2. Literature Review
2.1 Disaster News
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2. Literature Review
2.1 Disaster News
A disaster can always draw people’s attention with its huge impact on people
and our living surroundings (Tsang & Chung, 2000). Not only people who are
involved in the disaster, but also people who are far away from the disastrous place
can witness the devastating scenery through media coverage. Some disasters, such as
Sichuan Earthquake happened in China in 2008 (Lin, 2009) and the Tsunami Disaster
in South Asia in 2004 (Tu, 2005) are hugely covered by the media, and the fear
toward the disaster is deeply coined into our mind, and transformed as our collective
memories (Chen, 2012), not matter you are present or not.
2.1.1 Definition of Disaster
Disaster, has long been the research interest and material for researchers for its
huge impact on people and our living surroundings (Tsang & Chung, 2000). We have
already witnessed so many disasters in this decade, which include, but are not limited
to earthquakes, hurricanes, wars and terrorist attacks. With the observation from
scholars, natural disasters seem to increase worldwide during recent decades, no
matter in frequency, amounts of damage, or numbers of people affected (Rubin &
Rossing, 2012).
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Tsang and Chung (2000) define disaster as “social events happened in certain
time and space, which cause damage to the society or its self-sufficient area, loss of
people and materials, and breakdown of important social functions.” Barton defines
disaster as the situation when “members of a social system fail to receive expected
conditions of life from the system,” and can be classified by dimension of scope
(national, regional, segmental and local) and concentration in time (sudden, gradual
and chronic) (Barton, 1963; cited from Rodriguez et al., 2007).
Except for the four dimensions of scope proposed by Barton, researcher in this
study also discovers that, nowadays, some disasters can transcend national borders
and cause damage to more than one country. For example, Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS) stroke Taiwan in 2003, and this transnational epidemics also
caused people’s death in plenty of nations (Ling, 2004). This observation corresponds
with the case in this study that people start to worry about the possible effects of the
radioactive contaminants from Japan that can harm the fishing industry, agriculture
and the air after Taiwanese media cover Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (Fu,
2011). Disasters are not limited to national events, and can transcend national borders
and leave transnational effects, and therefore trigger media’s attention.
2.1.2 Related Terms of Disaster
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Some related terms, such as “crisis” and “hazard” are used as synonyms of
disaster. However, each of these terms contains subtle differences, and therefore
needs to be clarified.
Fearn-Banks (1996) regards a crisis as "a major occurrence with a potentially
negative outcome affecting an organization, company, or industry, as well as its
publics, products, or good name." Faulkner (2001) considers that the essential
difference between a crisis and a disaster lies in whether the situation is attributable to
the organization itself or not. The cause of a crisis is self-inflicted, and organization
has to manage the crisis in order to maintain the function of organization.
On the other hand, a hazard is a term commonly used by geographers and
geography scientists, and it focuses on the disastrous process associated with the
target agent (Quarantelli, 1998; cited from Rodriguez et al., 2007). Therefore, hazard
focuses on the disastrous natural event and its process. In summary, disaster is a
comprehensive term to describe the social event and human vulnerability to extreme
events and natural threats.
2.1.3 Definition of Disaster News
A disaster can trigger not only people’s attention but media’s emphasis as well.
Some of the disasters, like the 911 terrorist attacks in 2001(Nord & Strömbäck, 2006)
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and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (Robinson, 2009), are hugely covered by the media,
and the fear toward the disaster is deeply coined into our mind, and transformed as
our collective memories (Chen, 2012).
Larson (1980) defines disaster news as “media coverage about specific
disastrous incident, which include disaster itself, alert, reconstruction, and number of
death and injury.” The information provided by the media can influence public
opinion, perception and understanding toward the disastrous incident.
With the empirical analysis, it has been estimated that news regarding disaster
constitute 25 percent of all news stories (Gans, 1979). The reason why mass media
put emphasis on disasters so much is because disaster news is inherently a natural
source of emotional, colorful and attention-grabbing story (Wenger, 1985). Harrison
(1993), therefore, regarded that disaster news can promote the audience rating, and
bring viewers and audiences to the advertisers (cited from Lin, 2009). However,
disaster itself is an unexpected event which is out of media’s routine; in this case,
covering disaster also poses challenges on the media workers (Kitzinger & Reilly,
1997).
2.1.4 Roles of Disaster News
During the period of disaster, media play an important role of “warning
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transmitter” (Perez-Lugo, 2001). With the ability to reach a wide range of
heterogeneous population in a short time, media can distribute needed information,
and inform the salience and seriousness of a disaster to the public (Sood, Stockdale, &
Rogers, 1987). Media’s coverage of disaster therefore leads to people’s “disaster
awareness,” and people can attain general impression of the disaster. Besides, media
provide the justification for official actions, and governors or crisis managers can use
the media as the tool to issue mitigation and contingency plans in order to manage the
disaster (Tierney, Bevc, & Kuligowski, 2006).
Wang (1992) lists seven components of disaster news, which include (1)
numbers of causality/injury, (2) loss of valuable belongings, (3) cause of the disaster,
(4) description of rescue, (5) description of disastrous place, (6) related events, and (7)
accountability. Hu and Chen (2002) summarized the previous disaster studies and
found that news media seldom provide “precaution” to the audience, and do less
follow-up reports regarding safety issues caused by the disaster. Media seem to focus
more on covering the current happenings of the disaster, and somewhat ignore what
related incidents happened in the past, and what we should do to deal with the disaster
in the future are.
According to Wenger (1985), the positive functions of media when covering
disaster include (1) mobilization of outside assistance, (2) distribution of general
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information about the disaster, (3) dissemination of warning, and (4) pre-disaster
public education programs. However, media can also be our “enemies” when
covering disasters. The intrusion of media crews in disastrous places may cause
difficulty in rescuing victims and managing disaster. Besides, the extreme
mobilization of outside assistance may cause convergence phenomenon, and the
supply overload may be hard to manage. Furthermore, Quarantelli (1981) argued that
media depend heavily on “official sources” when covering disaster news, and the
“command post” view of the disaster can distort the media's coverage of the event.
With the above literature review, when disaster happens, media function as
“warning transmitter” (Perez-Lugo, 2001) to deliver the needed information to the
audience, and therefore affect public opinion, perception and understanding toward
disaster. This study is eager to explore how disaster happened in other country is
covered by Taiwanese media, and takes Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster as an
example.
2.1.5 Related Studies of Disaster News
Historically, disaster studies initiated from the 1940 to deal with cold war and
nuclear attack (Tierney et al., 2006). As the disaster happened more frequently and the
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impact become increasingly stronger, disasters are largely covered by the media as
news materials.
Most of the studies in the domain of disaster news “look at the external impact
of the mass media, rather than internal dynamics of the mass communication system
in disaster (Phillips, 1986, p. 8).” What news frames are used by the media to cover in
the disaster are generally investigated.
Dimitrova and Strömbäck (2005) made a cross-national framing study to
compare elite newspapers’ framing of Iraq War happened in 2003. Swedish elite
newspaper Dagens Nyheter, and the New York Times in the United States are drawn to
investigate. The results showed that there is distinction between how media cover a
national and a foreign event. Conflict frames are used more commonly in U.S. war
coverage in the New York Times, and media cover more about the war strategies
employed to ensure “victory” in the Iraq War; however, “anti-war” frames are more
commonly shown in the Swedish war coverage in Dagens Nyheter, and
“responsibility” of the war is emphasized.
Lin (2009) examined how Sichuan Earthquake happened in China in 2008,
which killed nearly 9,000 people in Sichuan County, is covered. The data are drawn
from Xinhua News Agency in China and Central News Agency in Taiwan in order to
compare the different construction of the disaster news across both sides of the
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Taiwan Straits. The results showed that there is huge distinction between the coverage
of these two news agencies. Xinhua News Agency put more emphasis on
“government actions,” while Central News Agency covered more about “rescue
actions” and “funding.”
In contrast to the above studies, Tierney et al. (2006) took a different route by
examining the internal dynamics of the mass communication system in disaster. The
relationship of media framing and the public impression of Hurricane Katrina
happened in 2005 is examined. Media’s coverage of looting, social disorganization,
and deviant behaviors lead to “disaster myth,” affecting people’s perception toward
the disaster. Media’s employment of the “looting” and “social unrest” frames can
exaggerate the severity of accidents on people’s mind.
Although the divergent routes of research emphasis, it is important to note that
most of the studies are common in the case selection. With huger impact on people
and our living surroundings, disasters which are larger in scope and happened
suddenly are generally selected as the case to examine (Tsang & Chung, 2000).