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Politics
 | | SOCIAL MEDIA Politics There are a considerable number of blogs that focus on the politics of New Zealand. Tumeke!nz rankings show a wide range of ideological positions are popular and that female bloggers are scarce. Many blogs are written by current and former party apparatchiks, such as David Farrar's Kiwiblog and Jordan Carter's Just Left, and many bloggers are journalists and print media commentators such as the bloggers on Russell Brown's Public Address.. |
Top Ten Blogs (Political Content)
#1 Kiwiblog : www.kiwiblog.co.nz
"David P. Farrar's kiwiblog"
nz132 * 72,195 : c.7000 (2,200 ttlb) + 273 + 290 (max.273) + 100 = 7646 [7604, 2737]
#2 Public Address : www.publicaddress.net
"Community of New Zealand-centric weblogs"
nz904 * 208,243 : c.1500 (RB says c.5000) + 208 + 202 + 10 = 1920 [1896, 1903]
#3 Whale Oil Beef Hooked : www.whaleoil.co.nz
“Political Pornography for the discerning reader"
nz222 * 146,590 : c.1000 (sitemeter) + 79 + 73 + 90 = 1242 [1120, 880]
#4 Frogblog : www.blog.greens.org.nz
"Political blog Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand"
nz859 * 245,951 : c.1000 + 97 + 91 + 25 = 1213 [1172, 1329]
#5 No Right Turn : www.norightturn.blogspot.com
"Irredeemably Liberal"
nz3,745 * 999,929 : c.770 (sitemeter) + 130 + 250 (max.130)+ 25 = 1055 [933, 1022]
#6 Not PC : www.pc.blogspot.com
"Promoting capitalist acts between consenting adults"
nz971 * 319,942 : c.855 + 84 + 113 (max.84) + 30 = 1053 [1011, 972]
#7 The Standard : www.thestandard.org.nz
"The New Zealand labour movement newspaper digitally reborn"
nz653 * 379,721 : c.700 + 71 + 56 + 27 = 854 [837, 370]
#8 KiwiBlogBlog : www.kiwiblogblog.wordpress.com
"A blog about Kiwiblog"
nz1,652 * 513,652 : c.460 + 55 + 33 + 20 = 568 [550, 314]
#9 The Hive : www.wellingtonhive.blogspot.com
"At the heart of the Wellington political process for close to 30 years"
nz757 * 671,632 : c.340 (stats) + 46 + ? (max.46) + 80 = 512 [310, 30]
#10 Tumeke! : www.tumeke.blogspot.com
"Current affairs and culture"
nz3,980 * 954,274 : c. 340 (extremetracking) + 62 + 47 + 30 = 479 [425, 403]
(Source: Tumeke!nz)
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Popular Blogs (Political Content)
1. Political Activists
- Trevor Loudon, former Vice-President of ACT New Zealand also has a blog, New Zeal, although his blog mainly pertains to anti-communism rather than ACT party policy.
- Joe Carolan from Socialist Worker updates AntiCapitaliste, and the blog of the new Solidarity Union.
- Peter Cresswell, former leader of the small Libertarianz Party maintains the popular Not PC blog on libertarian issues.
- Lawyer Stephen Marshall has a blog on legal matters, and particularly copyright.
2. Political Parties
- The ACT party leader Rodney Hide has a blog. He often hide comments from those within the House of Representatives.
- Craig Foss, National MP for Tukituki, also has his own personal blog.
- The Green party has an official blog, Frogblog, which often links to, and expands on, Green party press releases. The blog is partly written by Greens co-leader Russel Norman.
- Nicky Wagner, the new female National MP in Christchurch maintains a blog as part of her website. Majority of the posts are short and on the events she attends, accompained by pictures.
Unlike overseas counterparts, both Rodney Hide and Frogblog allow comments from public bloggers.
Numerous politicians began blogs during the 2005 election, but these have since died.
3. Political Pressure Groups
- Climaction - Coalition against Climate Change
- Coalition for Open Government - COAG.
- The Socialist Worker (Aotearoa) blog gives a view from the revolutionary left.
Intersection with Mainstream Media
Majority of New Zealand bloggers still rely on mainstream media for them to find worthy news content upon which they comment their views. However, interestingly they do not simply regurgitate the news. Instead, they put forth their varying opinions on the current news.
Initially New Zealand's mainstream media was highly critical of bloggers. This is evident through an editorial published in January 2007 by New Zealand Herald which stated "Most bloggers - and we're talking 95 per cent - are fly-by-night, gutless wonders who prefer to spit inarticulate venom under inarticulate pseudonyms."
However, in October in the same year, New Zealand Herald published an article by Bill Ralston which described political bloggers as being potentially the most powerful "opinion makers" in New Zealand politics.
Since then the newspaper has picked up several newsbreaking stories first broken on blogs. For example, in February 2008 a blog post by Russell Brown about the Wikipedia article on Bill English being edited from a computer at parliament received wide coverage in the New Zealand Herald. The story had first been broken on The Standard, a blog with links to the Labour Party. In April 2008, blogger David Farrar revealed the Green Party's preliminary party list. The story was subsequently picked up by NZPA and published on Stuff.
Some current and former bloggers have worked in or for the media industry, such as:
- Russell Brown from Hard News
- Keith Ng
- Tze Ming Mok
- Dave Crampton
Currently it is stated by National Business Review; "Any realistic "power list" produced in this country would include either David Farrar or his fellow blogger and opinion leader Russell Brown." Earlier in 2008, The Press had stated that this year's election "could be the time when New Zealand's burgeoning political bloggers finally make their presence felt". The said article described the increasing influence of Internet on people's lives given that unlike newspapers, blogs can link directly to facts and sources. Hence, there is an increase in the number of professional journalists maintaining blogs in the same direction blogospheres have increased significance.
New Zealand's political blogosphere has also made significant impact on New Zealand parliament. Quoted by Russell Brown, "Every now and then you see a line from the blog turn up in a parliamentary speech."
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Political Facebook Groups
Although Facebook is mainly a social networking medium in New Zealand, political parties do embrace the use of Facebook to network amongst like minded people. A bustling example will be New Zealand Labour Party's Facebook group, home to over 200 members who supports the party and Helen Clark. The group has active discussions going on about general politics.
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, Jun 18 2008, 2:52 AM EDT
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