Media Coverage of Bathing Water Discourse

This ACCESS-funded project, conducted by the Centre for Climate Communication and Data Science (C3DS) in collaboration with the Environment Agency, examined media coverage of bathing water discourse in online UK newspapers.

The project provided insight into media narratives, debates and discourses surrounding outdoor swimming, with a particular focus on water-based risk, pollution and water quality.

C3DS used AI-assisted taxonomy tools they developed to explore media content at scale, combining computational analysis and large-language model assisted methods with detailed qualitative analysis of themes.

C3DS worked with partners at the Environment Agency to co-produce a report outlining lessons learned from the analysis and the potential for AI-assisted media monitoring to support environmental social scientists in government, civil society, and academia.

The project was led by Professor Travis Coan (Co-Director of C3DS) and Dr Anna Lorentzon (Principal Social Scientist at the Environment Agency).

Ranadheer (Ranu) Malla, Research Associate and PhD student at C3DS, conducted the AI analysis.

Dr Sylvia Hayes, Research Fellow at C3DS, conducted detailed, qualitative analysis of the key themes which emerged.

The Report

The researchers analysed over 19,000 online news articles from a range of national and local news outlets over the time period 2019 – 2025 using a combination of AI-assisted taxonomy development methods at scale and in-depth qualitative thematic analysis, guided by collaborative conversations with stakeholders.

The report suggests media coverage of the issue of outdoor swimming and particularly pollution is varied and complex.

Key findings:

• Media coverage of outdoor swimming has seen an upwards trend since 2019
• Outdoor swimming is described as positive, but with safety risks
• When pollution is discussed, articles present information mostly on the impact in terms of water quality, rather than discussing the causes or potential solutions to this problem. 
• Institutional frameworks are framed as the only ways in which action takes place on pollution

Read the full report for key findings, case studies and methodology.

Anna Lorentzon said:

“It’s been great to work with Sylvia and ACCESS on this project. It’s shown how media coverage has changed over time and given a better, evidence based and balanced understanding of claims made in the media about outdoor swimming. It’s also been an interesting learning experience working on a project together with academics combining AI methods and ‘manual’ thematic analysis.”

Sylvia Hayes said:

“It’s been amazing to work on this collaborative project looking at the politics and public understanding around outdoor swimming, a really timely issue for the UK at the moment. Understanding how the media report on environmental issues like this is so important to get an insight on public engagement and awareness of an issue. The findings show how important it is to bring together different disciplines within and beyond social science, but also to work closely with non-academic stakeholders to understand the nuances of many environmental issues.”

For more information about this project, contact Sylvia Hayes: S.Hayes3@exeter.ac.uk