‘Your’ weather: Digital weather producer WeatherWatch NZ  and its Pacific coverage

Melissa Beattie

doi:10.24135/pmm.v1i1.8

Authors

Melissa Beattie Southern New Hampshire University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1466-8338

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24135/pmm.v1i1.8

Keywords:

communication, digital weather journalism, disaster communication, journalism, New Zealand, Pacific, weather communication

Abstract

As one of the many private (i.e., profit-driven/non-governmental) digital weather producers which have entered the global media landscape, New Zealand-based digital weather producer WeatherWatch NZ has had to find ways of acquiring and increasing audience share. Though they use several methods, in this article I will focus upon its addition and subsequent (temporary?) abandonment of weekly, seven-day forecasts covering the Pacific. This article will first discuss WWNZ’s position within the wider digital journalism industry, particularly with regard to the precarity of freelance journalists producing for digital/social media. It will then move on to position it within the South Pacific context with regard to its dedicated Pacific-only weekly forecast which focused upon Melanesia and Polynesia. Finally, it will analyse, with the inclusion of audience comments, how the addition and later (temporary?) abandonment of these forecasts relates to the tension and necessary negotiation between the public service ideal of journalism and the profit-making requirements of private industry.

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Author Biography

Melissa Beattie, Southern New Hampshire University

Dr Melissa Beattie is a recovering classicist who was awarded a PhD in theatre, film and TV studies from Aberystwyth University where she studied Torchwood and national identity through fan/audience research as well as textual analysis. She has published and presented several papers relating to transnational television, audience research and/or national identity. She is currently an assistant professor of liberal arts at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. She has previously worked at universities in the US, Korea, Pakistan, Armenia, Ethiopia and for a brief time in Cambodia.

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