Media and Water - by Joanne Garde-Hansen (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

As flooding, drought and water scarcity become more pronounced due to climate change, so the way in which these events are presented in the media assumes greater significance. In particular, the media plays an important role in shaping the public perception and understanding of water issues, and debates around extreme weather events more generally.

Joanne Garde-Hansen's book offers a sustained and comprehensive exploration of media representations of water. Drawing on a wide range of media - including newspapers, digital, photography, radio, television and video, as well as empirical research on media and memory - she examines how drought, flooding and water management have been portrayed in the media, both historically and in the contemporary world. The use of the media by water institutions to manage public perceptions and the use of digital media by the public to engage with water companies is also included. A particular feature of the book is an examination of water and gender in developed nations. One of the first books to look at media representations of water, this pioneering work provides valuable insights for both scholarly and professional water research.

Review Quotes

Narrowing the focus of study is required by almost every field of science to respond to the distinctiveness of its research questions. But that is a strategy that often makes it difficult to perceive the whole picture and the deepest relationships between its elements. This book overcomes that limitation by drawing comprehensive connections, that come to light thanks to the author's trained eye. And, when revealing them, the book becomes fundamental by unveiling levels of meaning and knowledge that would otherwise remain hidden.
Danilo Rothberg

This book offers an important and original contribution to burgeoning scholarship on the cultures, practices and values associated with water. It draws out the key role of media in archiving, narrating, remembering and forgetting water's entanglements with human lives - from mediations of women in drought, to intergenerational exchange and learning around historical floods. The book provides a rich, vivid account that makes a case for an ecologically-aware analysis of water/media for scholars and students of media studies and cognate disciplines.
Professor Peter Kraftl, University of Birmingham, UK

About the Author

Joanne Garde-Hanson is Professor of Culture, Media and Communication in the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick. She is a media specialist with a particular interest in water and its depiction in the media. She has been co-investigator on the ESRC funded Sustainable Flood Memories and Digital Stories of Flooding projects and is co-investigator on the National Environmental Research Council project Developing a Drought Narrative Resource.