Media discourse on drinking water before and after a major campylobacteriosis outbreak in New Zealand

Good quality drinking water requires multiple barriers of protection, implemented through coordinated efforts across society. How drinking water is framed in media discourse can potentially help or hinder these efforts. We analysed newspaper coverage in New Zealand over a ten-year period, before and after a large-scale waterborne campylobacteriosis outbreak in 2016. While articles often led with health risks and expectation of population-level interventions for safe drinking water, broader drivers of inadequate drinking water were obscured by technocratic and/or managerialist framing. Perspectives of Māori (Indigenous population) were strikingly under-represented. These factors appeared likely to limit understanding of, and action on, drinking water issues.