Southern Grampians Shire is a local government area in Victoria, located on the southern edge of the Grampians National Park, in the Barwon South West region. The seat of local government is at Hamilton, around 280km west of Melbourne.

The Hamilton Spectator is the area’s main local newspaper and is published by the same company that operates the Portland Observer, Casterton News and Western District Farmer. ABC South West Victoria in Warrnambool is the primary public radio station in the region, though ABC Wimmera is also available in the north the shire, broadcast from Horsham. Southern Grampians also has a local commercial radio station, Mixx FM 88.9 (3HFM), owned by ACE Radio Broadcasters. The station is based in Hamilton.

Three print editions of the Hamilton Spectator (Thursday 18 August, Tuesday 23 August, Saturday 27 August) and the entire month of digital print content by the ABC South West Victoria were assessed for this sample. The ABC sample only includes articles published to the ABC Local websites and may not be representative of news content on local radio.