Disaster Stories Research Articles

Risky business: Covering slow‐onset hazards as rapidly developing news

Abstract The emerging field of risk communication has yet to thoroughly grapple with how the mass media report risk. Through a content analysis of five newspapers noted for their science reporting, newspaper coverage of four environmental hazards is compared to media coverage of more traditional risky events. In general, these slow‐to‐develop stories are reported in much the same way as more traditional disaster stories. News accounts emphasized an event orientation, framed risks in terms of human activity rather than social and political contexts, described risk in terms of harms and benefits, and relied on traditional sources. The authors then explore how this version of mass‐mediated risk might change current definitions of risk communication and how a mediated construction of risk may influence public perception of the political choices these issues raise.

The pre-natal death of the CIS project: A software disaster story

The pre-natal death of the CIS project: A software disaster story

Not the Last Word: Point and Counterpoint

What you see depends on where you stand. It is all a question of our perspective, our world view. Attempting to understand other people's perspectives is said to be a mark of adulthood.Journalists, on the other hand, are often asked to ensure that a narrow and local interest is catered for in stories. Thus we see stories of disasters where hundreds have been killed overseas, in a plane crash for example, and the cryptic sentence “No Australians were believed to be on board” appears in the text.

Newscasts and the Social Actuary

Newscasts and the Social Actuary