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Apocalypse now? Understanding and examining media attitudes towards the global water crisis

This project will lead to the creation of a detailed database of news articles discussing the water crisis. This will be the basis for an academic article on western perceptions of the water crisis.

Department: Geography & Environmental Science

Supervised by: Filippo Menga

The Placement Project

The placement will involve a detailed scrutiny of western news coverage on the so-called “global water crisis”. Together with the PI, the researcher will identify 3 leading western Anglophone news outlets (these might include The Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post and so on) and will then proceed to a detailed scrutiny and categorisation of news reports discussing water issues published during the last twenty years. This research will be done using the LexisNexis Academic search engine. LexisNexis is an internet-based news database that allows to access newspaper and magazine articles as well as transcripts and English translations of radio and TV programmes from a wide range of languages and countries. This will result in a creation of a database of news articles in which particular attention will be given to the understanding of how the water crisis has been discussed and portrayed during the last two decades, emphasising the Orientalising attitude through western media often tend to frame water problems in the Global South. This database will inform the development of an academic publication, and will then be uploaded to a research repository, thus becoming freely available to academics, researchers, students and the general public. The student will receive training on how to use LexisNexis and a briefing on the overall research idea. She/he will then be directly responsible for gathering the data, discussing them with the PI and subsequently analysing and deciding how to categorise them.

Tasks

• Identification of relevant news sources and of keywords to be used in the research; • Gathering news articles using Lexis Nexis and identifying initial main trends; • Refining the analysis of the data collected ordering and categorising them in Excel.

Skills, knowledge and experience required

• Familiarity with key debates on the environment, climate change and the environmental crisis; • Good knowledge of MS Excel; • Good analytical and organisational skills; • Ability to deal with a large amount of data.

Skills which will be developed during the placement

This project will allow for the development of the following skills: - Analytical skills, developed through the analysis and categorisation of large amounts of news articles - Experience in and understanding of the methodological design of a research project, developed through exchanges with the PI and the collection and selection of data; - Experience in project management, developed by being responsible for the creation of a large news database; - Proficiency in the use of Lexis Nexis, an important news aggregator that is relevant for careers in the research, media, law and policy sectors; - Understanding of key debates on global water politics and of geographical theories on Orientalism, developed through exchanges with the PI and the analysis of news articles.

Place of Work

Hot desk rooms in the Russell Building, Whiteknights Campus

Hours of Work

Flexible – to be agreed with the PI (35 per week)

Approximate Start and End Dates (not fixed)

Monday 03 June 2019 - Friday 12 July 2019

How to Apply

The post will be advertised centrally on the UROP website between 25th February and 5th April 2019. Please send a covering letter (maximum one page) and CV (maximum two pages) to f.menga@reading.ac.uk by Friday 5th April. Successful applicants will be invited for an interview at the start of the summer term.


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