Media's role in disaster risk reduction: The third-person effect

Abstract

This conceptual modeling exercise shifts the theoretical foundation for our understanding of the politics of international disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy efforts out of the development-oriented frameworks that dominate the subject. The resulting model focuses on an interacting set of necessary causes that show when and how the mediated observation of distant disasters can create opportunities for political entrepreneurs to push for the adoption of disaster risk reduction policies. This dynamic is called the Third-Person Effect and it also offers an explanation for the puzzle of why disaster stricken communities often fail to adopt disaster risk reduction policies even when ample resources are made available from outside sources. It presents a new perspective on how and when exogenous actors might facilitate the adoption of disaster risk reduction policy. While the model is specific to disasters and disaster policy, it appears to be generalizable, with particular applicability to environmental policy and resource management policies such as fisheries management where stake holding and rational choice collective action dynamics are significant factors.