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Day Zero: Communicating the Water Crisis in Cape Town, 2015-2018

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Day Zero: Communicating the Water Crisis in Cape Town, 2015-2018 Day Zero: Communicating the water crisis in Cape Town, 2015-2018 A qualitative study about the communication during the water crisis and how the public responded to the messages Dagen Noll: Att kommunicera Kapstadens vattenkris, 2015- 2018 En kvalitativ studie av kommunikation under vattenkrisen och allmänhetens reaktioner på erhållen information Fredrik Karlsson Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Environmental science Bachelor's Thesis, 15 hp Supervisor: Hilde Ibsen Examiner: Eva Svensson Date: 17-01-2020 “No water, no life” 1 Foreword & Acknowledgements I went to South Africa to do my thesis because I wanted to see some environmental issues with my own eyes. Living in Sweden, such issues are not easily visible and are more of a future or theoretical thing. South Africa were able to give me what I wanted, showing environmental issues, but it also gave me so much more. It turned out to be a real adventure that gave me perspective of how life can be and when looking back I think it changed my own world a bit. I can´t say this thesis contain some groundbreaking discoveries that will change any readers, but the thesis is a big deal to me and I am proud of it. I would not be here if not for a big bunch of people, and therefore I want to say a big thank you to my family, friends, classmates, teachers and people I met in South Africa. You are all the best! What you will read in here is in some ways a story of the water crisis, explaining how the response to it came to be and the thinking going on behind it. Anyone looking back at the water crisis might wonder why the response came so late and how it came to that point. There is no easy answer to those questions, but by listening to the stories of people in Ocean View, and the surrounding area, some understandings and explanations have been found. A huge thank you to all of you who took the time to share your experience and let me in to your world. It would not have been possible without you. Peter Fenton. You showed the way forth and what to do. If not for you I would have struggled a lot more. A huge thank you for sharing all you know and making all of this possible. Sophia Grodes. You inspired me, opened up the community for me and showed me where to go. I sincerely hope this thesis lives up to you expectations. Thank you so much! Hilde Ibsen. You have been a spectacular supervisor and I would not have anything to show if not for you. Thank you for the opportunity to go to South Africa and giving me a hint of what it is like to do research. I have learnt so much thanks to you, for which I am truly grateful. Penelope Engel-Hills. Thank you very much for your help reading the thesis and giving comments, as well as for allowing us to join you and Hilde for the walk in Ocean View. Your help was very valuable! 2 Sammanfattning Stigande urbanisering och större befolkningar har ökat trycket på städer och deras förmågor att förse alla med de vardagstjänster som städerna vanligtvis har kapacitet att erbjuda. Att förse alla med dricksvatten är något som har blivit en utmaning då vattenanvändningen har stigit samtidigt som vattentillgången varierar beroende på nederbörd, och potentiellt minskat på grund av klimatförändringarna. FN:s elfte globala mål för hållbar utveckling handlar om hållbara städer och efterfrågar en hållbar förändring av städer med beslutsfattande som är inkluderande. Målet siktar på att minska städers miljöpåverkan, effektiv resursanvändning och att minska ekonomiska förluster av katastrofer (t.ex. torka) (UN, 2015) och är därmed relevant för städers vattenanvändning. I kontexten för Sydafrika och Kapstaden är problemen kring vatten ett resultat av stigande befolkning, urbanisering och klimatförändringar, men också landets historia som kvarstår som en barriär mot hållbarhet. Denna uppsats handlar om vattenkrisen i Kapstaden 2015-2018 med syftet att utforska hur Kapstadens beslutsfattare kommunicerade varningarna kring att vattnet skulle ta slut och hur allmänheten svarade på denna kommunikation. För att åstadkomma detta är metoden som använts inspirerad av etnografiska forskningsmetoder med syftet att lyfta lokala synpunkter och åsikter. I detta fall handlar det om synpunkter och åsikter från människor i samhället Ocean View på den västra Kaphalvön några mil utanför Kapstaden. Resultatet diskuterades i förhållande till tidigare forskning på området och ett teoretiskt ramverk baserat på kommunikationsteorier. Som slutsats kom det fram att sättet vattenkrisen kommunicerades på var mjukt med en låg känsla av hot till en början där tips gavs för vad människor kan göra för att spara vatten, vilket misslyckades med att skapa någon ordentlig respons från allmänheten. Men allteftersom att situationens allvarlighet började förstås förändrades kommunikationen och började sprida rädsla och panik genom ”domedagskommunikationen” av ’Day Zero’, dagen då vattenkranarna skulle stängas av. Efter det kom svaret från allmänheten och förändring skedde relativt snabbt då människor började spara vatten för att undvika denna katastrof. Nyckelord: Vatten, vattenkris, kommunikation, Sydafrika, Day Zero, vattenanvändning 3 Abstract Populations have continued to grow rapidly in the last decades and urbanisation has become even higher, increasing the pressure on cities to provide basic services to all its inhabitants. Assuring drinking water for everyone is one thing that has been proven challenging as water demand has increased while at the same time water supply varies depending on rainfall and potentially decreases due to climate change. The United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Sustainable cities and communities), calls for a sustainable transformation with governance and urban management that are participatory and inclusive. SDG 11 targets reducing cities environmental impacts and using resources efficiently as well as decreasing the economic losses due to disasters (eg. drought) (UN, 2015). Thus, making it highly relevant to water management. In the context of South Africa and Cape Town the issue around the water subject is a combination of population growth, urbanisation and climate change, but also the history of the country which sometimes remains a barrier to sustainability. This study looks into the water crisis in Cape Town during 2015-2018 with the aim to explore how the City of Cape Town communicated the warnings about taps running dry and how the public responded to the messages. To do so the method used in this study is inspired by ethnographic research methods serving to uplift local viewpoints and opinions. In this case the uplifted voices are from people in the community of Ocean View on the South Peninsula of the Western Cape. The results were discussed in relation to previous research on the water subject of the region and a theoretical framework based on communicational theory. In conclusion, the way the water crisis was communicated was a bit soft at first with a quite low sense of threat and some water saving tips which failed to generate any significant public response. However, gradually as the severity of the situation was beginning to be understood the communication changed and started spreading fear and panic through the apocalyptic framing of Day Zero, the day the taps would run dry. After that the public response was initiated and change happened quite rapidly with people saving water in order to avoid the disaster. Keywords: Water, water crisis, communication, South Africa, Day Zero, water use 4 Table of contents Sammanfattning....................................................................................................................................... 3 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 4 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 7 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................. 7 1.2 Drought and the city ................................................................................................................ 8 1.3 Aim and research question ...................................................................................................... 9 1.4 Outline of thesis ..................................................................................................................... 10 2. Previous research and theory ......................................................................................................... 11 2.1 Water saving .......................................................................................................................... 11 2.2 Communicating complex issues and scepticism ................................................................... 12 2.3 Psychology - How people respond to communication .......................................................... 13 2.3.1 Evolutionary psychology ............................................................................................... 13 2.3.2 Cognitive psychology .................................................................................................... 13 2.3.3 Social psychology .......................................................................................................... 14 2.4 Framing ................................................................................................................................
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