Media democracy and the paradoxes of neoliberalization.

The use of the term neoliberalism is sometimes criticised in media and communication studies and elsewhere for encouraging a formulaic mode of critical analysis where everything is subsumed into a neat neoliberal story. This paper interrogates how the concept is often articulated, while nonetheless argues that neoliberalism, or what I prefer to call neoliberalization, is a crucial analytical term for understanding the hegemonic constitution of the social order. The argument focuses on the often banal role of neoliberalized logics and practices in the articulation of what Meyer (2002) characterises as a time of politically repressive "media democracy". Grounded in an illustrative analysis of a 2011 media-political event in Aotearoa New Zealand, the paper highlights paradoxical and messy dimensions of neoliberalized hegemony that are sometimes occluded in critical discourses. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on the place of agents' self-interpretations in critical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]