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The Forth Estate turns to Real Estate



The media is often refereed to as the fourth estate and plays a critical watchdog role in society.  According to Thought Co, "in England, the three estates preceding the fourth estate were the king, the clergy and the commoners"(2018). In my opinion, corporations, politics and the public better represent the spheres of influence on modern day society and the fourth estate 'media' has shifted to perform the role of public relations manager for the highest bidder. 

The deregulation of our economic systems in the 1980's enabled news corporations exceptional freedoms to trade and act in ways other corporations did. These days, media ownership practices resembles that of any large multi-national corporation which trades shares on the stock market. From a social perspective, deregulation and free marketism has created serious issues in New Zealand. We now face problems in areas such as income disparity, housing, education, corrections, health, transport, tourism, primary industry as well as the broadcasting industry. Robert W. McChesney comments on deregulation relating to media in a segment from his article on Global Media, Neoliberalism, and Imperialism,


Neoliberalism is almost always intertwined with a deep belief in the ability of markets to use new technologies to solve social problems far better than any alternative course. The centrepiece of neoliberal policies is invariably a call for commercial media and communication markets to be deregulated. What this means in practice is that they are “re-regulated” to serve corporate interests, (2001).

When browsing for news on the internet our attention is desired and beckoned for by many advertising banners and links. It's common that news items have embedded advertising and link to other news items. When clicking on news video items, advertisements spring into action and the viewer is subjected to messages about a product or service before consuming their chosen news item. Scrolling down the news pages, the viewer can find older news and items of questionable news worthiness. 

For example, The NZ Herald website published an item appearing to report that, "Tauranga house prices reach record heights". When this item was clicked, another site opened under another banner of OneRoof. From what I gathered OneRoof looked like a 'product' developed by New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME) to (hype up) promote and drive interests in housing investments in NZ. Below is a capture from the OneRoof Real Estate / News website  showing clearly to be "Powered By NZME".










The OneRoof 'Real Estate News' site has a video embedded for viewers. OneRoof editor OwenVaughan appears to be interviewed on the topic of house prices in Tauranga and states, "the golden triangle will continue to develop as a very large commuter conglomeration and this will have an impact on prices" (2018).  From my perspective, this type of news reporting is just another form of warped corporate misinformation to serve their corporate investment portfolios.




As depicted above, another real estate news item from NZ Herald headlined as “Rotorua house price drop 'ananomaly”. When clicking on this item a similar thing occurred. The news item opened from a OneRoof site and states, "The Golden Triangle has long been a major centre of growth in New Zealand's residential property market, and the positive effects of that growth can be seen to be stretching south to Rotorua". These types of news items seem to be the new norm when reading online news and highlight a change in tact from news reporting to real estate wrangling by a major multinational news media organisation. 

So, does this mean that NZ Herald and NZME are more focused on hyping up the real estate market as opposed to acting as watchdog over the other estates ? In my honest opinion, the fourth estate has turned to real estate and no longer serves it's role in democratic process. Instead, it serves to promote consumerism and the desire for the mirage known as economic prosperity. 'The golden triangle' is only golden for those with gold and a means to acquire more gold. The power of media is in this instance not being utilised to empower the people and enhance democratic process.

Professor Noam Chomsky in the documentary titled Manufacturing Consent (1992), which focuses on democratic process, freedom of speech, political and corporate control over media broadcasting, conveyed the message that dictatorships use violence to control the people, where democracies use propaganda via mass media to control how the majority think and behave. As a result, the people are somewhat brainwashed to believe that consumption, capitalism and growth are good and consent to what is being dished out by the ruling class. 

There are many issues caused by our social, economic, political constructs yet on some level it works. The question is, who's it really working for and how long will it last before the whole sham collapses in a steaming mess?  

From my perspective, it's going to require a total systems overhaul to reinstate systems which serve the people first as opposed to lining the ruling classes halls with gold.








Location: Unnamed Road, Mount Cook 7999, New Zealand

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