Flood disasters in the United Kingdom and India: A critical discourse analysis of media reporting

Abstract

Reports of flooding are becoming more frequent in the UK media, and evidence from the UK Environment Agency indicates that ‘living with flooding’ will become commonplace rather than exceptional. This study is the first to adopt a critical discourse analysis approach to compare UK newspaper reporting of floods in the developed and developing world. We present our analysis of major flood incidents in Northern England and Chennai, India, in 2015. Our findings identify that UK newspapers not only give greater prominence to flooding events that are local but also frame differently those affected. Reports of floods in Northern England reinforced similarities and shared values between victims and assumed readers by drawing upon personal stories, emotions and suffering. By contrast, reports about floods in Chennai portrayed victims as anonymous ‘distant Others’, emphasising the drama of the incident rather than the plight of individuals. We argue that the newspapers’ approach to covering flooding reveals how the Western-dominated global media continue to emphasise difference rather than similarity between people in the developed and developing world, presenting flooding in the United Kingdom as exceptional and flooding in India as normalised. We believe these findings have important implications in the context of globalisation and increasing migration.

The role of discourses in understanding institutional stability and change – an analysis of Dutch flood risk governance

“…The paper contributes to the interpretative literature on flood risk management. This literature often focuses on analysing the different discursive positions within the debate on flood risk management (Hidalgo-Bastidas & Boelens, 2019;Hurlbert & Gupta, 2016;Kaufmann & Wiering, 2017;Kuhlicke et al, 2016;Merz et al, 2014;Moon et al, 2017;Rashid, 2011;Solman & Henderson, 2019;Wesselink & Warner, 2010), or explains changes in dominant policy discourses and how that correlates to changes in flood risk management strategies (Van der Brugge et al, 2005;Butler & Pidgeon, 2011;Van Buuren et al, 2016;Garrelts & Lange, 2011;Gralepois et al, 2016;Haque et al, 2019;Immink, 2007;Kaufmann, Lewandowski, et al, 2016). However, only a few explain how these emerging discourses were influenced by institutional factors (Van Buuren et al, 2016;Garrelts & Lange, 2011;Harries & Penning-Rowsell, 2011;Kaufmann, 2017a;Wiering & Arts, 2006).…”

Conflictos armados y perspectiva de género: Representación mediática de las niñas soldado

“…Critical discourse analysis is based on the principle that language is a social practice that not only serves to communicate, but also to define a society (Fairclough, 2001, ob.cit. Solman & Henderson, 2019).…”

Media portrayal of the illegal trade in wildlife: The case of turtles in the US and implications for conservation

“…We first identified known instances of illegal trade in non-marine turtles (hereafter referred to as 'cases'), similar to other studies of events-and place-based media analyses (e.g. An & Gower, 2009;Daniels et al, 2007;Jørgensen & Renöfält, 2013;Pritchard & Hughes, 1997;Solman & Henderson, 2018). We used press releases and monthly bulletins from the US Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD, available from 2006 to October 2021) to identify an initial set of cases.…”