New Zealanders are recalling less Asia-related news — what’s behind this concerning trend?

Looking at Perceptions of Asia surveys over time, positive trends quickly emerge: New Zealanders’ knowledge of the region has steadily increased, perceived importance of Asia’s sub-regions to New Zealand’s future has grown, and sentiment towards many countries in Asia has warmed considerably.

But other, seemingly less positive trends also become clear. The most obvious of these is the steep decline in New Zealanders’ ability to recall recent Asia-related news. Given Asia is more important to New Zealand than ever, this is reason for concern.

In 2010, 70 percent of New Zealanders were able to recall seeing or hearing Asia-related news in the three months prior to completing the Perceptions of Asia survey.

Percentage of New Zealanders who can recall seeing Asia-related news in the past three months

By 2023, only 40 percent of New Zealanders surveyed could remember any Asia-related news in the last three months. With the exceptions of 2015 and 2016 when Asia-news recall spiked to 75 and 66 percent, this decline has been largely consistent.

What accounts for this drop? Despite increasing hours spent online and information seemingly more accessible than ever, are New Zealanders actually consuming less Asia-related news?

Without data for the total volume of Asia-related news published on New Zealand media channels there is no definitive way of knowing if New Zealanders’ declining recollection reflects a drop in actual content. But there are several reasons to believe that New Zealanders may indeed be consuming less Asia-related news than in the past, or at least consuming it in a way that diminishes recall. We explore some of these below.

#1 New Zealand’s contracting media landscape

The decline in New Zealand’s wider media landscape, which began long before the most recent major layoffs at TVNZ and Newshub, surely contributes to the declining recall rate.

In the two decades to 2020, the number of New Zealand newspaper publishing enterprises declined by 32 percent. According to official census data, in 2006 there were 4,071 people who identified as being a newspaper or periodical editor or print, radio or journalist. By 2018, the last census for which occupation data is currently available, the number was 3,381 – a 17 percent drop.

New Zealand journalist Johnathan Cason in the field in the Philippines

While outlets such as RNZ have relatively regular access to correspondents in the region, these correspondents tend to work primarily for international media organisations such as Reuters and do not file stories for publication in New Zealand outlets. New Zealand’s first and last dedicated television news Asia-based correspondent was Charlotte Glennie who was based in TVNZ’s Asia bureau in Hong Kong until it was shut down in 2006.

Not only are there fewer journalists today, but our journalists aren’t reflective of New Zealand’s increasingly diverse population – journalists of Asian, Māori and Pacific descent are underrepresented. As Eda Tang writes, this limits what stories are ultimately told and heard. With fewer journalists, compounded by a shortage of journalists equipped to report on Asia-related issues, it is possible that Asia-related stories are not getting their fair share.

This hypothesis is supported by Perceptions of Asia results. According to the latest survey published in June 2024, over a third (35 percent) of New Zealanders think Asia receives too little coverage in New Zealand media.

#2 Changing media sources

But the cuts to New Zealand news outlets aren’t the only probable factor. The way media is consumed has also fundamentally changed. According to a report commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage (MCH), 2021 marked a ‘crossover year’, with New Zealanders spending more time on digital media platforms than consuming traditional media from TV, radio and newspapers.

This shift in media consumption patterns is also evident in the latest Perceptions of Asia. While 69 percent of New Zealanders still get most of their Asia news from traditional media; social media and websites are increasingly important sources, particularly for younger New Zealanders. Forty-seven percent of New Zealanders get most of their Asia news from social media, a 10-percentage point increase from the previous survey alone; while 55 percent get most of their news from online newspapers, websites and blogs.

Where do New Zealanders get their news from

Consuming information via social media and websites impacts what people are viewing. While New Zealanders theoretically have more agency in what they are reading online, digital platforms operating on content-selective algorithms that show consumers more of what they’re already interested in can ultimately limit what readers and viewers are exposed to.

 This means that unless New Zealanders have some existing interest in Asia-related issues — or networks likely to share Asia content on social media — they’re less likely to be randomly exposed to Asia news stories.

#3 ‘News avoidance’ or news over-saturation?

In fact, New Zealanders not only appear to be changing how they get their news – many are opting to avoid news altogether. ‘News avoidance’, a report by Auckland University of Technology’s (AUT) research centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy finds, is higher in New Zealand than elsewhere. According to the report, which was carried out in 2024, 75 percent of New Zealanders actively avoid the news sometimes or often, an increase of six-percentage points from 2023, and well above the global average of 38 percent. New Zealanders’ trust in media also fell considerably in recent years. In 2020, 53 percent expressed general trust in the news. As of 2024, only 33 percent of New Zealanders say they trusts the news in general.

The reasons for avoidance won’t come as a surprise: New Zealanders find news biased, repetitive, boring, overly dramatic, depressing, and anxiety-inducing, says AUT’s 2023 report. When it comes to news relating to Asia, at least one in five New Zealanders (21 percent) feel that news coverage of Asia is ‘too negative’, according to the most recent Perceptions of Asia. It is possible that Asia-related content is collateral damage of a broader trend of rising news avoidance and increased distrust in the media.

Of course, it’s also possible that even if social media feeds are showing New Zealanders Asia content, it’s ultimately getting “lost in the scroll” and crowded out by other stories, advertisements, reels and videos vying for our limited attention. In an era of information-saturated new feeds that can be refreshed with a single swipe of the thumb and incentivise quantity of clicks over deep engagement, it’s perhaps inevitable that our ability to recall what we’re exposed to has diminished.

Studies back up this hypothesis. Social media has been linked to news overload, which results in diminished news ‘efficacy’. “Exposure to too much information makes people unmotivated to process information,” one study observes. These studies have also found that an overload of information not only diminishes our ability to take in the information, but it also encourages people to employ so-called ‘remedial tactics’ of news avoidance and ‘social filtering’. The latter is where social media users rely on their social networks for what news they should be paying attention to.

#4 Asia-related media recall spikes

But what then explains the spike in Asia-related news recall in 2015 and 2016?

In 2015, recall of Asia-related news shot up to 75 percent from 61 percent the previous year; while 66 percent of New Zealanders recalled recent Asia-related news in 2016 before falling to 49 percent in 2019, the next year for which data is available.

The Perceptions of Asia reports for these two years shed some light on why.

According to the 2015 report, over two thirds of New Zealanders surveyed (67 percent) recalled negative information about Asia-related events, issues or people, while only 49 percent recalled positive stories. The most frequently recalled stories were those relating to “Asian investment and property purchases”. Indeed, immigration is included in RNZ’s wrap-up of topics New Zealanders were most interested in in 2015.

The timing of the survey itself is also likely key. The month before the survey was carried out, Labour released its ‘surname analysis’ that claimed foreign buyers of Asian descent were responsible for the Auckland housing crisis. While economists were quick to point out that the analysis was “half-baked” and akin to scapegoating, it echoed (and arguably fueled) views that had become unfortunately common among the wider public:

These views are reflected in the survey findings. In 2010, New Zealanders were more likely to disagree than agree that New Zealand was allowing “too much investment from Asia”. By 2015 this had reversed, with nearly half of New Zealanders (47 percent) saying the country was allowing too much investment. The report also found that 48 percent of New Zealanders agreed that “Asian people” were responsible for rising house prices, a substantial increase from two years prior when New Zealanders were more likely to disagree than agree.

The 2016 Perceptions of Asia results paint a similarly depressing picture. Despite a considerable reduction, more than half of New Zealanders surveyed (58 percent) recalled negative coverage of Asia-related events, issues or people, with debate over Asian investment in property or land again being the most recalled issue. As in 2015, around half of those surveyed (49 percent) said they felt “Asian people” were responsible for escalating house prices, while 45 percent said that New Zealand is allowing too much investment from Asia.

Unfortunately, there is no media recall data for 2017 and 2018 and subsequent surveys haven’t looked at what Asia-related stories and topics were front of mind for New Zealanders. But following the ban on foreign buyers in 2018 and COVID-19 border restrictions that saw house prices soar in the absence of net immigration, public debate around the impact of migrants or “Asian buyers” on house prices has fortunately lost much of its previous volume and fervor. The latest Perceptions of Asia survey shows that New Zealanders’ expectations that immigration from Asia will have a positive impact on New Zealand’s future have returned to previous levels.

The ability of the media to shape perceptions of and attitudes towards migrants is well established. If the drop in Asia-related media recall reflects a more nuanced public debate on the housing crisis, then declining recall may, counterintuitively, be a positive development.

Recommendations

These sobering recall trends underscore some important takeaways.

Firstly, and given the current media landscape, usage patterns and content-selective algorithms, these findings call for deeper thinking on how we can ensure New Zealanders have increased access to nuanced reporting and information on a broad range of issues, including those they might not have a pre-existing interest in. Ensuring the New Zealand school curriculum sufficiently covers Asia topics as part of social studies, history and language education is a natural starting point. Similarly, schools are a natural setting for young New Zealanders to learn basic media literacy, including the importance of critically analysing what they’re exposed to and of actively seeking out information from reputable sources. On the regulatory level, an obvious starting point would be to consider regulating algorithmic filtering and content recommendations.  

Secondly, it points to the need for public investment in a media workforce that is representative of Aotearoa today and capable of reporting on local and international “Asia” stories in a way that encourages broad readership across platforms. This includes fantastic recent initiatives like RNZ’s IndoNZ and Chinese-language content that are aimed at providing accurate and relevant news to New Zealand’s South Asian and Chinese communities.

Finally, it challenges readers to be discerning and demand stories that go beyond damaging stereotypes of Asia either as an economic opportunity and provider of much-needed labour and skills, or as a source of migrants who pose a burden on existing infrastructure and housing stock. There are endless stories worthy of being told and we need to consciously consider which ones are most deserving of our attention.

This article was written by the Foundation's Manager, Research Programme Alex Smith for Asia in Focus. The Foundation's Asia in Focus initiative provides expert analysis on Asia and New Zealand-Asia relations.