Cross-National Coverage of Water Handling: A Community Structure Approach

A cross-national community structure survey examined the relationship between national characteristics and newspaper coverage of water handling. Sampling all relevant 250+ word articles from September 1, 2000 (the implementation of UN Millennium Development Goal target 7c) to September 1, 2010 in 21 newspapers worldwide in NewsBank and AllAfrica databases yielded 394 articles. Articles were coded for visual/editorial “prominence” and “direction” (framing of clean water access as primarily “government responsibility,” “societal responsibility,” or “balanced/neutral” coverage), then combined to produce composite “Media Vector” scores for each newspaper (+.5241 to ?.3886, a range of .9127). Thirteen of 21 Media Vectors (60%) reflected coverage favoring government responsibility for water handling. Pearson correlations revealed the potency of 4 variable cluster scales (all α = .70+) as major correlates of water handling coverage: “female empowerment,” “vulnerability,” “privilege,” and “press freedom,” with three clusters connected to “societal” responsibility. Regression analysis reinforced the strong role of female empowerment in coverage emphasizing societal responsibility. Overall, indicators of privilege and press freedom followed suit, also linked to coverage emphasizing “societal” responsibility for water handling, whereas indicators of vulnerability instead correlated with more media emphasis on government responsibility.