Indigeneity matters: Portrayal of women offenders in New Zealand newspapers

A growing body of research investigates women's experiences within New Zealand's criminal justice system, and several studies have addressed the misrepresentation of crime's reality in news media. However, the discriminatory depiction of Indigenous women offenders in New Zealand's press has yet to receive scholarly attention. Indigeneity and gender are both critical factors because Maori women constitute the fastest growing segment of New Zealand's prison population, and media discourses help shape public consent to penal policies. To address this research gap, New Zealand newspaper articles featuring women offenders were collected over a 2-year period (2016-2018) and analysed for their use of neutralization and exacerbation techniques. The findings reveal that New Zealand newspapers distort our understanding of who is most affected by the criminal justice system and what crimes Pakeha(1) and Maori women typically commit. Most importantly, stories about Pakeha women were more likely to use a favourable tone (56.5%), while stories about Maori women were more likely to take on an unfavourable tone (83.3%). Finally, motherhood, as an additional exacerbating factor, was mentioned nearly twice as often for Maori women. This article adds to the body of knowledge on the portrayal of Maori people in the media, linking it to public consent to governmental policies.