Press, pulse, and perceptions: How does media attention signal perceptions about environmental crises?

At what point do environmental phenomena become crises, and how do these impact the quantity and quality of media attention? As climate patterns change, societies face crises that are slow-moving in nature (such as sea level rise and drought) or fast-changing (such as hurricanes or flash floods). A third type of event is those that are slow-occurring while at the same time being punctuated by extreme, fast-changing occurrences. The practical and theoretical consequences of these complex events are often difficult to pinpoint. We argue that it is necessary to evaluate how the features of such events affect stakeholder perceptions. We do so by analyzing water-quality crises in Northeastern Patagonia, Argentina. Combining turbidity data collected over a decade with 10 years of newspaper articles published in response to high turbidity events, we assess the extent and sentiment of media attention to better understand the linkage between extreme natural events and how these relate to the media agenda. We find that as events increase in duration and intensity, their media coverage increases. These effects are more accentuated when the duration and intensity of an event surpass limits imposed by local infrastructure and practices.