The Len Brown affair: The roles of new and old media in a New Zealand political sex scandal

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dc.citation.issue2
dc.citation.volume22
dc.contributor.authorHannis GD
dc.date.available2017-01
dc.date.issued2017-01
dc.description.abstractThe power of online media to influence New Zealand local government politics was made clear in 2013 when a blogger revealed that Len Brown, the popular mayor of Auckland, had conducted a two-year, extramarital affair. The mainstream media picked up the story, Brown’s popularity collapsed and in late 2015 he announced he would not stand again for mayor. This media scandal was, in part, driven by the fact that Brown was a celebrity. Unlike several high-profile sex scandals involving politicians overseas, Brown’s career did not survive the controversy, perhaps because the public came to regard him as a practised liar. The media itself engaged in self-serving scandalous activity during the controversy. Today’s shock bloggers are similar to the proto-journalists of the 17th century. Members of new and old media researching the scandal treated their secret sources very differently. The existence of the internet means such scandals can now exist in perpetuity. If the Len Brown Affair was an example of the media fulfilling its watchdog role - by exposing a lying politician - it was also an example of journalists furthering their own ends - political and commercial - by appealing to their audiences’ purient interests.
dc.description.confidentialFALSE
dc.format.extent160 - 171
dc.identifierhttps://pjreview.aut.ac.nz/
dc.identifier.citationPacific Journalism Review, 2017, 22 (2), pp. 160 - 171
dc.identifier.elements-id289884
dc.identifier.harvestedMassey_Dark
dc.identifier.issn1023-9499
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10179/10615
dc.publisherAuckland University of Technology, School of Communication Studies, Pacific Media Centre
dc.publisher.urihttps://pjreview.aut.ac.nz/
dc.relation.isPartOfPacific Journalism Review
dc.subjectLen Brown
dc.subjectGossip
dc.subjectWatchdog
dc.subjectPolitics
dc.subjectNew Media
dc.subjectMedia scandals
dc.subjectNew Zealand
dc.subjectPolitical journalism
dc.subject.anzsrc1902 Film, Television and Digital Media
dc.subject.anzsrc1903 Journalism and Professional Writing
dc.subject.anzsrc2001 Communication and Media Studies
dc.titleThe Len Brown affair: The roles of new and old media in a New Zealand political sex scandal
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.notesNot known
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/Massey Business School
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/Massey Business School/School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing
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