Consumer journalism: an historical and critical analysis

Abstract

This thesis considers the historical development of consumer journalism and the techniques used by consumer journalists to promulgate their message. Essentially a 20th century invention, consumer journalism originated in the United States. Today, it is popular and influential, playing a major role in the development of consumer protection law, both overseas and in New Zealand. The primary New Zealand consumer magazine is Consumer, published by Consumers' Institute. As a magazine for the affluent middle-class. Consumer must be entertaining but intellectual. Consumer sets out to look like a mainstream magazine, indicating to its readers that they can expect the text to be written in a breezy, accessible journalistic style. But the content in Consumer goes far further than that found in most other magazines. Consumer frequently rates the performance of products and exposes consumer scandals. Consumers' Institute is confident its stringent research methods allow it to name names without facing damaging defamation actions. But Consumer magazine is also a business, and to some extent this commercial imperative compromises the magazine's journalistic standards. For instance, although Consumer runs articles about many consumer pet hates, such as banks and insurance companies, it never runs articles about another common consumer concern: unsolicited mail. That is because Consumers' Institute itself sends out millions of unsolicited letters a year, marketing Consumer magazine. But if we look at its precursors, it is clear that consumer journalism has come a long way. By the standards of today, Defoe's 18th-century consumer journalism in the Review must be found wanting. Defoe rarely named names, pandered to popular prejudice, and apparently invented many of the consumer stories he reported. In Defoe's defence, he was pioneering new techniques, and so can hardly be expected to have used them to the same level of sophistication that Consumer wields 300 years later. Above all, Defoe was writing in an age when the demarcation between fact and fiction was more blurred than it is today. Indeed, some of the ideas Defoe used in his consumer journalism found their way into his greatest works of fiction.