The 'New Water Culture' on the Web: An issue network analysis

In this article, we analyse how the Internet is used to bring visibility to water affairs. We focus on the way different organisations exploit the Web in order to participate in the debates about water policy in Spain and to define the topics concerned. To do this, we have drawn up an issue network articulated around an alternative and sustainable water policy called 'New Water Culture'. We examine the composition of this web structure, its hyperlinking styles, key nodes and political trajectories. The outcomes indicate that the 'New Water Culture' has become a main frame in Spanish environmental policy. Supported both by governmental and non-governmental players, the 'New Water Culture' struggles between two opposing trends: its expulsion from the public sphere and efforts to open it up to scrutiny from political outsiders. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.