FEATURE | MATIHIKO | TECH Written by Mikaela Stroud (they/them) | @me.kaiella / @azuresparkz.art| Contributing Writer
Edited by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Feature Editor
Video Killed the Radio Star, is the Internet killing the Modern Day Press?
Media is evolving at a rapid rate, bringing casualties in the world of modern broadcasting. From radio to TV news to podcasts and Twitter threads, the dissemination of knowledge has grown more accessible and more immediate than ever before. The mass globalisation event that is the internet is an ever expanding landscape of creativity, knowledge and freedom ー but for how long?
How long before our media outlets are no longer a space for creative freedom, finding common communities outside of your own, and learning more about the world outside our front door? How long until corporations begin feeding the media machines and using these easy access information highways to their own advantage?
Unfortunately, it’s a plan that’s already in motion.
Bye Bye Broadcasting
Broadcast media is travelling on a downward slope towards being obsolete, with funding being cut or tanking as advertisers move to more accessible and popular forms of media.
Streaming is the next big thing, with corporate giants such as Disney and Netflix taking over where TV used to reign supreme. Advertisers move with these changing tides, and as advertisers go, the ability to keep broadcast media afloat declines immensely.
This can be seen in the closure of Newshub and TV3 here in New Zealand. Glen Kyne, Warner Bros. representative and boss of Discovery New Zealand stated that the project was canceled due to market conditions. According to market research, around $100m had come out of the TV advertising market as of mid-2022 ー roughly 20% of the market. “Any one thing around digital bargaining would not be enough to really offset the devastating economic impact of what’s happened.” (Kyne 2024)
Newshub was one of New Zealand's longest running outlets, and closed in April of 2024, resulting in roughly 300 job losses, leaving one English language TV Network ー the state owned TVNZ. This raised a worrying question; how is this shrinking news landscape going to impact New Zealand and potentially its democracy?
Where do we go when they turn off the new stations? The answer: Social Media.
POV: Propaganda
Governments have been using the media as a political tool for years, but with the advent of social media the ability to inseminate manufactured evidence and propagate bigotry and misinformation has never been easier. This can be seen in the utilisation of social media in the political exploits of American Politicians alongside the boom in misogynist and transphobic rhetoric in recent years.
Creators such as Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan with large platforms on social media began to perpetrate harmful ideologies around women and their role in society, alongside the necessity that men see themselves as “High Value Males”, re-centering the man in the narrative that has been constructed and written by men. This created a ripple effect into the greater male youth population across the globe, and as Trump was re-elected in 2024, created a space online where men could spout hatred with no consequences. With “Your body, my choice” and other such vitriol being spread by anonymous and public accounts alike with no heed to the consequences ー internet anonymity has made it easy for people to dehumanise and desensitise themselves and others. These creators feed off of the vulnerable, the youth and the lonely, and make billions of dollars off of the suffering they cause to both sides.
The rebranding of Twitter to 'X' under Elon Musk, alongside the rise of unethical AI use in Zuckerberg's META products and their slow support of conservative views, has fueled the fear that social media is increasingly controlled by corporations and used to benefit the 1%.. Both Musk and Zuckerberg contributed to current US President Donald Trump’s campaign, with Musk speaking with him at events and using his control over X to hide comments and ban creators who he disagrees with, and META’s removal of third party fact checking, it's clear that tech new money billionaires are putting their mouth where the money is ー with the conservative voter.
The biggest example of this was last year, when TikTok was banned — an action initially supported by the Trump administration — only to return less than 24 hours later, praising Trump for his efforts in keeping it afloat. For those who studied history, they will recognise that this is a classic propaganda tactic ー cutting off or taking away a group's access to media then returning it to come off as the “saviour”.
But where do we go when they turn off our main point of contact, information sharing and creative outlet? What happens when the internet isn’t a worldwide web anymore, and just a profit farm? What can help us keep the internet open?
Net Neutrality
We have been in similar situations before. Back in 2017-2021, there was a massive movement to save Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is the ability for the internet to stay a free market and free information sharing space that was uncensored and uncontrolled by any one entity. This was enacted by the first Trump Administration. The internet has always been seen as a valuable tool that, if controlled, could be incredibly beneficial to the one in the chair. In the first week of this year, the Federal Court ruled that the FCC ( Federal Communications Commission) cannot classify Internet service providers, or ISPs, in a way that would prevent them from favoring certain content over others. This means they can throttle or control traffic to smaller sites, therefore causing the death of the open internet.
This coincides with the advent of large social media corporations and the billionaires who own them shifting towards more conservative values, which showcases the importance being put on money and advertising for the sake of profit over the needs of the public. Rulings like this will only get more common now that the Supreme Court has overturned the “Chevron deference” – giving judges, rather than qualified public servants, a blank check to toss out protections like net neutrality, environmental safeguards, or food safety standards.
But this has happened before. Which means we can beat them again. In 2017, when the initiatives were initially rolling through, 126,000 people spoke out and halted the movement against Net Neutrality. In 2024 there was a significant win as the FCC voted to restore Net Neutrality.
Conclusion
It's scary out there. Our phones are constantly buzzing with new bad news reels to doom scroll through and it seems like there's hardly any hope for a free, unbiased press in the near future. But there are ways that we can keep our heads up. As social media sites become flooded with propaganda with no fact checking or systems in place to protect diverse groups, it's important to keep speaking up and speaking out. Sign petitions, speak for net neutrality, report misinformation and educate yourself through real sources. There are still broadcast news stations reporting on the ground; BBC, TVNZ Newsroom, NPR and Al Jazeera to name a few. But every source has its own political bend. Read your sources and cross reference them with others. Be open to new information.
When you control what you're being fed, you have the opportunity to cleanse and widen your own palette. Social media can be a tool for good, but we must be aware of misinformation. Our time is the food it feeds on. So let's starve it out.
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