ABSTRACT

Stewart and Moss describe a communication policy that has been influenced and shaped primarily by the demands of a capitalist economy. New Zealand is a small country that developed pursuing egalitarian ideals and forward-thinking social policies. However, the rhetoric describing how things ought to be is often in conflict with the way things are. Media models and their associated technologies have been imported into New Zealand from both the United Kingdom and the United States. This has often meant that not just structures, hardware, and software, but also people and ideas, have been imported. Several inquiries have drawn on experts from the United Kingdom. Thus the initial concerns with the unique characteristics of New Zealand and the social dimension of communication policy have been subordinated to the dictates of sophisticated and expensive technology.

Like Australia, New Zealand has not yet succeeded in establishing a clear direction in communication policy and has fallen into the same patterns of party political decision making and pragmatic, shortsighted solutions to problems and issues.