Informing immigrant voters: Chinese‐language media in New Zealand election campaigns, 2008–2020

ABSTRACT ‘Ethnic’ media have an important democratic role to play in informing immigrant voters about their choices at election time. Yet, ethnic media typically receive comparatively little attention in studies of electoral news coverage and factors influencing that coverage. Drawing on the case of New Zealand Chinese language media, this article advances understanding of how ethnic media carry out the democratic role of informing migrant voters during elections. Examining data across five election periods, we identify longitudinal trends in election coverage and consider two explanations for those trends: incumbency and the presence of ethnically Chinese candidates. We find a strong relationship between incumbency and the amount of coverage received by leaders and other candidates of major political parties, although the incumbency benefit is stronger for the centre‐right than for the centre‐left. The quantity and tone of coverage of leaders and candidates is, however, not systematically related to the number of co‐ethnic candidates each party stands.