On January 18, 2018, the mayor of Cape Town Patricia de Lille announced in a press conference that the city of Cape Town had reached “a point of no return” and set an arrival of “Day Zero” —the day when Capetonians taps would be turned off—on April 21, 2018.

However, Cape Town did not run out of water on April 21, 2018. Instead, preventive measures were adopted and “Day Zero” was postponed to June 4, 2018. When June 4 was reached, Capetonians' taps still were not switched off, nor were taps turned off on any of the other predicted “Day Zero” dates (Ma, 2018). Moreover, although “Day Zero” was later pushed to sometime in 2019 (Chutel, 2019), the year concluded with taps still flowing.

Previous research has identified the impact media coverage of drought can have on public understanding of environmental issues (O'Donnell and Rice, 2008). Since the public often uses mass media to gain information on environmental issues and assess risks before enacting policies (Dearing, 1995), it is essential to understand how media communication on environmental crises like “Day Zero” is framed and what kind of public response it seeks to evoke. Indeed, the strategic communication of a “Day Zero” frame with a strong metaphorical character had an impact on how the situation and risk was interpreted locally, nationally and globally. To this purpose, Part 1 of our study traces back and analyses the media discourse on “Day Zero,” while Part 2 investigates the meaning making process the water crisis aroused in the local community and analyses the role of (news) media in the framing process.

Although “water communication” is not recognized as a specific field of research, communication about water is widely regarded as a sub-discourse of environmental communication and natural resource management (Bennett, 2003; Mäki, 2010; Hervé-Bazin, 2014; Liang et al., 2018; Mitra, 2018). Environmental communication is useful in that it “helps us construct or compose representations of nature and environmental problems as subjects for our understanding” (Cox, 2013, p. 19). The constitutive component of communication implies that when communicating about the environment, specific values and references as well as images and contexts are associated with particular issues. If public discourses are perceived as scripts assembled from the mentioned structural elements (Dryzek, 1997), then frames (Entman, 1993) can be understood as embracing these elements, making them “invaluable tools for presenting relatively complex issues” (Scheufele and Tewksbury, 2007, p. 12). Thus, frames serve as specific interpretative tools that help us understand discourses on complex topics, such as water as a resource and the risk of water scarcity or (mis-)management.

Framing research from an environmental communication perspective mostly focuses on specific topics, such as climate change (Nisbet, 2009, 2010; O'Neill et al., 2015; Brüggemann and Engesser, 2017), and usually involves analyzing news or social media content (Boykoff, 2011; Schäfer and Schlichting, 2014; Newman and Nisbet, 2015). Additionally, some studies have examined sustainability as a master frame in climate change related discourses (Atanasova, 2019; Weder, 2021) and its strategic use by corporations (Schlichting, 2013; Schäfer, 2015; Diprose et al., 2018), political institutions (O'Neill et al., 2015), or organizations in general (Miller, 2012). When viewing water scarcity as a climate change-related problem, issue-specific framing approaches (de Vreese, 2005) appear applicable. However, our focus on communicative problematization processes (in the media or interpersonally) suggests that existing framing research in environmental communication is best complemented by the concept of problematization, which Weder et al. (2019a) has previously introduced as part of sense making processes.

Our paper's use of problematization is rooted in a view of discourse as constitutive processes and the definition provided by Sandberg and Alvesson (2011). We understand problematization to be showing how certain beliefs and opinions about a topic or field are problematic. Following Foucault (1988), problematization means to investigate how an issue is constructed as an issue, as well as how it is classified and contextualized (Deacon, 2000; Bacchi, 2012); in other words, an issue becomes “an issue” due to how it is constructed and/or contextualized by a process that we conceptualize as problematic. Problematization thus offers a deeper understanding of framing as a process of deconstruction (problematization) and (re)construction [remedy promotion, solution orientation, normativity, with a reference to Entman (1993)].

Problematization involves analyzing the factors that constitute both issue and context (Akor, 2015). Additionally, problematization is discussed as the constitutive part of framing processes, mainly in Entman's concept of framing as problematization and moral evaluation, referring to causal relationships between arguments as well as promoting remedy (1993). Thus, in our paper, framing is considered the process of organizing public communication. As long as frames are considered organizing ideas (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989) they “are contested by journalists and the audience, new ones are selected and others may disappear without the frames themselves undergoing any change” (van Gorp, 2007, p. 64). Using problematization, a certain degree of morality, and different ways of argumentation with a solution at hand, the amount of attention an issue receives and the legitimation or exclusion of its related arguments can be influenced (Newman and Nisbet, 2015).

Water issues are communicated through different interpretive patterns (Shah et al., 2002). If communicative problematization can be characterized as a process, it can also be considered an action that starts by recognizing a situation or idea as problematic and then increasing the level of involvement using various patterns and frames (Crable and Vibbert, 1985). The 2018 Cape Town water crisis stimulated framing processes in political, economic and environmental discourses. Water as a natural resource was problematized and had a relatively high degree of morality in the sense of who or what might be responsible for the drought and which political options or actions should be considered over others (Nisbet, 2009).

In our paper, we trace back the problematization of water as a scarce natural resource and identify the “over-moralization” of the issue with the apocalyptic frame of “Day Zero” in public discourses. Specifically, we aim to identify the exact patterns lying behind the discourse on water scarcity by analyzing the public discourse of the water crisis in Cape Town, SA from a media perspective (Study Part 1), as well as the problematization of “Day Zero” and related framing processes from an individual perspective, i.e. the local community's meaning making processes of this crisis (Study Part 2). Ultimately, our analytical focus on framing of the water crisis in Cape Town in 2018 offers new insights as to the regularities and irregularities of water communication as a future topic in environmental communication research.

Zamora (1982) explains that the term “apocalypse” is used in traditional Judeo-Christian religion to forecast, reveal, or envision the world's annihilation. Apocalyptic rhetoric thus describes a narrative telos, or end-point, that implicitly or explicitly predicts when the current world order will be dramatically destroyed and replaced with a new world order (Brummett, 1984, 1991). The common narrative is of a tragic ending, which assumes that the oncoming experience is determined and decided by uncontrolled external forces (Wojcik, 1996). Foust and Murphy (2009) explain this outcome by saying, “Like God's wrath or nuclear war, the apocalyptic scenario is so much greater than humanity (let alone individual human effort), that there seems little hope for intervention” (p. 154).

Following Burke (1984), our paper views apocalyptic frames through two lenses: comic and tragic. A tragic apocalypse is illustrated through humanity's acceptance of a prophesied ending (Burke, 1984) in which the telos is catastrophic and unavoidable (Foust and Murphy, 2009). By contrast, a comic apocalypse is ill-defined and considered avoidable if the right human actions are taken (Foust and Murphy, 2009). Importantly, a comic apocalypse is more forgiving and perceives humanity as having made a mistake (Burke, 1984). O'Leary (1993) also differentiates tragic and comic apocalypses as having closed and open-ended interpretations of time, respectively. In environmental communication scholarship, apocalyptic framing has largely been applied to environmental films (Foust and Murphy, 2009; Salvador and Norton, 2011), but these media explorations open the door for other environmental applications, such as the media discourse analyzed in this paper.

The effectiveness of news reporting on environmental and resource management issues has led media to play an increasingly key part in the environmental communication field (Jurin et al., 2010). Most importantly, the media informs the public about events and reports information, influences the public's perceived salience or importance of issues, shapes public opinions, and initiates and encourages civic engagement (Moon, 2013).

Previous research on drought around the world—e.g., in Athens (Kaika, 2003, 2006), in California (Nevarez, 1996), and in Sydney and London (Bell, 2009)—reinforces the assumption that media coverage of drought contributes to public awareness and sense-making of not only droughts specifically, but also climate change and environmental issues in general (O'Donnell and Rice, 2008; Bell, 2009). In South Africa, water issues are more commonly assessed from a global perspective, such as Bond and Ruiters (2001) examination of post-apartheid drought and flood discourse. Even though environmental issues are infrequently approached from a local perspective (Marvin and Guy, 1997; Lawhon and Patel, 2013), water discourses in the media specifically present a strong local reference (Weder et al., 2019b) since “the local scale [is] a site of action where change can happen and where ordinary people feel empowered to contribute” (Lawhon and Makina, 2017, p. 240).

In Study Part 1 we therefore aim to combine these narrow and broad media perspectives by comparing and contrasting local and international discourse(s) of the Capetonians' water crisis. To do so, we conducted a discourse analysis through which different criteria, structural patterns, rules and resources of the meaning making process of water discourses can be identified and analyzed.

People mainly acquire information about environmental issues from media and news reporting (Schäfer, 2015), which shapes their perceptions of the issues themselves (Adger et al., 2012). Thus, knowledge of environmental issues and related problems is predominantly media-based and can be perceived as a result of mediated debates. Media (debates) shape and construct the public's perception of environmental problems and can therefore enable or inhibit engagement (Lester, 2010; Cox, 2013; Hackett et al., 2017). This assumption led us to investigate what kind of meaning making processes were evoked in the local community by the reporting and framing of “Day Zero” discourse analyzed in Study Part 1.

Guimelli (1993) argues that meaning-making processes can work as instructions for individual behavior and direct social practices. As mentioned earlier, we understand problematization as a social construction process that starts with the recognition of an issue as problematic and increases the level of social and/or individual involvement (Crable and Vibbert, 1985). Following Weder, Lemke and Tungarat's (2019a) argumentation, we also understand problematization as a fundamental concept in sustainability and environmental research, because without the problematization of an issue, there is no engagement in finding a solution. Furthermore, problematization—as a core process of permanent stimulation of dissent and legitimization of dominant arguments—allows for the reflection of common knowledge or common-sense issues (Weder, 2017), as well as the development of new viewpoints and critical thinking (Crotty, 1998).

As in Study 1, our Study 2 also applies Entman's (1993) framing approach from a communication perspective, complementing the previously mentioned concepts of problematization. In doing so, we are able to detect the frames, i.e., the interpretative patterns through which issues about the water crisis in Cape Town is communicated. In order to analyze and understand how Cape Town's water crisis and meaning-making process is framed by the local community, we ran a case study in Cape Town in May 2018, just before “Day Zero” was postponed for the second time, addressing the following questions:

In Capetonian newspapers, discourses related to “Day Zero” were most prominent during the height of crisis stage and least prominent during the pre-crisis stage, peaking in February 2018. In international and non-Capetonian newspapers, the “Day Zero” issue was most prominent during the post-crisis stage, while no articles could be found during the set pre-crisis stage.

RQ1 aimed to identify the interpretative patterns that constituted the local community's meaning making process of Cape Town's “Day Zero.” The qualitative content analysis of the 12 semi-structured interviews revealed that “Day Zero” is not perceived as an environmental issue, but rather as a vehicle to serve multiple purposes (see Table 2).

The first framing of “Day Zero” conforms to the confusion in the meaning making process of Cape Town's water crisis due to controversial and opposite news reporting, as shown by Study Part 1, especially in the height of and post-crisis stages. In particular, the framing of “Day Zero” as not an environmental issue is more present in the narratives of the interviewed everyday people, who seem to adopt the framing of “Day Zero” as a hoax, as found in Study Part 1.

Hence, interviewees argue that “There IS water in Cape Town” (Local Resident 1); “We HAVE [water] resources here. If we look about why the city was founded, it was founded because we have water here” (Activist 3), and explain their water crisis as a result of economic and/or political decisions: “One dam is almost empty, but others are full. Those dams that are full don't belong to Cape Town anymore, because they were sold [to multinational corporations]” (Capetonian Tourist Guide 1); “We've got a complete mismanagement of the water source. […] There isn't even knowledge of what water sources we have” (Environmental Journalist 1); “Day Zero was more a political threat, you know, more than anything else” (Activist 2).

Framing the Capetonian water crisis as a political issue is also evident from the perception of “Day Zero” as a vehicle to serve diverse purposes. Here, our results show how “Day Zero” is perceived as an instrument to (1) shift political power, as well as to (2) change people's behavior. The former meaning making process is related to the double framing of water as something powerful and as a political issue, which in turn is able to shift political power: “It's a bit cynical but it is actually the ANC interest to see the DA fail, because they don't control this [water scarcity] problem” (Local Resident 2); “Water is powerful. [.] the water could be a political thing to gain power because now the ANC [.] can be like ‘ok, if you vote for us, we will bring you water'” (Capetonian Tourist Guide 2).

Water scarcity and Cape Town's water crisis is therefore problematized and framed as a political issue that is used by political parties to change people's political orientation: “In the City of Cape Town there was the extra thing [.] province is run by the official opposition party whereas the country is run by the ANC, and it became [.] let's say a political construction. So, national government owns all the water and provincial, local government has to get that water to people. So, in the case of Cape Town [.] municipal government were saying ‘well, national government needs to help us more'[.] you know, if one party fails it makes the other party look better or they can use it as an excuse”(Environmental Journalist).

The perception of “Day Zero” as a vehicle to political propaganda and to shift political power in turn reflects the framing of “Day Zero” as a comic apocalypse in the news media, since it is perceived as being constructed by political parties and therefore resolvable.

The understanding of “Day Zero” as a comic apocalypse is also supported by the second meaning making process of “Day Zero,” where it is used as an instrument to (2) change people's behavior. The use of the “Day Zero” scenario is therefore seen as a scaring instrument in order to change Capetonian's water wastage behavior, as mentioned by our interview partners:

“I agree with the'Day Zero Method', because it's an immovable, irrefutable position to say'we will run out of water, you have to cut back to 50 liters a day”' (Environmental activist 1). This, in turn, supports the view of “Day Zero” as being something avoidable through teamwork and commitment: “I think they were just scaring people, so that they start save water. [.] There has never been a Day Zero” (Local resident 1); “They said [.] if we don't start using water sparingly, [.] they would switch your area off, and there would be designated water stations, where you will have to go and full up. This is quite scary, imagine went to line up for water” (Capetonian Tourist Guide 2).

In sum, related to RQ1, we can assert that the local community's meaning making processes of “Day Zero” is constituted by framing water as powerful and a vehicle to serve multiple purposes, especially political ones, revealing a strong politicization of the “Day Zero” frame. Our results furthermore support the results of Study 1, framing “Day Zero” as a comic apocalypse, i.e., constructed and therefore avoidable.

In a second step, we wanted to understand how the local community responds to the changing environmental scenarios (RQ2) caused by the water crisis. Our results (see Table 3) show that Capetonians' response consisted primarily in trying to find who's responsible for the situation. Furthermore, our analysis shows a split in the attribution of responsibility between less-educated and highly-educated people. The former, which are also the most affected by the water shortage, mostly blame policy: “Who do you think is responsible for it? The government. No one else” (Local resident 2); “So, they're not building new dams and not building storage capacity. So, you're creating a crisis, a water shortage crisis” (Capetonian Tourist Guide 1); “There is no deny here—you know we are in the shit. But still nor, the politicians haven't embrace it” (Local resident 1). This responsibility attribution to the political system is consistent with the framing of the water crisis as a political issue. The latter recognize policy's role in the crisis, but see responsibility as a whole of society issue: “It's political AND that's with the people as well. I feel that, in a way, South Africans we are wasteful as a culture. […] we are wasteful people and also with education, I'm guessing, in school. We don't learn how to use things SPARINGLY. You know?” (Environmental scholar 1);

“This perception that government [.] are responsible. I think that's wrong. I think it's time that we realize that we have highly complex social structures and cities and outland areas and we need business, and civil society and government, and equal parts to play roles on how we can modify and live our modern life” (Activist 1); “There are water sources here. Maybe not enough for the kind of quantity that is needed but we have / If we were living more sustainably and more conscious of the fact that we have to […] collect our rain water, recycle our water, not flush our toilets with pure sweet water, those kind of things. […] It's about how do we influence society enough to remember how to live more sustainably, especially with water” (Activist 3).

This understanding of responsibility attribution additionally supports the framing of “Day Zero” as a comic apocalypse, which can be avoided through collective commitment. This perception is further confirmed by our analysis. Capetonians respond to the changing environmental scenarios not only by trying to identify who's responsible for the crisis, but also trying to change community behavior through (peer to peer) education: “I have a lot of friend that came down and they were like: ‘I will take like 5 minute shower' And I was like ‘NO you can't, you CAN'T do that', so explain them where we are and how we managed with that” (Activist 2).

“You get to the school and you talk to the children [.] and say: [.] This is your future. [.] If you brush your teeth in a certain way, flush your loo in a certain way, shower in a certain way [.] If you just do that for yourselves and you monitor the people in your house, that would make a massive impact already. They go home into their community and they talk to their parents and their siblings […] Your goal is community-based solutions” (Environmental scholar 2).

In this context we have to mention another important finding: our interviews have emphasized that behavioral change is only possible if people are directly affected in their everyday life by a situation: “People don't act unless it actually affects their pocket” (Local resident 4); “But it's not personal if the water is drying and you're not feeling it” (Activist 3); “People wait until the taps run dry before they care about it” (Environmental Journalist 2).

In the last part of our analysis, we wanted to refer again to Study 1, by investigating how Capetonians perceive the role of the media in the water crisis (RQ3). Results show how local communities perceive media's role as threefold (see Table 4): media should educate people to water saving behavior, create awareness related to water scarcity and other environmental issues, and serve as watchdog, especially when it comes to political misbehavior: “There are so many roles, which can be played by media. They can criticize, they can build and destroy at the same time”(Local resident 3); “Look at Facebook! I mean we had an incredible spread of knowledge […] for the most part it is an incredible tool to get messages out” (Activist 1); “I mean the question is: social media companies are so powerful […]. So get a deeper level on, what's behind what is posted and get more, deeper explanations of what, what the dynamics of the situation are. I think social media is great. […] I think it's an example of a healthy society, when your media can report deeply and truly on an ACTUAL state of affairs” (Environmental Journalist 1); “I think that they should take the gloves off and I think that they should name and shame” (Environmental Activist 2).

The presented analysis does incur some limitations, mostly due to the nature of our two studies as case studies. Related to Part 1 of the study, we want to address the sample especially related to the data collection. The three analyzed stages —pre-, height of, and post-crisis— were self-defined by the authors and determined independently to the crisis' development. Self-defining these time lapses of course affects the way discourses are viewed and interpreted, and it is possible that differently defined turning points and time periods would lead to slightly different findings. This is particularly true for the pre-crisis stage, where no comparison between international and local news was possible. A different definition of time periods may also lead to a different sample size. Further researchers are therefore encouraged to amplify time periods and sample size.

The same limitation is also present in Part 2. As a case study, the sample size is rather limited. Therefore, further research should address a larger group of interviewees. As for this second part of the research project, conducting the interviews at a different time could lead to different results. Running additional qualitative studies could provide interesting comparable data to identify changes and/or similarities in the water crisis' framing.

Nonetheless, our analysis of communication, narratives, and framing of “Day Zero” can be seen as a useful example to point out challenges, dilemmas and difficulties of environmental communication that undoubtedly require further and deeper analysis.