Evolution of newspaper coverage of water issues in Australia during 1843–2011

J Wei; Y Wei; A Western; D Skinner; C Lyle

Journal article

Evolution of newspaper coverage of water issues in Australia during 1843–2011

J Wei, Y Wei, A Western, D Skinner, C Lyle

Ambio | Published : 2015

DOI: 10.1007/s13280-014-0571-2

Abstract

News accounts both reflect and influence public opinion through their noted ‘agenda-setting’ capability. We examined newspaper articles in Australia’s The Sydney Morning Herald from 1843 to 2011 to observe the evolution of media coverage on water issues related to water resources management. The results showed that water supply-related articles have dominated the reporting of water issues since 1843. This emphasis is reflected in the institutions involved and their related policy/management initiatives, as well as the themes of the articles. Extreme events such as flooding and drought have punctuated the historical record of reports on water issues. An economic development-driven tone was ov..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Andrew Western Author

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Australian Research Council (Project No: ARCDP120102917), the Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No: 91125007) and the Commonwealth of Australia under the Australia-China Science and Research Fund (Project No: ACSRF800).