Assessing local discourses on water in a South African newspaper

Abstract

Academic understandings of environmental discourses are primarily based on global and national accounts, despite widespread acceptance of the local as an essential site of environmental action. Local water issues have been studied in a number of ways, including interviews and ethnographies that show the impacts of water scarcity, examine the role of mediating technologies, and provide diverse perspectives on governance. An overarching impression of key narratives and concerns at local scales, however, is lacking. In this paper, we examine water coverage in The Sowetan, a South African newspaper known for its distinctive voice, as a (albeit imperfect) proxy for local discourse. We identify key themes, location and scale, trigger events, actors, authors, and provide initial insights into the problem frames used in these texts. Our findings show distinct differences from the results of environmental media analyses at other scales, including strong individual citizen voices, emphasis on the politics of water, and rare use of language that accords with global environmental discourses; this also differs from results based on interviews and ethnographies at the local scale. Our findings raise important questions about the resonance of global discourse with local views and practices and how local discourses are produced, and suggest a need to more carefully examine the myriad ways of talking about justice and the environment at different scales and through different methodologies. ARTICLE HISTORY

The relative representation of ecosystem services and disservices in South African newspaper media

“…include both EDS and ES in the same article, or the sometimes positive consequences of EDS. For example, Lawhon and Makina (2017) assessed local environmental discourses about water in a national South African newspaper over two decades and concluded that although the topic of water was presented as an ES, the articles also covered the negative aspects such a floods, poor quality jeopardising human health and poor delivery. The journalists we interviewed emphasised the need for balance, and that even if an article is predominantly negative, it should try to end off with a positive note or tone.…”

Ontario’s Water Policy Reform Examined through a Groundwater Lens: An Analysis of Provincial Policy Measures and Newspaper Media Framing Around Groundwater 2000- 2019

“…In Ontario, the Walkerton tragedy could be classified as a 'punctuated equilibrium' with the subsequent policy generations in the province a form of maintaining the 'issueattention cycle' as described by Downs (1972). Lawhon and Makina (2017) have shown that local newspapers can adopt frames and narratives significantly different than the ones at play in the national and international sphere. Although the media landscape is drastically changing due to the influence of social media and online channels in the 21 st century, it has been found that traditional avenues such as newspapers are still a crucially important source of environmental information to the public (Whiting et al 2019;Skanavis 1999).…”

Ontario’s Water Policy Reform Examined through a Groundwater Lens: An Analysis of Provincial Policy Measures and Newspaper Media Framing Around Groundwater 2000- 2019

“…In Ontario, the Walkerton tragedy could be classified as a 'punctuated equilibrium' with the subsequent policy generations in the province a form of maintaining the 'issueattention cycle' as described by Downs (1972). Lawhon and Makina (2017) have shown that local newspapers can adopt frames and narratives significantly different than the ones at play in the national and international sphere. Although the media landscape is drastically changing due to the influence of social media and online channels in the 21 st century, it has been found that traditional avenues such as newspapers are still a crucially important source of environmental information to the public (Whiting et al 2019;Skanavis 1999).…”