Book Review: Media,journalism and disaster communities

It is widely recognized that disasters are becoming more frequent, having greater and long-lasting impacts, and increasingly affecting those most vulnerable (Watson et al., 2015). Media, Journalism and Disaster Communities, edited by Jamie Matthews and Einar Thorsen, seeks to illuminate the concept of disaster communities through a series of international case studies. Greater scholarly attention has recently been paid to how media and journalism cover disaster and enable disaster communication across different disciplines, academic enquiry (Veil, 2012). This volume highlights how different forms of media and journalism contribute to our understanding of the lived experiences of communities at risk from, affected by, and recovering from disaster. To be specific, it aims to examine how different media and journalism produced by and for communities recognize and speak to the different notions of community that emerge in disaster contexts, which include vulnerabilities and consequences that arise from environmental destruction and geophysical hazards, the insecurity created by armed conflict, and limitations on journalistic freedoms, and result from human (in)action and humanitarian crises.

This volume consists of 15 chapters to expand and elucidate the concept of disaster community and its intersections with media and journalism. After an introductory chapter, the editors divide the volume into three parts that reflect different types of hazards and drivers of disaster that may have adverse impacts on communities. In Part I (Chapters 2–6), Environmental Destruction and Geophysical Hazards, five chapters address the vulnerabilities and consequences for disaster communities arising from environmental destruction and geophysical hazards. In Part II (Chapters 7–10), Armed Conflict and Journalistic Freedoms, the volume moves on to the research data from a series of international case studies to illustrate how local media has begun to play a more significant role in reporting on the key issues. Part III (Chapters 11–15), Human (In)action and Humanitarian Crises, presents examples of disaster and their drivers that result from human (in)action.

Beyond providing an overview of invited essays, Jamie Matthews and Einar Thorsen present brief introduction of the origin and definitions of the term ‘disaster communities’ as well as the role of media and journalism in the context of the new understanding of disaster. This introductory chapter underlies the succeeding three parts by offering a well-grounded understanding about the issues of disaster communities, disaster drivers, local media, and journalism in the context of disasters and disaster communication.

Serving an opening chapter by Paola Prado and Juliet Pinto, Chapter 2 evaluates how local and national media covered the collapse of the tailings dam at the Samarco mine and the subsequent contamination of the Doce River basin in Minas Gerais, Brazil. In addition, they pay attention to consider how local media defined the disaster, articulated community agency, vulnerability, and resiliency. In Chapter 3, Chindu Sreedharan and Einar Thorsen draw on in-depth interviews with journalists and editors to explore the tension between journalists’ professional identity and their emotive response to experiencing the disaster firsthand, as victims and survivors. In the next chapter, Jamie Matthews makes a comparison between two grassroots media initiatives after the tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011. By drawing on interviews with contributors to demonstrate how different notions of community may emerge in the context of post-disaster recovery and the potential for such grassroots media projects to meet their information needs and to cater for a broader community of concern. Jacqui Ewart in Chapter 5 attempts to explore the important body of research into news media coverage of natural disasters in Australia and point out that local media and community media facilitate disaster-affected communities’ active engagement with reliable information sources and that this contributes to their ability to deal with disasters effectively. Rounding out Part I, in Chapter 6, Anna Roosvall, Matthew Tegelberg, and Florencia Enghel explore how climate migration is understood in local and transnational media, and the findings indicate that transnational journalism tends to focus on economic injustice and scalar transcendence (local–global scales) while local journalism uniquely integrates scales as well as justice dimensions.

Different from the previous chapters that focus on the vulnerabilities and consequences for disaster communities arising from environmental destruction and geophysical hazards, the following four chapters in Part II shift attention to integrate armed conflict and journalistic freedoms into the research data from different countries.

Through exposing the online news portal El Faro in El Salvador and critically examining the voices from the ganglands, Mathew Charles in Chapter 7 aims to dig into how the country’s gang culture fosters a deeper understanding of what is a complex social phenomenon. This project considers the importance of providing a space where one can voice one’s perspective and where social cohesion is encouraged. By exploring Donbas residents’ responses to conflicting narratives in the media, Dariya Orlova in Chapter 8 makes an attempt to examine oscillating between alienation and frustrated engagement. Furthermore, a particular focus is placed on how local groups and community pages on social media against a backdrop of deteriorating trust in national media. Chapter 9 aims to put emphasis on coverage of the farmer-herder conflict in Idoma Voice, a local newspaper in Benue State, Nigeria. Confidence Uwazuruike illustrates that local journalists might not resort to simplistic and polarizing ethno-religious frames as the national or international coverage of the same issues. Same as the previous chapters in this part, Chapter 10, designed by Aida Al-Kaisy, points out development of media and reconciliation from Media-Led initiatives in post-IS Mosul, especially considering both the achievements and failings of local media in the context of the complexities of reconciliation efforts in Iraq.

With the purpose of introducing examples of disaster and their drivers that result from human (in)action, Part III (Chapters 11–15) focuses on governance and policy failures, a consequence of humanitarian crises, specifically communities that are displaced or fleeting persecution.

By discussing the importance of meaningful intervention from social media in Chapter 11, Kurt Barling compares two case studies of local voices in the aftermath of Grenfell and Lakanal fire disasters to explore how local journalism failed to report on Grenfell before the blaze, ignoring the publicized concerns of the community. In Chapter 12, Kyle J. Holody intends to compare national and community newspaper coverage of the 2018 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He demonstrates that national newspapers always focus much more on the societal/international aspects of the shootings, but less on community and regional ramifications. Meanwhile, the author suggests that community newspapers keep attention on this issue after national media have moved on to other stories. Chapter 13 emphasizes the refugee community in Greece. Victoria Jack identifies how the News that Move website and then later Facebook page became an important and trusted source for refugees as they traveled from Greece and through the Balkan route into Western Europe. In addition, the author examines the capacity of humanitarian information projects to meet the information needs of refugees within the constraints of the humanitarian structure. In Chapter 14, Lisa Brooten continues to draw on an analysis of the public communications between Facebook and Myanmar civil society organizations (CSOs) and in-depth interviews with key local stakeholders to evaluate the role played by local CSOs in counteracting the immediate dangers and holding Facebook accountable for addressing these problems. In Chapter 15, the concluding chapter, Mervi Pantti highlights the importance of re-addressing the relationship between media and disasters. Meanwhile, the author pulls together the central themes of the volume to elucidate the readers’ understanding of disaster communities and the integral role of local and community media within these.

To summarize, some remarkable features in this collection need to be emphasized. First, it opens new frontier horizons for the researchers by drawing on the data from international case studies, research, and perspectives. This volume primarily emphasizes that through integrating media and journalism’s representations and public communication into their role in the context of new understanding of disaster to push people know the disaster from different perspectives. Second, it adopts a unique approach by centering its analytical focus on the term disaster communities by examining its at risk from, affected by, and recovering from the adverse impacts of disaster and their drivers. In addition, the volume makes a deep research to explore disaster communities’ diverse relationships with media and journalism. Finally, through introducing case studies and perspectives in this collection to consider how media and journalism offer alternative perspectives to national media, give voice to those vulnerable to hazards or seeking to rebuild after disaster, and also support risk reduction and recovery processes.

In conclusion, Media, Journalism and Disaster Communities makes valuable contributions to critical applied linguistics by recognizing how the social media facilitates greater public participation in journalism and information provision. This volume provides scholars and journalists with an analytical concept for future research about the utility of disaster communities to highlight the importance of stepping beyond national or international news media to consider media and journalism produced by. Therefore, it is a much-needed, valuable, and practical volume for scholars in social media and practitioners in journalism, for it markedly devotes itself to the application of the broader and multilayered approach in the scope of disaster research. The interdisciplinary nature of this volume will be of much interest to a wide range of readers, in particular researchers in the fields of social media, discourse analysis, disaster communication, and journalism studies.