Media Power, Framing and the New Zealand Press: VSM and Kim Dotcom

Abstract

This thesis examines the New Zealand press, focusing on newspaper representations of two events: the instating of Voluntary Student Membership (VSM) for New Zealand tertiary institutions in 2011 and the arrest of Finnish-German programmer and millionaire Kim Dotcom on 20 January 2012 for copyright infringement. Through a qualitative analysis of newspaper articles that utilises framing theory, Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model news filters, and the concepts of Folk Devils, I suggest that both case studies illustrate how media representations of events incorporate frames that marginalise public opinion, alternative viewpoints and dissenting commentary. I argue that the use of these frames to interpret the event can be explained through a structural analysis of the political economy of news media organisations and the practices that structure both New Zealand newspaper journalism and content as informed by Herman and Chomsky (1988). The VSM reporting reveals how New Zealand newspaper media participate in legitimising the ideological viewpoints of elite politicians and the neoliberal ethos. The framing of Dotcom as a ‘folk devil’ in the reporting of the Kim Dotcom raids criminalise the individual as a deviant, which serves to circumscribe wider critical commentary in New Zealand newspapers concerning copyright infringement and file sharing legislation. These two case studies and my analysis reveal the extent to which New Zealand newspaper media participate in legitimising the opinions of elite actors and their accounts of events, while developing frames that serve to both sensationalise events and delegitimise or omit oppositional public opinion and independent commentary.