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3. Assessing natural catastrophe risk 3.1. Expert modelling of natural disaster risk Assessments of future risk are inherently difficult because of the uncertainties associated with the impacts of climate change and socio economic development on future
compounded crises and how these are affectedby the media context in which they are communi-cating. In drawing upon previous literature in thefield, the following research questions haveguidedthe study: how and by whom are the situation, itscauses and solutions framed? Based on the analy-sis, the article ends by proposing propositions forfurther research on responsibility framing in‘climate change induced’ compounded crises.1.1. Responsibility framingIn general, framing theory can be seen as a combi-nation of different aspects of content analyses,ranging from agenda setting to discourse theory.The power of frames depends on their ability tocategorize and connect bits of information intoa coherent whole (Gamson, 1992). Frames canbe studied at different levels of detail, where scho-lars such as Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) andIyengar (1991) argue for the study of so-calledmeta-frames. This article does not examine themeta-framing of the drought but concentrateson various frames applied by actor groupsquoted in the coverage. In line with Gurevitchand Levy (1985, p.19) framing is here understoodas a contest or power struggle between differentactors where media perform a vital function inacting as a battlefield for politicians, socialgroups, institutions and ideologies. Mediaresearch on responsibility framing has tradition-ally focused on common overarching framesemployed by journalists such as: diagnosticframes (which identify the problem and diagnosethe cause of the problem); prognostic frames(which provide information on what ought tobe done); and motivation frames (which suggestremedies) (Gamson, 1992; Gerhards and Rucht,1992; Entman, 2003). An underlying notion ofall three frames is journalists’ power to assignlegitimacy to actors. This process can bethought of in terms of ‘status conferral’, whichmeans that journalists mediate status to actorsby connecting them with certain issues andvalues. Simonson (1999, p. 109) states that ‘Viathe status conferral function, media contributeto the social process of confidence by boostingthe public standing of the ideas, institutions,and people they portray.’Moving away from media research, crisis com-munication scholars take the perspective of crisismanagers, particularly political actors (’t Hart,1993; Bra¨ndstro¨m and Kuipers, 2003; Boinet al., 2008) or corporate actors (Marcus andGoodman, 1991; Siomkos and Shrivastava,1993; Coombs, 1998; 2007; Massey, 2001;Coombs and Holladay, 2002) when studyingcommunication. Generally speaking, this strandof research tends to regard crisis communicationas a game, eventually won by the actor applyingthe most successful rhetorical devices. FollowingBoin et al. (2005), one of the primary tasks forleaders in a crisis situation is to explain the situ-ation and to justify actions taken, so-calledmeaning making. In order to be successful,leaders must be ‘communicating a persuasivestory line (a narrative) that explains what hap-pened, why it had to be that way, what its reper-cussions are, how it can be resolved, who can berelied upon and who is to blame’ (Boin et al.,2005, p. 70). In order to win the ‘blame game’over political opponents, decisions along the fol-lowing three lines have to be made: how severe isthe crisis, how could it happen, and who isresponsible.Managers in general strive to frame the crisis asa natural event, allowing it to be placed outsidethe scope of political responsibility. The worsepossible outcome would be if the crisis is framedas caused by political leaders (on a personal orpolicy level) (Bra¨ndstro¨m and Kuipers, 2003; deVries, 2004). Due to the erosion of the traditionaldistinction between crises as ‘man-made’ and‘acts of God’, establishing crisis causes is to alarge extent a question of the actors’ framingability (Rosenthal et al., 2001, p. 6). Accordingto Beck (2002, p. 40), if ‘pre-modern dangerswere attributed to nature, gods and demonsrisks in modern times are rather about controland political decision-making’. Following this,‘nature’ has moved from being understood as anuncontrollable force to an object that canbe controlled by scientific and technological228 OlssonENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS advances (Dear, 2006). It should thus be notedthat some crises are more suitable for blamegames, such as wars, which have an inherentpotential for enemy constructions, whereas com-pounded and structural problems (such as econ-omic recessions or environmental problems) areless suitable for blame games and responsibilityframing (Edelman, 1988). This is because theyare harder to explain by personal and straightfor-ward causes, which complicate political attacksor crisis exploitation. On the contrary, politicalactors are often tempted to downplay the pro-blems, and thereby in the long run risk comingoff as paralysed (Edelman, 1988, p. 82). Accordingto Beck (2002), the fundamental problem inascribing liability in connection to financial orecological crises is that they ‘are mainly due tothe combined effects of the actions of many indi-viduals’ (Beck, 2002, p. 41). It should also benoted that the framing of the event as severedoes not necessarily pose a threat to politicalactors but might well be an opportunity to showaction and to push through a new set of policies(see Boin et al., 2009 on ‘crisis exploitation’).In this article I examine various actors’ framingas played out in the media. Journalistic framing ofan issue is one very significant factor that influ-ences actors’ framing opportunities. When themedia give prominent coverage to certainactors, in the end it greatly affects the possiblepositions for the other actors. The framingcontest around the Murray–Darling crisis willbe examined by applying the three dimensionspivotal to responsibility framing, i.e. how severeis the crisis, how could it happen and who isresponsible. However, in contrast to previousresearch on crisis communication, the frameworkwill be applied to the media coverage as a whole,including all groups of actors.1.2. Analytical frameworkFor a start, framing severity relates to the framingof the situation as such, in terms of its character.As stressed by Boin et al. (2005) there is a vitaldifference in labelling a situation as an incident,an accident, a crisis, a disaster or a tragedy(p. 83). In connection to climate change inducedcrises, Olsson and Paglia (2008) show thatseverity framing requires actors to positionthemselves on a scale of uncertainty/certainty inrelation to causes and outcomes, and thatdespite scientific uncertainty, political actors areforced to take a stance on the issue. This frame isimportant since how an event is labelled has sig-nificant implications for the proposal of potentialsolutions; that is, whether a top-priority or asimple routine response is issued (Boin et al.,2009).Framing the nature of the crisis is furtherclosely connected to the second aspect in the fra-mework, that is, where to locate the origin of theevent which, according to previous research onresponsibility framing, is pivotal for assigningresponsibility. Accordingly, so-called blamegames depend on the actors’ ability to ascribethe crisis to exogenous factors (located outsidethe realm of the responsible actors) or toendogenous factors (where responsible actorsare the very source of the problem). Framingcrises as exogenous makes it easier for politicalactors to make authoritative statements andto remain in control of the information flow,whereas events framed as endogenous run therisk of undermining confidence in actors andof creating an opening for criticism (Coombs,1998; 2007; Massey, 2001, p. 158; Coombs andHolladay, 2002; Boin et al., 2008; Bra¨ndstro¨met al., 2008).From a political perspective, a crisis does notend with leader’s communicative devices interms of accepting (or not) responsibility forwhat has happened but also requires an abilityto show a way out of the current problems. Politi-cal crisis communication will therefore not onlybe a blame game but also an opportunity game,where actors have to play the delicate game ofmatching their labelling of the event to adequatepolicies. As with the other two themes, we canexpect a variety of actors to engage in proposingsolutions. As argued by Boin et al. (2008), actorsget involved under different conditions whereactors without the power to actually implementResponsibility framing in a crisis 229ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS the proposed policies have more freedom to comeup with solutions, in contrast to governmentalactors. Governmental representatives furtherhave to balance between proposing solutionsand reassurance that the system is solid inessence. Three potential outcomes can beexpected in the policy game: ‘fine tuning’,which means instrumental and incrementaladaptations without any change of politicalvalues; ‘policy reform’, which relates to majorpolicy principles being changed that otherwisewould be hard to change under normal circum-stances; and finally ‘paradigm shift’, whichoccurs when ‘entire policies, organizations oreven fundamental normative aspects becomesubject to abdication’ (Boin et al., 2008, p. 17).It should be noted that the aim of the paper isnot to examine policy change, but rather theframing of different policy alternatives as theyare played out in the media reporting.2. Methods and materialThe paper rests on a case study of how thenational Australian newspaper The Australianreported the Murray–Darling Basin crisisbetween 5 August and 31 October 2008. Thenewspaper was chosen due to its nationaloutlook and reach as a way to examine responsi-bility framing at the national level (that is,without regional biases). The articles includedin the study have been selected from a periodwhen The Australian ran a special series underthe heading ‘Special report: the Murray –Darlingcrisis’. Altogether 57 newspaper articles were pub-lished in this series and each of them has beenincluded in my analysis. The articles have beenanalysed by a combination of quantitative andqualitative analyses. The quantitative analysisconsisted of counting the groups of actorsquoted in the news coverage. Based on an induc-tive approach, actors were coded into five groupswhich were found to be of relevance to theframing of the crisis. These were governmentalactors, federal opposition political actors, stateactors, scientists and affected actors (includingindividual farmers as well as business interestsrelated to farming and communities in affectedareas). It should be noted that actors were onlycounted once for each article, which means thatthe measure does not account for the actualspace provided to the actors or the number oftimes an actor was mentioned in one article.The qualitative analysis was deployed in orderto describe the main arguments and rhetoricstrategies applied by the actor groups. The analy-sis was conducted by categorizing statementsfrom various actor groups according to the threethemes described in the analytical framework.The most important expressions, keywords andkey messages were coded, based on Entman’s defi-nition of frames: ‘the presence or absence ofcertain keywords, stock phrases, stereotypedimages, sources of information and sentencesthat provide thematically reinforcing clusters offacts and judgments’ (Entman, 1993, p. 52). Theaim of the analysis was to find common featuresin how actor groups framed the three themes.Due to the focus on actor groups in the analysis,the framing contest is not primarily understoodas taking place within groups, but ratherbetween them.2.1. Case descriptionThe Murray–Darling Basin is a catchment area forthe Murray and Darling rivers and their tribu-taries. It extends from Queensland to South Aus-tralia, including three-quarters of New SouthWales and half of Victoria. The basin generates39 per cent of the national income derived fromagriculture production: 53 per cent of Australiancereals grown for grain, 95 per cent of oranges,and 54 per cent of apples. In addition it supports28 per cent of the nation’s cattle herd, 45 per centof sheep, and 62 per cent of pigs. The Basin ishome to more than 2 million residents. In Austra-lia, irrigated land is just 0.6 per cent of total agri-cultural land and the proportion in the Basin is 2per cent, making up 65 per cent of Australia’s totalirrigated agricultural land. Furthermore, theBasin is vital from a natural resource perspective,230 OlssonENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS with extensive wetlands which perform essentialhydrological, biological and chemical functionsand which support and maintain the productivityand health of the river systems. A number of theBasin wetlands are recognized under the Conven-tion on Wetlands of International Importance.In the last 100 years, life in the Murray –DarlingBasin has been transformed by the constructionof major water storages on the rivers. The totalvolume of publicly managed water storagecapacity in the Basin is just under 35,000 gigalitres.Of that, the Murray–Darling Basin Authority –with major storages at the Dartmouth Dam,Hume Dam, Lake Victoria, Torrumbarry Weir,the Menindee Lakes and other river regulatorystructures – is responsible for about one-third.The storages have made it possible to store waterto be released in summer time or in times ofdrought.It should be noted that the case is complexbecause it touches upon broad policy areas invol-ving water management and climate change,policy areas that are highly politicized in the Aus-tralian context, and as such involve many twistsand turns in which the states depending on theBasin for water supply (New South Wales,Queensland, South Australia, the AustralianCapital Territory and Victoria) play a vital role.One example of initiatives undertaken by theKevin Rudd government to deal with the pro-blems of the Basin is the Murray–Darling BasinAuthority (MDBA) established on 15 December2008, which for the first time ever made onesingle agency responsible for water managementin the Murray–Darling Basin. According to theWater Act 2007, MDBA should prepare a plan inconsultation with the Basin states and the com-munities. The first plan is intended to commencein 2011. The main tasks will be: to limit theamount of water that can be taken from theBasin on a sustainable basis; to identify risks toBasin water resources such as climate change aswell as strategies to manage these risks; to makesure that state water resource plans comply withthe Act; to follow an environmental wateringplan and the salinity management plans; and tocomply with rules about trading water rights inrelation to the Basin resources. However, due tothe perceived urgency of the problems, theMurray–Darling Basin Program has already beenlaunched. Under the Water for the FutureProgram, the government has secured AUD21.9billion to develop more efficient water use byfinding new sources of water and to buy backwater entitlements from willing sellers (AUD3.1billion). The main task is to acquire water licensesfrom willing sellers in order to use the allocatedwater for the environment. The first AUD50million water buyback in 2007/2008 aimed tosecure 35 billion litres of water, and another wasannounced on 8 September 2008 in the northernpart of the Basin (www.mdba.gov.au/).3. Empirical analysis3.1. Framing the situationFirst, which actor groups were quoted framingthe situation and which frames were deployed?Figure 1 shows the number of quotes made byeach of the actor groups in terms of framing thesituation (that is, what kind of situation this is).As can be seen from the figure, there were fewstatements altogether describing the situation(even though many of the scientist quotes werelengthy – at times almost taking up the wholearticle in question). The most frequently quotedactors were scientists, followed by governmentand affected actors.FIGURE 1 Numbers of quotes in the coverage framing thesituation distributed across actor groupsResponsibility framing in a crisis 231ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS How did the actors quoted frame the event?Starting with the scientists, the outlook paintedfor the Murray–Darling Basin is grim. The termi-nology used to describe the situation stressed thegravity of the problem, using expressions such as‘ecological disaster’, ‘crisis’, ‘collapse’, ‘one of themajor inland problems of our time’ and ‘tragedy’.The severity of the situation was beyond anydoubt. ‘It is so far off the scale ecologically that itis a crisis – and that is not overstating it’ (The Aus-tralian, 12 August 2008). ‘The river systems and theagriculture systems are collapsing’ (The Australian,21 August 2008). Politicians were framed as facinga tragic choice: letting the lower lakes of the riveracidify or flooding the lakes with seawater inorder to prevent acidification and consequentlychanging the entire ecosystem. The severityof the situation was further emphasized bythe description of decisions as ‘irreversible’. Theframing of the situation as a tragic choiceset the tone of the reporting and underlined boththe complexity and the urgency of the situation.The framing, in which available alternatives wereall attached to major irreversible changes in eco-systems, posed new challenges to crisis communi-cation insofar as it questioned the traditionalunderpinning of crisis communication as ameans to returning to ‘normalcy’ (Seeger et al.,2003).1Further, the frame underlined the notionof decision making in risk society as based on ‘cal-culating the incalculable’ (Beck, 2002, p. 40). Thisleads us to the question of how the situation wasframed by the political actors who had to balanceecological concerns with other societal needs.The government’s assessment of the situationfollowed the scientific framing in describing theecological system as ‘highly stressed’. No compet-ing views were directly provided by other politicalactors. As could be seen above, politicalopponents were not particularly active inframing the situation and when they did, theystressed the underlying risk for the whole ecosys-tem (emphasizing the need for swift action).However, in contrast to the government, theymentioned the desperate situation for farms andcommunities affected by the drought – pointingout that there were not only ecosystems indanger but also the livelihoods of the peoplewho depended upon the Basin. For example, theSouth Australian Premier Mike Rann declaredthat ‘anyone “treacherously” diverting waterfrom the Murray–Darling system illegally wouldbe committing “an act of terrorism against theAustralian people”’ (The Australian, 16 August2008). The desperation was echoed throughoutfarming society and interest groups connectedto farming. The articles in the sample can bedivided into two types: articles describing theeffects upon communities at risk of disappearing,and articles depicting individual farmers whohad been living on their farms for genera-tions. Examples of the latter category ofcoverage include: ‘“Gone from thriving to justsurviving” – Ken Brain’s property looks a lot differ-ent today than it did a decade ago’ (The Australian,3 September 2008), and ‘Water dries up life on theland – Randall Crozier stands in the barrenpaddock, frowning at the drought-bleacheddesert sand’ (The Australian, 13 September 2008).To sum up, the scientists were the main actorsquoted in framing the severity of the situation,although all quoted actors framed the situationas an urgent crisis. Yet there is an underliningvalue conflict in the coverage between savingthe ecosystem or farming communities wheredifferent actors took somewhat differentstances. For example, the scientists tended toemphasize the need for reconfiguration of thewater allocation systems and the agriculturesectors, whereas the farming communities advo-cated the loss of towns and businesses in theMurray–Darling area. The politicians werecaught in between these two frames, where thetendency for the government was to follow thescientists’ framing in terms of reconfiguration ofwater management systems, whereas the Opposi-tion was more inclined towards framing the situ-ation in favour of affected communities.3.2. Framing the cause of the eventAs discussed in previous sections, the allocationof crisis causes (to exogenous or endogenous232 OlssonENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS factors) is to a large extent a matter of framing,which turns phenomena such as droughts intopotential political issues. Figure 2 illustrates thenumber of quotes made by each of the actorgroups in terms of framing the cause of the event.If politicians were sparsely quoted in framingthe situation, they were even less active inframing the causes of the crisis. According to pre-vious research, the framing of causes is the mostimportant factor in the process of politicizingand assigning blame in connection to crises.However, Figure 2 shows that both scientistsand affected actors played a major role inframing causes. This might well be an effect ofthe compounded character of the crisis, whichaccording to Edelman (1988) is harder toexplain by personal and simple identified causes.Starting with politicians, both the governmentand the opposition framed the crisis as causedby mismanagement of the river system. Thisreminds me of Beck and Lau’s (2005) observationthat the recognition of risks as human-maderesults in political actors being both problemproducers and solvers at the same time. Inrelation to this it is interesting to note that thegovernment emphasized the time perspective inreferring to the mismanagement of the Basin.An example is when Kevin Rudd said, ‘I do notwant to say that there is some magic solution.It is very difficult in the space of six monthsto turn back decades of neglect’ (The Australian,14 August 2008), or when he said, ‘I am tryingto turn around a situation which has evolvedover many years’ (The Australian, 15 August2008). In doing so, the government tried todownplay expectations by juxtaposing thelong history of mismanagement with the acutecrisis management expected from the govern-ment. Yet they did not downplay the problemas such.Further, as argued by Olsson and Paglia (2008),a vital component of framing causes in climatechange induced crises is the link betweenclimate change and the local/national acutecrisis. Actors basically confront two framingoptions: acknowledging the link to climatechange (endogenous factors) or arguing that thedrought is caused by nature (exogenous factors).From a political perspective, the latter optionwould get actors off the responsibility hook,which would then be the preferable outcomefor politicians who do not want to (or areunable to, due to previous policies in the area)exploit the crisis (Boin et al., 2009). In thisactual case, the government advocated the linkbetween the drought and climate changewhereas the then-leader of the oppositionBrendan Nelson first denied the link, only totake it back shortly after (saying the two mightwell be linked but that the debate was irrelevant).However, the reluctant stance towards how totackle climate change, proposing that Australiashould wait with a national emissions tradingscheme before international action was taken,was overruled by the Liberal Party, who decidedto introduce an Australian emissions scheme in2012. As a result, Brendan Nelson lost his positionto Malcolm Turnbull2(Sydney Morning Herald,16September 2008). On the other hand, ever sinceit came to power in 2007, the government hasbeen advocating the risk of climate change andin accordance proposed a ‘cap and trade system’on carbon dioxide in Australia. Linking theMurray–Darling Basin crisis with climatechange would accordingly enhance the govern-ment’s policies on climate change.The most heated political debates and blamegaming took place at the state level, among thestates depending on the Murray–Darling areafor water, rather than at federal level. The stateFIGURE 2 Numbers of quotes in the coverage framing thecause(s) of the event distributed across actor groupsResponsibility framing in a crisis 233ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS foremost framed as the villain was Queensland,which was blamed for taking too much waterout of the system, in particular by South Australia,which was the most badly affected state. As anexample, Queensland Water Minister Craig Wal-lence was quoted as saying, ‘pointing the fingerat state’s irrigators was not going to ease thenational emergency’ (22 August 2008), whereasSouth Australian Premier Mike Rann said thateven if Queensland irrigators had acted legally,it ‘doesn’t mean to say it’s right’ (22 August2008). In contrast to the scientific framing, theframing among the state politicians as well asthe affected groups had more of a practicalhere-and-now perspective, and the main debatecentred around how to distribute water alongthe river. Many strong opinions were expressedand a fierce blame game was played out in themedia where, for example, actors argued that:farmers should not be blamed (‘farmers don’thave any water’, 5 August 2008); or certainstates ought to be blamed for taking a dispropor-tional amount of water (‘we have significant over-extractions in Queensland’, 21 August 2008); ordebating the existence of big irrigation farms(‘Cubbie was developed in the wrong spot’,322August 2008). Consequently, the individualstates and farmers tried to defend themselves.For example, the rice farmers in their defencepointed the finger back at the government andclaimed that ‘the area was designed by the gov-ernment to put food on tables. We went out anddid that. We produce the most efficient rice inthe world’ (The Australian, 3 September 2008).As in framing the character of the crisis, scien-tists played an important role in framing causes.Interesting to note in relation to the politicalframing contest over the link with climatechange is an article quoting two scientists, oneof them the former ‘Australian of the Year’, Pro-fessor Tim Flannery. The two jointly describe, inconnection with the political struggle over thelink with climate change, the debate as ‘fruitless’.Instead of arguing about this, surely we need tosit down and say: ‘What are we going to do ifthe worst case develops? What we’ve had isten years of catastrophic low flows – what dowe do if this is the future?’ That’s a muchmore interesting question (Flannery, 4 Septem-ber 2008).This quote illustrates the intriguing implicationsof climate change in connection with responsibil-ity framing where its global nature might lead toapathy at the national level (as suggested by Beck,2002) and/or lead to politicians getting off theresponsibility hook (as suggested by, forexample, Bra¨ndstro¨m and Kuipers, 2003). Itshould thus be noted that even though the scien-tists referred to above were pointing to the risk ofclimate change being taken hostage by the poli-ticians, it should not be read as if the groups ofscientists were denying climate change. On thecontrary, climate change was in general men-tioned as one of the underlying causes, besides ageneral over-allocation of water and mismanage-ment of the river system. According to theirframe, the mismanagement was caused by thefact that there was no national water manage-ment authority (The Australian, 21 August 2008)or by the fact that the irrigation structure wassimply too big to be supported by the river (TheAustralian, 6 September 2008). Causes were ingeneral framed at the system level, and only onone occasion was blame assigned more directly,which was done in relation to a report publishedin 2006, calling for ‘significant and urgent inter-vention’. According to one of the quotedauthors of the report, ‘It is a tragedy that thewarning bells that we sounded very loudly wayback then were seemingly ignored’ (The Austra-lian, 12 August 2008). In contrast to politicalactors, scientists framed the crisis as caused bystructural problems such as the lack of a federalwater management system and general over-allocation of water. This points to the fact thatthe more scientists involved in framing a com-pounded crisis, the less personal blame gamingwill take place.Based on what has been said above, causes wereframed in different ways by the actor groups. Onthe federal level, the only issue touching politicalnerves was the connection with climate change,234 OlssonENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS whereas the most heated blame game was con-centrated at the state level. It thus seems thatthe closer to the actual problem, the moreintense blaming is centred on concrete causes(such as who is taking the most water) ratherthan more complex structural problems (such asglobal warming or a total overhaul of the irriga-tion system).3.3. Framing measuresThe last frame deals with the actions taken andproposed by the actors. As can be seen inFigure 3, this is the frame that received mostmedia coverage. In contrast to the two otherthemes explored above, the affected groups werethe most frequently quoted actor group, followedby the government, closely followed by scientists.As is evident from the figure, this was the framethat caught the most intense media attention.The debate was, in general, focused on the gov-ernment’s two main propositions to deal withthe crisis: the Water Act and the Murray–Darling Basin Program. The framing from thegovernment’s perspective, except for promotingactions taken in the area, was to downplay expec-tations by stressing the lack of ‘magic solutions’(The Australian, 14 August 2008). As discussed inthe previous section, one main aspect of how tocope with the event was to link the droughtwith climate change. Denying the link enabledthe handling of the crisis with acute operationalmeasures. On the other hand, acknowledgingthe link implied the need for long-term systemchanges. In relation to this, the governmenttried to use the crisis in order to promote theirpolicies on water management in the Murray –Darling area as well as the Cap and TradeCarbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.4Eventhough policies applied by the government inthe area ‘fitted’ into the framing of both the situ-ation (crisis) as well as its causes (mismanagementand climate change), they were not uncontestedby other actors. On the contrary, this was thetheme that provoked the most heated politicaldebate.In contrast to the other two frames, the debatehad a technical overtone and focused on movesand statements made by different actors. In fact,the reporting was very much in line with themedia’s well-documented tendency to portraypolitics as a game, focusing on conflicts andoften describing them in sporting metaphors(Fallows, 1996; Jamieson, 2001). From anenvironmental communication perspective,Ihlen and Nitz (2008) concluded, on the basisof a Norwegian case study, that media coveragewas heavily dominated by tensions betweenactors and so-called ‘horse race frames’. Theirconclusions very much resembled the debate inthis frame where the main bulk of the reportingfocused on the government’s proposed measuresto deal with the problem and criticism fromother actors. Scientists, opposition and affectedgroups argued that the buyback scheme (referringto the government’s initiative to buy back waterentitlements) was ineffective. Likewise, the oppo-sition made an issue out of the fact that they didnot trust the government’s estimation of howmuch water there was in the system and calledfor an inquiry. The government countered bysaying that people wanted action and did notwant an inquiry. For example, the scientists criti-cized the buyback scheme for being ‘insignificant’and claimed that it would ‘do nothing for theCoorong’.5In a similar manner, the federal oppo-sition argued that the buyback was ‘paper money’that only risked ‘destroying communities’. AgainFIGURE 3 Numbers of quotes in the coverage framingmeasures distributed across actor groupsResponsibility framing in a crisis 235ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS . touching politicalnerves was the connection with climate change, 23 4 OlssonENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS whereas the most heated blame game was con-centrated at the state. denying climate change. On thecontrary, climate change was in general men-tioned as one of the underlying causes, besides ageneral over-allocation of water and