The Effects of Newspaper Reports on the Public's Response to a Natural Hazard Event

Abstract

The literature on environmental hazards suggests that media reports constitute a major source of information upon which people base their responses. However, the effect of media reports on responses is neither direct nor simple. Variables such as prior experience, the responses of others, selectivity in attention, and various characteristics of the content of media reports interact to influence responses. On the basis of the extant literature on media and hazards, we construct a model of the effect of media reports on the public's response to a natural hazard event. We test various hypotheses derived from this model by examining a salt water intrusion in the Mississippi River that affected drinking water in the New Orleans metropolitan area in the summer of 1088. Using time series analysis, we examine the effect of various characteristics of local newspaper stories on bottled water sales throughout the intrusion period. The results suggest that in the absence of personal experience, people are more likely to respond to media reports regardless of personal relevance or seriousness of the consequences of the hazard events reported by the media. When people possess personal experience, they are more selective in their attention and response to media reports. The results also suggest that people use media reports of others’ behaviors as cues to appropriate responses. We discuss the conceptual and methodological implications of these results for future research.