Using Hardy's chapter on “Transformations and Continuities in Media Systems” as a comparative benchmark, assess the New Zealand experience with broadcasting deregulation since 1989.
New Zealand currently has one of the world's most deregulated broadcasting models together with one of the most concentrated media markets. In his chapter 'Transformations and continuities in media systems,' Hardy identifies the key forces that have changed western media systems from a social welfare model towards a neoliberal, market driven system. Common to most western media, was the public broadcasting system 'which singled out European media systems from their counterparts elsewhere in the world.'[1] Public broadcasting can be used as a tool to aid democracy by informing and educating society with the goal of reaching even the smallest minority. The weakening of the public broadcasting system is a key element in the transformation of western media systems. New Zealand has been at the forefront of this transition, moving almost entirely to a neoliberal doctrine from 1989 when the Broadcasting legislation came into force. The New Zealand media system has fundamentally changed it's mode of address, now treating the citizen as a consumer. This has had both positive and negative effects on New Zealand as a democratic society.
Technological advances in the form of telecommunications and satellite delivery systems have been one of the leading causes of media restructuring across the globe. Hardy points out that improved methods of production via digitalisation impacted the press first and later the broadcasting media, which I will be focusing on throughout the course of this essay. New Zealand, being such a small country and also at a great distance from the rest of the world, was well on its way to commercialisation before deregulation and Rogernomics. TVNZ who had previously operated similar to that of a public broadcaster, actually received only about seven percent of total...