to young people. We further investigated the high number of references to young people by conducting qualitative analysis on the subset of articles mentioning young people.

Facebooking a different campaign beat: party leaders, the press and public engagement

“…Mainstream coverage of the 2017 election campaign was dominated by the Party Leaders (PLs), particularly of the two main parties, National and Labour (Levine, 2018; Mills et al, 2018). While this is not unusual, in this election, it was particularly acute because Labour had elected a new (young, female) leader – Jacinda Ardern – just weeks before election day.…”

Age and Environmental Citizenship: A Case Study of Media Coverage of the 2019 Local Body Elections in New Zealand

“…The volume of coverage in this period was considerable, with the Newztext database used to extract news stories returning 1452 results from a search for "local election". Research previously conducted by the AUT Media Observatory (Baker et al 2017;Mills et al 2018;Rupar et al 2015) limited their searches by publication. Both studies, within their own samples, noted a focus on coverage relating to age.…”

“…Two previous studies of the media coverage of the elections in New Zealand (Baker et al 2017;Mills et al 2018) revealed the growing importance of young people as a social group. This time, we were particularly interested in identifying the connection between age and environment in the light of contemporary debates on citizenship.…”

“…Media Observatory researchers documented a trend towards a greater range of sources in the news since 2014. They noted, however, that what governs citizens' access to political processes comes from the complex relationships and the power structures within which political communication occurs (Rupar et al 2015;Baker et al 2017;Mills et al 2018). What these and other authors are suggesting is that journalism in a democratic society ought to provide information that citizens need to engage in public life, but that what it means to be "informed" is more complex than it might once have been (Craig 2017).…”

The geography of deprivation in New Zealand by electorate

“…Deprivation related issues played an important role in the 2017 New Zealand (NZ) general election campaign. For instance, the economy and housing were the two most frequently discussed issues in the NZ Herald reporting in the lead up to the election (Mills et al 2018). Additionally, an unpredictable pre-election period suggested that there might be changes in turnout among (typically) deprived, lower turnout groups, such as young people and Māori.…”