Shopping in a narrow field: Cross-media news repertories in New Zealand

Abstract

This article reports on the New Zealand case study within a larger project investigating cross-media news repertoires within (and across) national audiences. Six key news media repertoires emerged in this case study; heavy news consumers; hybrid browsers; digital browsers; ambivalent networkers; mainstream multiplatformers; and casual and connected). Despite a range of news media outlets available within New Zealand, particularly across digital platforms, participants consistently noted a relatively narrow social, cultural and political discursive field for news content in the country. Within this context, the news repertoires identified within this case study highlighted the high value placed by news consumers on national daily newspapers (print and online), and the continued salience of television and radio news broadcasting for some audience segments. But findings also offered a snapshot of the ways these are being supplemented or replaced, for some audience segments, by digital news outlets (even as these also generated dissatisfaction from many participants).