This thesis presents a comparative study of the evolution of print media codes of ethics in Britain and New Zealand. Through exploring how ethics codes have come to be employed by the print media as self-regulatory structures, the study contributes to an understanding of how press policy has evolved over the twentieth century in the two countries. By providing an illustration of the pressures and processes underpinning the adoption of ethics codes by the print media, the study also offers an insight into the role and functions of codes, and their efficacy as self-regulatory tools.

The thesis explores the concept of 'voluntary restraint' in order to establish a theoretical framework from which to assess and compare the evolution of ethics codes by the British and New Zealand print media. The manner in which the principles of voluntary restraint have manifested themselves in the respective regulatory histories of the print media in Britain and New Zealand is analysed. Parallels are identified concerning the nature of internal reform of self-regulation out of which codes of ethics have emerged as self-regulatory structures.

It is concluded that in both Britain and New Zealand, the evolution of codes of ethics reflects a divergence with the principles of voluntary restraint, which is also evident in the content of the emergent codes themselves. Thus, a re-thinking of the concept of journalistic accountability is advanced as a basis from which ethics codes as self­ regulatory structures might be reformed and reapplied in the spirit of voluntary restraint for the future.