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In recent decades, disruptive media events, such as major terrorist attacks, have gained increasing relevance in news coverage around the world. Despite the growing importance of such globally broadcast media events, little research to date has examined cross-national variation in event coverage or the predictors of this variation. This study examines news coverage about the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States across 51 countries to analyze whether the topical focus and emotional tone of news coverage about the attacks varied according to a country's proximity to the United States and the dominant role perceptions of its journalistic culture. We show that these macro-level predictors are associated in varying degrees with the country-level topical focus and emotional tone of reporting over the 30 days following this salient event. Moreover, our analysis also suggests that temporal developments may have uniformly structured much of this worldwide coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the question of why the pattern of national media coverage surrounding Hurricane Rita in Southeast Texas emerged as it did. This coverage is noteworthy because, unlike other hurricanes, a media feeding frenzy did not occur. One possible explanation is that local political culture influenced national media coverage of Hurricane Rita, and we address this using original survey data collected from residents of Southeast Texas in the aftermath of the storm. The responses provided by residents indicate their actions created an environment in which a feeding frenzy was unlikely to transpire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Asia is one of the regions of the world most vulnerable to natural disasters. Although news media analyses of disasters have been conducted frequently in various settings globally, there is little research on populous South Asia. This paper begins to fill this gap by evaluating local and foreign news media coverage of the earthquake in Nepal on 25 April 2015. It broadens the examination of news media coverage of disaster response beyond traditional framing theory, utilising community capitals (built, cultural, financial, human, natural, political, and social) lens to perform a thematic content analysis of 405 news items. Overall, financial and natural capital received the most and the least emphasis respectively. Statistically significant differences between local and foreign news media were detected vis‐à‐vis built, financial, and political capital. The paper concludes with a discussion of the social utility of news media analysis using the community capitals framework to inform disaster resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intermedia agenda setting predicts a high degree of convergence between news media agendas. However, the rise of social media forces a re-examination of this expectation. Using the 8.8-earthquake of February 27, 2010 in Chile as a case study, this article compares which topics were covered by professional journalists on broadcast news and Twitter, analyzing both cross-sectional and longitudinal trends. A positive, reinforcing influence was found among the journalistic agendas of TV and Twitter. However, counter to the idea that social media are echo chambers of traditional media, it was found that Twitter influences TV news more so than the other way around. Thus, the study provides an early lens into the agenda setting function of social media among television news professionals, and its findings are consistent with Twitter succeeding among journalists due to its provision of valuable information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how three Chinese and two British newspapers sourced content from social media in their coverage of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, the 2013 Ya'an Earthquake, and the 2015 Tianjin Explosion. The media outlets citing of social media content present different patterns in line with their political and commercial interests, ideologies, and journalistic values. Diverse images of the three disasters as revealed on social media (social media reality) were constructed in the newspapers' coverage. Journalists gate-keep information from social media and dissolve it into daily disaster reporting, accepting selected aspects of social media reality but rejecting others. Especially in the case of the Chinese newspapers, meeting the needs of domestic political and commercial interest groups, journalists endorse social media content that is favorable to these groups. In so doing, social media technologies are used and tailored to meet the needs of journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how news media framed West Virginia’s 2014 Elk River Chemical Spill, an industrial disaster that began a national discussion about chemical safety. A content analysis of media was conducted to explore disaster coverage. Additionally, in-depth stakeholder interviews were conducted to examine how audiences interpreted and evaluated media coverage. Both content analysis and interview findings highlighted the media’s reliance on the attribution of responsibility news frame, which dominated media coverage, although the dominance of particular frames differed according to media channel and time period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares Gulf Coast journalists and Twitter users’ coverage of the BP oil spill. In addition to examining authors’ attitudes toward and coverage of the BP oil spill, the study examines community-level variables that shaped attitudes and coverage. The community structure literature has suggested that news media in smaller, more homogeneous communities, which are economically dependent on a polluting industry (as are many communities along the Gulf Coast), are more reticent to be critical in their coverage of pollution. Scholars have suggested, though, that the Internet transcends local geography and that the Internet is more open to alternative perspectives. This study suggests, though, that while the distribution of online content may make local geography less relevant, its production is still rooted in local communities. As a result, Tweets about the oil spill were shaped by many of the same social and economic forces that shaped journalists’ coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the interaction between society, government and news media during the 1730s shipworm disaster in the Netherlands. It focuses on the quality of the information news media provided and the effects the governmental use of news media while addressing the population had in activating them to fight against the shipworm. The article demonstrates that newspapers did not neglect the topic for at least two years following the discovery of the shipworm, nor did they include much information about governmental policies against the disaster. However, more news circulated in pamphlets and news digests, many of which were advertised in the newspapers. The article concludes that the news media reacted soberly to the shipworm disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

According to the theory of instrumental actualization in mediated conflicts, the mass media tend to exaggerate events consistent with the editorial line. This theory was tested using press coverage in Germany, Switzerland, France, and the United Kingdom on the Japanese seaquake, the tsunami it caused, and the nuclear disaster of Fukushima. Within a period of seven weeks after the seaquake, the coverage in the four countries in 27 national newspapers and magazines on the three events was analyzed. As hypothesized from theory, German and Swiss media concentrated on Fukushima and stressed its relevance to domestic nuclear plants, whereas French and British media placed a greater emphasis on the tsunami and rarely related the nuclear catastrophe in Japan to domestic nuclear programs. In addition, there were remarkable correlations between the views of journalists and the bias of statements on nuclear energy presented in their news sections. Findings are discussed and related to the theory of public opinion and political decisions in liberal democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Most analysis of media coverage of disaster has a normative edge. This paper outlines a philosophical basis for establishing normative standards for news coverage of natural hazards and human-based risk. It begins with a top-down, or system-oriented, epistemological approach to disasters and risk. By employing this epistemology, a new professional standard of excellence, the journalist as mitigation watchdog, emerges. Focusing on mitigation promotes narratives that acknowledge the shadow of the future and report on human emergent cooperative behavior. Both are linked to human flourishing through Nussbaum's theory of capabilities. The goal is to provide a framework that specifies how professional performance might be improved and explains why some news reports are exemplary and others deserve professional censure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyzes the role of journalistic testimony in the case of news coverage of disasters, describes some frequently narrative settings and explores the details surrounding its presentation in the media. From a theoretical reflection on testimonies in journalism, we studied particularly illustrative cases concerning two disasters: the eruption of volcano Nevado del Ruiz (1985) in Colombia and the rupture of a tailings dam in Brazil, 30 years later. We conclude media testimonies are arranged by the journalistic narrative, which could both restrict them to their uniqueness as much as expand them along with a contextualization of the disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the controversy around allegations that the Titanic’s surviving wireless operator and the operator aboard the rescue ship held back news detailing the disaster so they could sell their stories to The New York Times. Those allegations and a Senate inquiry into news suppression as part of the Titanic investigation raised some of the first questions about the ethics and/or the propriety of the then-accepted practice of journalists paying for news—an early sounding defining the responsibility of the press to society that still has resonance a century later. Informing that debate in both the nation’s press and in the halls of Congress were an uncongealed journalistic news ethic in the face of rising notions of the public interest during a progressive era that saw the press as one more monied power in need of reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses reports of the Lisbon earthquake in Portugal of 1755 in the British monthly periodical entitled the "Gentleman's Magazine." The journal was under the editorship of David Henry and dedicated space to eye-witness accounts, the economic and commercial impact of the disaster, as well as scientific theories related to the possible cause of the earthquake. Efforts to supply aid to Portugal initiated by King George II of Great Britain are considered.

This paper examines how and when newspapers, environmental nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and the government converge on environmental events. Using data on the 2010 BP Oil Spill from newspaper articles in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, press releases by Greenpeace and Sierra Club, press releases by BP, Halliburton, Transocean, ExxonMobil, and Shell, and press statements by the White House Press Secretary, we examine an event’s potential to trigger convergence of social and political action. By treating events as political actants, we examine arguments from the agenda-setting and social movement literatures on timing, simplicity, and visuality to understand when political actors converge. We find that convergence is related to temporal cycles but not simplicity or visuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disaster leaves a trail of devastation in the affected areas. There is no way to reach or contact the victims of catastrophe as entire network of communication, transport and power supply is snapped. In such a situation, radio can play a pivotal role in timely dissemination of information to the affected people and can save millions of precious lives. In this paper, an attempt has been made to evaluate the role of All India Radio (India's Public Service Broadcaster) during natural disasters with special reference to 'Hudhud' Cyclone. The data used in this paper have been drawn from both primary and secondary sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake on theOprah Winfrey Show. I argue that theOprah Winfrey Showattempted to deploy therapeutic discourse to warrant what Naomi Klein (2008) calls the “shock doctrine”: an argument for the demolition of “failed” societies and states so that they can be rebuilt in the neoliberal image of private capitalism. Thus, Winfrey's discourse might be described as “shock therapy.” However, celebrities featured during these episodes worked as shock absorbers, engaging in an ideological tug-of-war with the therapeutic narrative, oscillating between personalistic and more broadly critical perspectives on crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that exploration of media coverage of a story like the Boston Marathon bombings, including online comments posted by readers, can support youth in reflecting on and thinking critically about a tragedy while offering opportunities for literacy pedagogy consistent with the goals of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. Instructional recommendations for this exploration are grounded in the author's experience co-teaching ninth graders in an urban high school. The article concludes with discussion of how some CCSS interpretations and implementation strategies may undermine such efforts if literacy educators do not insist upon 21st century framings for their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In situations of high distress in which social reality and news routines are deeply altered, journalism common practices are challenged by the exceptional circumstances and by the informative needs of the population. This paper faces these challenges through the analysis on how journalists, editors and directors from the four most important television stations in Chile reacted during the coverage of the February 27, 2010 earthquake in that country, one of the biggest in human history. Through in depth interviews analysis, and their systematization, the research proposes a classification of the challenges that journalism faces in coverage of natural disasters in four groups (emotional and psychological effects, logistical difficulties, restricted access to information, and ethical dilemmas) that divides them in specific factors and their respective intervening elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The media plays an important role in relation to public service. As a result, it faces a great need for information regulation, especially in relation to major events, such as disasters and humanitarian crises. The media, however, does appear committed to solving problems related to their coverage of highly sensitive topics and events. For this study, we analysed newsroom codes of conducts, stylebooks, and other tools of self-regulation, noting the absence of specific recommendations for properly following reporting etiquette in these types of scenarios. Furthermore, an additional study of documents from professional, academic and social organizations showed fragmented and unfocused recommendations for proper etiquette when reporting on sensitive situations. We used these fragments as a starting point to develop a compendium of proposals to help instill the social function of journalism when reporting on disasters and humanitarian crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how journalist witnessing in the context of disaster reporting can both sustain as well as distance cosmopolitan views and outlooks. Attending to the professional accounts and testimonies of TV news correspondents and reporters involved in recent disaster reporting, a more complex picture emerges than hitherto of competing journalist practices, professional commitments and personal emotional investments. Journalists today often reproduce recognizable forms of disaster reporting that conform, following their own accounts, to a narrowly conceived, geo-politically informed and essentially amoral journalistic outlook—an entrenched “calculus of death” rooted in a particularistic national prism and inimical to cosmopolitan ideas and sentiments. But so also do their accounts and practices sometimes speak to a more expansive, universally inflected and morally infused journalist form of witnessing. Here journalists purposefully craft and inscribe their news reports with a thinly veiled but transparent “injunction to care”. This article addresses this seeming antinomy in the contemporary world of disaster reporting and considers how journalist practices may now be contributing to wider cultural currents of cosmopolitanism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on the idea that citizen images of crisis events can function as “ruptures” within mainstream journalistic narratives—instances in which distant others can speak and be heard—this article examines from a dual perspective how the global citizen images (photographs and videos) embedded in Finnish print and broadcast coverage of the Arab uprisings and the Japan tsunami disaster facilitate the construction of cosmopolitan imagination. Specifically it explores, first, how emotional proximity is constructed through the conventions of citizen images that break with the aesthetics of professional photojournalism, and, second, how professional journalists see the role of amateur images in their work of reporting distant crises. The analysis identifies four defining characteristics of the aesthetics of citizen images—unconstructedness, unconventional framing, mobility and embodied collectivity—which may invite enhanced affective engagement and reflection. Moreover, it reveals that the increasing significance of global citizen imagery prompts renewed internal reflection on established journalistic practices and norms, but this is not accompanied by a new consideration on the relationship between journalists and their audiences, on journalism as a resource for cosmopolitan attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research examines mass media depictions of major American natural disasters that occurred between 2000 and 2010. Results indicate that mass media cover natural disasters for shorter periods of time than they do other issues; that media coverage tends to focus on the current impact of disasters on humans, the built environment, and the natural environment; that disaster economics is an important topic; that disaster media coverage generally focuses on the state and region related to the event; and that disaster news is largely about what is happening now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on ways in which mass death in the media is influencing modern poetic elegies. It discusses how media coverage of the September 2011 terrorist attack had a recognizable influence on poet Simon Armitage's modes of expression as evinced by his broadcast poem "Out of the Blue." The poem's utilization of elegiac legacy techniques, subverted and adapted by Armitage to reflect his experience of loss, is addressed. A theory of modern elegies as multimedia texts is also proposed.

The article discusses the depiction of the concept of blame in media discourse about the 2003 firestorm and 2011 Mitchell chemical explosion in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. It is argued that a media discourse that blames individuals for emergencies results in leading the community away from achieving a holistic understanding of the incidents' causes. Reactions to the coverage of the events by the local newspaper "The Canberra Times" are addressed. Inconsistencies between the blame approach found in media coverage of such emergencies and the Bad Apple Theory are also explored.

In the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and resulting tsunami that struck the country on March 11, 2012, there occurred a symbolic colonization of Japan by foreign media and governments--most notably those of the USA--that were eager to provide coverage and analysis (in their own way). As a result, a tense and difficult situation became more stressful and chaotic. This essay, based largely on the author's own personal observations from relatively safe Akita Prefecture, calls into question the identity of a fairly well-adjusted foreign resident anthropology who has found himself pinched between his two countries. It also considers the gap between anthropology and mass media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigated children's fear responses to everyday exposure to the news in the absence of a recent crisis or major event. From March to May 2006, a survey was conducted of 218 kindergarten through 6th-grade children regarding their fright reactions to the news. Results showed that 35.3% of children reported being frightened by the news. Reporting on what frightened them in their own words, children most frequently mentioned natural disasters (24.7% of children frightened), followed by kidnappings (10.4% of children frightened), the Iraq War (7.8%), and burglaries (7.8%). A qualitative analysis suggests that some children have vivid memories of disturbing news content. The accessibility of television in children's households was not related to news exposure or fear. Implications for parental guidance and research methods are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper follows the development of visual communication through information visualization in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan. While information aesthetics are often applied to large data sets retrospectively, the author developed new works concurrently with an ongoing crisis to examine the impact and social aspects of visual communication while events continued to unfold. The resulting work, Fukushima Nuclear Accident--Radiation Comparison Map, is a reflection of rapidly acquired data, collaborative on-line analysis and reflective criticism of contemporary news media, resolved into a coherent picture through the participation of an on-line community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, media-borne legends overwhelmingly portrayed poor New Orleanians as criminals; the reports carried the force of truth in discouraging rescues and conferring upon their tellers the right to be wrong. In contrast, survivors' narratives assigned guilt to government elites, depicted fellow survivors as heroes, and met rejection from the media. Thus emerged a pattern of divided narrative communities, narrative content, and narrative reception. This study of Katrina legendry surveys the damage wrought by culturally embedded double standards of credibility; one offshoot is the "David Effect," through which blame is attached to the most vulnerable survivors. One corrective is to counter the media legendry with insider accounts, as in the project Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston (SKRH), the world's first in which the survivors documented their own disaster experiences. SKRH employed "deframed," "kitchen table" techniques to record survivors on their own personal and cultural terms. Survivor legendry reveals depths of reasoning, compassion, and introspection rarely found in media accounts. The success of SKRH suggests a new public health strategy, based on the premise that the most humane and effective response to disaster-spawned trauma is to give survivors the support and wherewithal to document themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining individuals’ TV and Internet involvement following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, this study demonstrates that involvement with disaster media renders positive and negative effects on viewers. Although TV involvement increases perceived stress, TV and Internet involvement predict perceived gains of social-relational resources (e.g., companionship and intimacy with friends and family) and social trust. Media involvement, in general, is also positively related to individuals’ willingness to help people in the affected areas, though this link was mediated by individuals’ perceived social-relational resource gain and social trust. This suggests that individuals’ willingness to help disaster victims is partly shaped by their relatively proximal and personal responses to the disaster coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the history of crisis counseling and other disaster mental health services in the U.S. Particular focus is given to the role of such services in federal disaster relief policy. According to the author, federal support for disaster mental health services arose not from the influence of institutions but from the efforts of local practitioners, journalists, and national legislators. It is suggested that this early support for crisis counseling was based on anecdotal evidence and preceded most serious research literature on the subject. Topics discussed include the U.S. Disaster Relief Act of 1974, mental trauma, and bipartisanship.

The article presents the summary of a conference that focused on natural disasters and catastrophes that was held from May 4-6, 2011 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Topics under discussion at the conference included a comparison of the apocalypse as described in the Bible and the natural disasters in the 21st Century, a talk on how to predict a catastrophe, as well as a discussion on the role of the media during a catastrophe.

The article presents the summary of a conference that focused on natural disasters and catastrophes that was held from May 4-6, 2011 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Topics under discussion at the conference included a comparison of the apocalypse as described in the Bible and the natural disasters in the 21st Century, a talk on how to predict a catastrophe, as well as a discussion on the role of the media during a catastrophe.

The pressure of audiovisual hegemony in transmitting reality has forced the press to give a spectacular character to its content. There has been a notable evolution in design and also in narrative conception. Melodrama, entertainment or impact have acquired a scale that relegates depth and interpretation into the background. Within this change, accident and crime reports, far from being an exception, have become one of the cutting-edge areas. This is confirmed in this article, which analyses the evolution of style and journalistic genres in the Spanish quality newspapers (El País, ABC, El Mundo, Diario 16, La Vanguardia de Barcelona, El Periódico de Catalunya and El Correo Español-El Pueblo Vasco) in their coverage of eleven of the main big accidents, natural disasters and crimes that occurred in Spain between 1977 and 2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While local television news is the most cited source for seeking news and information, many individuals also report finding their news from the Internet. During a disaster, people need access to accurate information and clear, specific instructions to help them act appropriately. Therefore, it is important to assess the volume and scope of emergency information being disseminated on local television news websites. This study analyzed the content of 293 emergency-related stories on 119 local television news websites. Mobilizing information (MI), information found in news that can cue people to act on preexisting attitudes, also was explored. Results showed that emergency information was present on nearly all (96%) of the sites examined. A majority of news stories focused on natural disasters (52%) and most frequently discussed multiple disasters (e.g., hurricanes and pandemics). Mobilizing information was present in fewer than half of the stories (44%); stories were more likely to contain identificational MI than either locational or tactical MI (p < .05). There were also significant differences in type of MI present according to U.S. region. More stories by wire and syndicated services included MI (p < 0.05). Implications for future research on inclusion of MI in general health and emergency stories are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article documents how Japan's governing elites confronted the enormous tasks of restoring order over the disaster area of the Great Kantō Earthquake and providing relief and recovery assistance to approximately two million people. It also explores how and why numerous commentators evoked the imagery of war in constructing the 1923 catastrophe. They employed comparisons to war not only to describe the totality of destruction meted out by the earthquake and fires, but also to communicate the commitment that they believed the people of Japan would have to make to expedite recovery, rebuild the capital, and reconstruct the nation. Such an effort, many concluded, would require the mobilized efforts of all Japanese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the portrayal of disasters in the mass media. The author contrasts the media's tendency to focus on the unique aspects of disasters with the continuity of issues such as poverty and inequality in the exacerbation of disasters. Examples of disasters in the media including the 2004 Asian tsunami are noted. The contrast between the public response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana and its response to the California wildfires of 2007 is analysed for its implications regarding class in the U.S.

The essay discusses the role of journalism in disaster risk management. It explores the preventive task of informing the population about threats, vulnerabilities, and resources, discusses the need for a multidisciplinary understanding of disaster management, and considers training for these roles. A list of links to resources for disaster management is offered including links to Periodistas por la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres, and Civil defense sites for Ecuador and Peru.

This article examines representations and ideology as integral parts of the creation of a natural disaster through an analysis of hurricane Katrina. Disasters are illustrative of the normal socio-cultural order as much as a disruption. The article analyzes the connections between neoliberal policies and ideologies and the production of vulnerability before the hurricane and representations and responses after it. Cultural values are encoded in neoliberal ideology and shaped people's experiences and reactions to the hurricane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community residents (N=325) completed a survey which assessed their reliance on various media modalities (TV, Cable networks, Radio, Newspaper) in obtaining information/news during Hurricane Danny in July 1997. This unique major storm, which struck the Alabama-West Florida gulf coast, remained stationary for a period of three days and inundated the area with heavy rains. The results confirm prior research in the communication field on the media preferences of populations under stress during natural disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the management of media representatives in times of disaster hospital routines in Brighton, England. Disaster plan facilities for accommodating the press; Development of good liaison with the media by a press officer; Guidelines in managing the media.