A stylish revolution : the fourth Labour government and information management

Abstract

This thesis explores the development of the fourth Labour Government's news and publicity management strategies, and the rise of a sophisticated and professional system of information dispersal. Given that Labour embarked upon the most radical programme of reform seen for fifty years in New Zealand, it should be of greater concern that the mainstream media failed to provide a sustained critique and in-depth investigation of the changes which were occuring to the social and economic system. A range of factors contributed to the fourth Labour Government's ability to manage news and publicity - the formal structures of the media itself and the impact of the Government's free market policy on those structures; the establishment of a system of professional handlers of information within the beehive, and the associated techniques of news management and publicity; the instruments for conducting publicity and news management - the press gallery, and taxpayer funded state publicity campaigns; and finally the impact of modern election campaigns where all the techniques of news management come together more visibly than in day-to-day government. The underlying premise of the thesis is that modern democratic governments will inevitably seek to manipulate and propagandise, and the communications revolution coupled with new right ideology has exacerbated that trend, causing something of a revolution in government communications techniques.