Showing papers on "Natural disaster published in 1984"

Are the News Media Responsible for the Disaster Myths?: A Content Analysis of Emergency Response Imagery

Abstract: Disaster research scholars and emergency planners have often contended that the news media play a major role in creating and perpetuating various myths of natural disaster response. These myths include widespread panic flight, psychological dependency and vicious competition for necessities on the part of victims, and physical convergence for the purpose of looting by non-victims. The evidence which ties the news media to these myths of community breakdown is largely indirect. Survey data reveal a generalized belief among members of the public that the above enumerated behaviors are typical reactions of people faced with a sudden crisis. These data also indicate that the news media are the principal source of information about disasters for most people. Lacking are detailed analyses which document the extent to which the myths of community breakdown actually appear in news coverage of natural disaster events. The present study, which focuses on the reporting of four earthquake events by two southern California newspapers, attempts to address this issue. The results, though preliminary, suggest that some caution is warranted in making the generalization that natural disaster coverage disproportionately conveys a breakdown imagery of communities facing a major natural catastrophe.

The Political Matrix of Natural Disasters: Africa and the United States

Abstract: Scarce resources often force governments to make difficult choices in the authoritative allocation of values. Such value decisions are particularly acute in developing countries, where need and demand far exceed government wherewithal. Major structural and political factors, which help explain the response adequacy of developed and developing nations, shed little light on the comparative performance of developing regimes alone. To aid in understanding these latter differences, this article identified three patterns of authoritative allocation found among the developing countries of Africa and Latin America: ethnic pluralism, corporatism, and egalitarianism. These patterns, in turn, help account for observed variation within developing countries of average number killed, average amount of damage, and average number of victims within the disaster categories of earthquake, flood, epidemic, drought, and storm.

Psychological Management of Disaster Victims

Abstract: Natural disasters (e.g., floods, earthquakes) as well as disasters attributable to human error (e.g., accidents) or to human design (e.g., war, bombings) are events sufficiently far from ordinary human experience to cause severe psychological stress in the victims. Emergency personnel automatically form part of a disaster rescue team and also see patients in the emergency room presenting with acute or delayed stress symptoms resulting from the disaster. This chapter discusses the specific features of the emergency management of disaster victims.