Contents:
Course description
Recommended reading
Lecture readings:  Section I, II, III, IV
Assignment 1
Assignment 2    
Suggested reading 
  A-C ; D-G ; H-L ; M-Q ; R-Z
Reference books
Voyager searches
Databases
Internet sites
Library information

Course description

Television is not the transparent mirror of the world it is often supposed to be, but a highly selective, formulaic construction. Its view of the political world is biased in patterned ways, not so much because programme-makers themselves are ideologically manipulative, but because of the forces that converge on the complex processes of television production. This paper takes a critical look at the political content of New Zealand television, and attempts to evaluate the most important factors influencing media content outcomes. Among the latter are law, global and domestic economics, technology, professional norms, organisational structures, bureaucratic procedures, political pressures, culture and ideology. The main emphasis will be on television news and current affairs programmes, but reference will be made to other forms of programming: advertising, serial dramas, “reality” shows, documentaries, infotainment magazines, etc. Students will be expected to carry out their own research on television content.

Recommended reading 

Links are through to the Voyager record. Items are cited in accordance with the Chicago Manual of Style. 15th ed. 'Bibliography' style.

The essential readings are in the course book or in Short Loan. To find  items in the Short Loan Collection use the Course Material search in Voyager, and select Politics 328. The Short Loan Collection is located in the Kate Edger Information Commons, Level 1. 

Course readings may only be used for the University's educational purposes. You may print a copy for your own use, but you may not make a further copy for any other purpose. You may not copy or distribute any part of the reading to any other person. Failure to comply with these terms may expose you to legal action for copyright infringement and/or disciplinary action by the University.

Prescribed text

Freedman, Des. The Politics of Media Policy. Cambridge : Polity Press, 2008.

Recommended text

• Hamilton, James T. All the News That’s Fit To Sell: How the Market Transforms Information Into News. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Lecture readings

1. Section One: Clearing Away some Underbrush
2. Section Two: External Structures
3. Section Three: Internal Structures
4. Section Four: Content Outcomes
5. Section Five: Future Prospects

Section One: Clearing Away some Underbrush

1. Distinctiveness of TV 
2. Journalism Ethics I
3. Journalism Ethics II
4. Citizens v. Consumers

Distinctiveness of TV 

• Weaver, Paul H. "Newspaper News and Television News." In Television as a Social Force: New Approaches to TV Criticism, edited by Douglass Cater & Richard Adler, 81-94. New York: Praeger, 1975.

Journalism Ethics I 

• Schudson, Michael. "The Concept of Politics in Contemporary U.S. Journalism." Political Communication 24, no. 2 (2007): 131-142. Available online via Informaworld. Click to access the full text.

Journalism Ethics II

• Borden, Sandra L., and Chad Tew. "The Role of Journalist and the Performance of Journalism: Ethical Lessons From ‘Fake’ News (Seriously)” Journal of Mass Media Ethics 22, no. 4 (2007): 300-314. Available online via Informaworld. Click to access the full text.
• O"Neill, Onora. "License to Deceive." Reith Lecture, no. 5 (2002). See the internet section.

Citizens v. Consumers

• Livingstone, Sonia, Peter Lunt, and Laura Miller. "Citizens and Consumers: Discursive Debates During and After the Communications Act 2003." Media, Culture & Society 29, no. 4 (2007): 613-638. Available online via Sage Journals. Click to access the full text.

Section Two: External Structures

1. Media Economics 1
2. Media Economics 2
3. News Audiences
4. Information Management
5. New Zealand On Air
6. Defamation
7. Broadcasting Standards Authority

Media Economics 1

• Murray, Simone. "Brand Loyalties: Rethinking Content Within Global Corporate Media." Media, Culture & Society 27, no. 3 (2005): 415-435. Available online via Sage Journals. Click to access the full text.

Media Economics 2

• Hamilton, James T.  "Economic Theories of News." Chap.1 in All the News That's Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information Into News. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 2004.  

News Audiences

• Hamilton, James T. "News Audiences." Chap.3 in All the News That's Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information Into News. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 2004.  

Information Management

• Davis, Aeron. "Investigating Journalist Influences on Political Issue Agendas at Westminster." Political Communication 24, no. 2 (2007): 181-199. Available online via Informaworld. Click to access the full text.
• Savage, Shelley, and Rodney Tiffen. "Politicians, Journalists and ‘Spin’: Tangled Relationships and Shifting Alliances." In Government Communication in Australia, edited by Sally Young, chap. 6. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

New Zealand On Air

• Horrocks, Roger. "Turbulent Television: The New Zealand Experiment." Television & New Media 5, no.1 (February 2004): 55-68. Available online via Sage Journals. Click to access the full text.

Broadcasting Standards Authority

• Bale, Tim. "News, Newszak, New Zealand: The Role, Performance and Impact of Television in the General Election of 2002." In New Zealand Votes: The General Election of 2002, edited by Jonathan Boston, and others, chap. 22. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2003.
• Broadcasting Standards Authority. Corngate Decision. See the internet section.

Media Law

• Atkinson, Joe. "Politics: Getting What You Order." North and South, October 1995, 44-45.
• Legat, Nicola. "David and Goliath: A Tragedy." Metro, April 2001, 36-47.

Section Three: Internal Structures

1. Journalistic Practice: Interviewing
2. Journalistic Practice: Events
3. Visual Imperatives
4. Maori Television

Journalistic Practice: Interviewing

• McNair, Brian. "The Interrogative Moment." Chap. 5 in Journalism and Democracy: An Evaluation of the Political Public Sphere. London: Routledge, 2000. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Ebrary.

Journalistic Practice: Events

• Atkinson, Joe. "Structures of Television News." In Power and Responsibility: Broadcasters Striking a Balance, edited by Phillipa Ballard, 43-74. Wellington: B.S.A., 1994.  Reprinted in New Zealand Television: A Reader, edited by John Farnsworth and Ian Hutchison. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 2002.
• Schudson, Michael. "The Anarchy of Events and the Anxiety of Story Telling." Political Communication 24, no. 3 (2007): 253-257. Available online via Informaworld. Click to access the full text.

Visual Imperatives

• Messaris, Paul. "Visual Aspects of Media Literacy." Journal of Communication 48, no. 1 (1998): 70-80. Available online via Synergy. Clickto access the full text.

Maori television

• Fox, Derek Tini. "Honouring the Treaty: Indigenous Television in Aotearoa." In New Zealand Television: A Reader, edited by John Farnsworth and Ian Hutchison, chap. 22, 260-269. Palmerston North: Dunmore, 2001.

Section Four: Content Outcomes

1. Election Coverage
2. Campbell Live
3. McDocumentary

Election Coverage

• Bale, Tim. "News, Newszak, New Zealand: The Role, Performance and Impact of Television in the General Election of 2002." In New Zealand Votes: The General Election of 2002, edited by Jonathan Boston, and others, chap. 22. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2003.

Campbell Live

• Pels, Dick . "Aesthetic Representation and Political Style.” In Media and the Restyling of Politics: Consumerism, Celebrity and Cynicism, edited by John Corner and Dick Pels, 41-66. London: Sage, 2003.

McDocumentary

• Debrett, Mary. "Branding Documentary: New Zealand's Minimalist Solution to Cultural Subsidy." Media, Culture, & Society 26, no. 1 (2004): 5-23. Available online via Sage Journals. Click to access the full text.

Section Five: Future Prospects

1. Public Service Broadcasting
2. Policy Options

Public Service Broadcasting

• Comrie, Margie, and Susan Fountaine. "Retrieving Public Service Broadcasting: Treading a Fine Line at TVNZ." Media, Culture, & Society 27, no. 1 (2005): 101-118. Available online via Sage Journals. Click to access the full text.
• Thompson, Peter. "From the Digital Sublime to the Ridiculous? TVNZ’s New Digital Services and the Future of Public Television in New Zealand." Communication Journal of New Zealand 8, no.1 (May 2007): 43-62.

Policy Options

• Hamilton, James T. "Content, Consequences & Policy Choices." Chap. 9 in All the News That's Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information Into News. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. 

Assignments

Assignment 1: Essay

1. Distinctiveness of TV News
2. Consumers vs Citizens
3. Multimedia Convergence & Ethics
4. News Media Ownership
5. Television & Public Address

Distinctiveness of TV News

• Atkinson, Joe."Television." In Political Communications in New Zealand, edited by Janine Hayward and Chris Rudd, 143-153. Auckland: Pearson, 2004. 
• Corner, John. Television Form and Public Address. London: Edward Arnold, 1995. Chap.1.
• Jamieson, Kathleen H. Eloquence in an Electronic Age: The Transformation of Political Speechmaking. New York: Oxford, 1988. Chap. 7. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Ebrary
• Meyrowitz, Joshua. "Medium Theory." In Communication Theory Today, edited by David Crowley and David Mitchell. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994.
• Morse, Margaret.  "Talk, Talk, Talk." Screen 26, no. 2 (March-April 1985): 2-15.
• Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Viking, 1985.
• Postman, Neil, and Steve Powers. How to Watch TV News. New York: Penguin, 1992.  
• Scheuer, Jeffrey. The Sound Bite Society: Television and the American Mind. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999. Chaps. 2-4.
• Weaver, Paul. "Newspaper News and Television News." In Television as a Social Force: New Approaches to TV Criticism, edited by Douglass Carter. New York: Praeger, 1975.

Consumers vs Citizens

• Atkinson, Joe. "Broadcasting and Citizenship: The Decline of Reliable Mediators." Revisioning and Reclaiming Citizenship: 23-24 November 1998; Colloquium Proceedings. Hamilton: Centre for NZ Jurisprudence, Waikato University, 2001. 8-17.
• ---. "The State, The Media, and Thin Democracy." In Leap into the Dark: The Changing Role of the State in New Zealand Since 1984, edited by Andrew Sharp. Auckland:  Auckland University Press, 1994.
• Baker, C. Edwin. Media, Markets and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Ebsco
• Carper, Alison. Paint-By-Numbers Journalism: How Reader Surveys and Focus Groups Subvert a Democratic Press. Cambridge, Mass.: Joan Shorenstein Center, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 1995.
• Garnham, Nicholas. "The Broadcasting Market and the Future of the BBC." The Political Quarterly 65, no. 1 (Jan-Mar 1994): 11-19. Available online via the Library database Academic Search Premier.
• ---. Emancipation, the Media, and Modernity: Arguments About the Media and Social Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Harvey, Sylvia. "Doing it My Way: Broadcasting Regulation in Capitalist Cultures; The Case of `Fairness' and 'Impartiality' ." Media, Culture & Society 20, no. 4 (1998): 535-556. Available online via Sage Journals. Click to access the full text.
• Livingstone, Sonia, Peter Lunt, and Laura Miller. "Citizens and Consumers: Discursive Debates During and After the Communications Act 2003." Media, Culture & Society 29, no. 4 (2007): 613-638. Available online via Sage Journals. Click to access the full text.
• McManus, John H. Market-Driven Journalism: Let the Citizen Beware? Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1994.
• Murdock, Graham. "Public Broadcasting in Privatised Times: Rethinking the New Zealand Experiment." In Keeping it Ours: Issues of Television Broadcasting in New Zealand, edited by Paul Norris and John Farnsworth, 9-33. Christchurch: Christchurch Polytechnic, 1997.

Multimedia Convergence & Ethics

• Atkinson, "The State, The Media, and Thin Democracy." In Leap into the Dark: The Changing Role of the State in New Zealand Since 1984, edited by Andrew Sharp. Auckland:  Auckland University Press, 1994.
• Borden, Sandra L., and Chad Tew. "The Role of Journalist and the Performance of Journalism: Ethical Lessons From ‘Fake’ News (Seriously)." Journal of Mass Media Ethics 22, no. 4 (2007): 300-314. Available online via Informaworld.
• Lichtenberg, Judith. "In Defense of Objectivity." In Mass Communication and Society, edited by James Curran, Michael Gurevitch, Janet Woollacott. London: Edward Arnold, 1977.
• Merritt, Davis Buzz. Public Journalism and Public Life: Why Telling the News Is Not Enough. 2nd ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998. 28-30.
• Ofcom (Office of Communication) New News, Future News: The Challenges for Television News After Digital Switchover. Section 5 Disengagement, Trust, and Impartiality. See the internet section.
• Patterson, Thomas E. "Bad News, Period."  PS: Political Science & Politics 29, no.1 (March 1996):17-19. Available online via the Library database JSTOR.

News Media Ownership

• Bagdikian, Ben H. The Media Monopoly. 6th ed. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 2000.
• Baker, C. Edwin. Media Concentration and Democracy: Why Ownership Matters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• ---. Media, Markets and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Ebsco
• Collins, Richard, and Cristina Murroni. New Media, New Policies: Media and Communications Strategies For the Future. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996.
• Downie, Leonard, and Robert G.Kaiser. The News About the News: American Journalism in Peril. New York: Knopf, 2002.
• Hamilton, James T. All the News That’s Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information into News. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004.
• Herman, Edward S., and Robert W. McChesney. The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism. London: Cassell, 1997.
• McQuail, Denis, and Karen Siune, eds. Media Policy: Convergence, Concentration, and Commerce. London: Sage Publications, 1998.
• Murray, Simone. "Brand Loyalties: Rethinking Content Within Global Corporate Media." Media, Culture, & Society 27, no. 3 (2005): 415-435. Available online via the Sage Journals Online. Click to access the full text.
• Thompson, Peter, E. W. Mason, and P.A. Chase. "New Zealand Media in the New Millennium: A Political-Economic Overview." Communication Journal of New Zealand 3, no. 1 (June 2002): 30-53.
• Thussu, D. K., ed. Electronic Empires: Global Media and Local Resistance. London: Arnold, 1998.

Television & Public Address

• Ben-Porath, Eran N. "Internal Fragmentation of the News." Journalism Studies 8, no. 3 (2007): 414-431. Available online via Informaworld. Click to access the full text.
• Corner, John. Television Form and Public Address. London: Edward Arnold, 1995.
• Ekstrom, Mats. "Information, storytelling and attractions: TV Journalism in Three Modes of Communication." Media, Culture, & Society 22, no. 4 (2000): 465-492. Available online via the Sage Journals Online. Click to access the full text.
• Jamieson, Kathleen H. Eloquence in an Electronic Age: The Transformation of Political Speechmaking. New York: Oxford, 1988. Chap. 7. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Ebrary
• Meyrowitz, Joshua. "Medium Theory." In Communication Theory Today, edited by David Crowley and David Mitchell. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1994.
• Nerone, John, and Kevin Barnhurst. "News Form and the Media Environment: A Network of Represented Relationships." Media, Culture, & Society 25 (2003): 111-124. Available online via the Sage Journals Online. Click to access the full text.
• Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Viking, 1985.
• Scheuer, Jeffrey. The Sound Bite Society: Television and the American Mind. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999.

Assignment 2: Content Analysis

1. Content analysis
2. Election campaigns
3. Closeup/ Campbell Live/ John Campbell, Willy Jackson, and Mark Sainsbury

Content analysis

• Borden, Sandra L., and Chad Tew. "The Role of Journalist and the Performance of Journalism: Ethical Lessons From ‘Fake’ News (Seriously)" Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22, no. 4 (2007): 300-314. Available online via Informaworld.
• Selby, Keith, and Ron Cowdery. "Reading the Media." How to Study Television. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995.
• Taylor, Steve. "The Standup Syndrome: On-Camera Television Reporters May Lack Objectivity)." American Journalism Review 15, no. 6 (July/August 1993: 35-39. Available online via the Library database Expanded Academic.

Election campaigns

• Coleman, Stephen, ed. Televised Election Debates: International Perspectives. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. See especially chaps. 1, 2, 5 and 8.
• Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, and David S. Birdsell. Presidential Debates: The Challenge of Creating an Informed Electorate. New York, Oxford University Press, 1988. Available as an e-book via the Library database Ebrary. See especially chap. 6.
• Jones, Kevin T. The Role of Televised Debates in the U.S. Presidential Election Process (1960-2004). New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2005.
• Livingstone, Sonia, and Peter Lunt. Talk On Television: Audience Participation and Public Debate. London: Routledge, 1994. 
• TVNZ Charter. See the internet section.

Closeup/ Campbell Live/ John Campbell, Willy Jackson, and Mark Sainsbury

• Atkinson, Joe. "The Campaign on Television." In Voters’ Veto: The 2002 Election in New Zealand and the Consolidation of Minority Government, edited by Jack Vowles, and others, 48-67. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2004. 
• ---. "Metaspin: Demonisation of Media Manipulation." Political Science 57 no.2 (December 2005):17-25.
• Bell, Philip, and Theo Van Leeuwen. "Political Interviews: The Adversarial Genre." Chap. 4 in The Media Interview: Confession, Contest, Conversation. New Delhi: Anmol, 2006.
• Boyd-Barrett, Oliver, and Chris Newbold, eds. Approaches to Media: A Reader. New York: St Martin's Press, 1995.
• Bull, Peter. The Microanalysis of Political Communication: Claptrap and Ambiguity. London: Routledge, 2003.
• Edwards, Brian, and Judy Callingham. How to Survive & Win With the Media: A Self-Defence Course for Interviewees. Auckland: Tandem Press, 2000.
• McNair, Brian."The Interrogative Moment." Chap 5 in Journalism and Democracy: An Evaluation of the Political Public Sphere. London: Routledge, 2000. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Ebrary.
• Sedorkin, Gail, and Judy McGregor. Interviewing: A Guide for Journalists and Writers. Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2002.

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