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Framing the Western Cape Water Crisis: an Analysis of The Framing the Western Cape water crisis: An analysis of the reporting of five South African publications in 2017 and 2018 by Hayley Dallas Grammer Thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University Supervisor: Prof George Claassen Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Declaration By submitting this thesis electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third-party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification. April 2019 Copyright © 2019 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved 1 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Abstract The Western Cape water crisis has been called the worst drought in over one hundred years, with mainstream media coverage being widespread. The media has long-lasting effects on the way in which society understands different events. Framing consists of selecting certain aspects of reality and making them more salient in communicating text; this in turn promotes a particular problem and therefore specific reaction by those who come into contact with the information in question. By understanding how the drought was framed by a selection of South African publications, researchers can identify and critically examine the dominant media messages being communicated to the public, which in turn has the power to influence behaviours and attitudes towards water conservation. Although academic research in the area of framing is extensive, it lacks exploration from within the South African context. This study explores how a selection of five South African publications – namely the Cape Argus, Die Burger, the Cape Times, GroundUp and News24 – framed the Western Cape water crisis. The hypothesis of this study is that the publications favoured a political narrative above a scientific one in their coverage of the drought. Both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in the form of content analyses were employed in order to illustrate the saliency of the drought on the media agenda, as well as which messages readers were being exposed to with regards to the water crisis. The main findings of this study were that a scientific narrative was largely lacking from media coverage of the drought. 2 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Acknowledgements Thank you to everyone who supported me in reaching my goal of completing this degree, but mostly to my parents; for everything you’ve given me and for giving me everything I need. 3 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Table of Contents 1. Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................... 9 1.1. The origins of Cape Town’s water crisis .................................................................................... 10 1.2. Problem statement and research question ................................................................................... 17 1.3. Structure of research.................................................................................................................. 18 2. Chapter 2: Literature Review ................................................................................................ 19 2.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 19 2.2. Climate communication as a field of journalism ........................................................................ 20 2.3. Framing climate change as a social problem .............................................................................. 26 2.3.1. The public arenas model ..................................................................................................................... 26 2.3.2. Social limits to climate change adaption .............................................................................................. 27 2.4. Science communication and science in the media ...................................................................... 28 2.5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 32 3. Chapter 3 – Theoretical framework ....................................................................................... 33 3.1. Framing .................................................................................................................................... 33 3.1.1. A multi-level model for explaining journalistic framing ....................................................................... 37 3.1.2. A typology of framing ......................................................................................................................... 37 3.2. Agenda-setting .......................................................................................................................... 40 4. Chapter 4 – Research methodology ....................................................................................... 44 5. Chapter 5 – Coverage of the water crisis (quantitative analysis) ........................................... 49 5.1. Cape Argus ............................................................................................................................... 49 5.2. Die Burger ................................................................................................................................ 50 5.3. Cape Times ............................................................................................................................... 51 5.4. News24 and GroundUp ............................................................................................................. 53 5.5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 54 6. Chapter 6 – Qualitative framing analysis .............................................................................. 55 6.1. Cape Argus ............................................................................................................................... 56 6.2. Die Burger ................................................................................................................................ 65 6.3. Cape Times ............................................................................................................................... 75 6.4. GroundUp ................................................................................................................................. 84 4 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za 6.5. News24 ................................................................................................................................... 104 7. Chapter 7 – Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 116 7.1. Summary................................................................................................................................. 116 7.2. Recommendations ................................................................................................................... 118 5 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za List of Figures Figure 1: SAWS seasonal rainfall records from July 2012 to April 2017 (Muller 2017:11). ........... 13 Figure 2: The public arena of mass-media production, where journalistic norms interact (Boykoff, 2011:100)...................................................................................................................................... 22 Figure 3: Different framing questions (Scheufele, 1999:108) ........................................................ 39 Figure 4: A process model of framing research (Scheufele, 1999:115). ......................................... 40 Figure 5: Emphases of Quantitative, Mixed and Qualitative Research (Johnson and Christensen, 2014:34). ...................................................................................................................................... 47 Figure 7: Graph showing number of articles relevant to water crisis in comparison with rest of publication .................................................................................................................................... 50 Figure 8: Graph showing articles relevant to water crisis in comparison with rest of publication ... 51 Figure 9: Graph showing number of articles relevant to water crisis in comparison to rest of publication .................................................................................................................................... 52 Figure 10: Graph showing accumulated daily rainfall at Cape Town Airport (Wolski, 2017b). ...... 87 Figure 11: Graphs showing accumulated daily rainfall (Wolski, 2017b). ....................................... 88 Figure 12: Graph showing differences in data between Altydgedacht Station and Cape Town Airport (Wolski, 2017b). ........................................................................................................................... 88 Figure 13: Graph showing time series of total annual rainfall at Altydgedacht Station, gap filled with 2016 and
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