Network of Water Problems in the Press of Mexico City During the COVID-19 Era

Abstract

The pandemic led to containment and mitigation policies, as well as distancing and confinement strategies that limited the supply of water resources to social sectors. Residential areas-maintained supply, but with an increase in rates. Marginalized areas were subsidized and exempted from paying for an increasingly intermittent supply. Anti-COVID-19 policies guided water policies in two ways: The first consisted of disseminating anti-COVID-19 policies in water management agencies. Another second consisted of the autonomy of the institutions and their decoupling or concordance with anti-COVID-19 policies. In this way, the literature from 2019 to 2022 around anti-COVID-19 policies in their water dimensions, register problems of scarcity, famine and unhealthiness. The scarcity had already been observed in the marginalized sectors, the famine in the residential areas, but the unhealthiness was appreciated in the migrant communities. In fact, the type of exposure to occupational hazards determined the health status of migrants. The water problems were recorded in the circulation press to highlight the asymmetries of anti-COVID-19 policies on the public and private sectors, as well as political and social actors. The objective of the study was to reveal the network structure of relationships between nodes and edges related to press releases on water issues. A documentary, cross-sectional and retrospective study was carried out with newspapers of national circulation: El País, El Reforma, La Jornada and El Universal, considering the water problems of scarcity, unhealthiness and famine. The results show a structure of nodes where the water problems were initiated by La Jornada and ended by El Reforma. Both findings are relevant considering the ideology of the newspaper. La Jornada, a newspaper identified with the political ideology of the left, initiated the dissemination of water problems in a city administered by a government of the same ideology. El Reforma, a newspaper designated by the executive as a spokesperson for the opposition ideology, culminates the network of notes on water problems. That is to say, regardless of the type of political ideology attributed to the newspapers, the problems 42 Rosa Maria Rincon Ornelas et al.: Network of Water Problems in the Press of Mexico City During the COVID-19 Era of scarcity, unhealthiness and famine are spread. In relation to the state of the art where it is shown that ideology does not influence the establishment of the agenda, the present work corroborates and recommends expanding the study to other entities administered by the opposition such as the cities of Guadalajara and Monterrey.