Victoria University-Te Herenga Waka researchers say analysis of nearly 700 political party Facebook posts has found the established parties don’t spread fake news but they do flirt with half-truths.
Dr Mona Krewel, a senior lecturer in comparative politics, says the study focused on posts by political parties and their leaders.
She says while National has campaigned negatively around Maori policies, New Zealand First and Act were the only ones to directly attack things they saw as discrimination favouring Maori.
“That is in particular the Treaty that they are campaigning on. And a lot of these posts actually had a certain race-based touch to it. So there is a lot of negative-campaigning against Maori-associated to those kinds of posts,” Krewel says.
