scholarly journals Seismic risk: the biases of earthquake media coverage

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maud H. Devès ◽  
Marion Le Texier ◽  
Hugues Pécout ◽  
Claude Grasland
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Seismic Intensity ◽  
Material Damage ◽  
Scientific Content ◽  
Safety Measures ◽  
The Press ◽  
Systematic Biases ◽  
The Media ◽  
Secondary Hazards ◽  
Event Magnitude

Abstract. The capacity of individuals to cope with threatening situations depends directly on their capacity to anticipate what will come next. The media should play a key role in that respect, but an extensive analysis of earthquake media coverage by the international news reveals systematic biases. Exploring a corpus of 320 888 news articles published by 32 worldwide newspapers in 2015 in English, Spanish or French, we found that the press covers a very small number of events: 71 % of the news about seismic events was dedicated to only 3 earthquakes (among the 1559 magnitude 5+ events). A combination of frequency and content analysis reveals a typical framing of the “earthquake news”. Except for the “Nepal quake”, the duration of the coverage is usually very short. Thus, the news tends to focus on short-term issues: the event magnitude, tsunami alerts, human losses, material damage and rescue operations. Longer-term issues linked to the recovery, restoration, reconstruction, mitigation and prevention are barely addressed. Preventive safety measures are almost never mentioned. The news on impacts shows a peculiar appetency for death counts, material damage estimates and sensationalism. News on the response tends to emphasize the role played by the international community in helping the “poor and vulnerable”. The scientific content of the coverage is often restricted to mentions of the magnitude, with the concept of the seismic intensity being largely ignored. The notion of the “seismic crisis” also seems unclear, with aftershocks sometimes being treated as isolated events. Secondary hazards are barely mentioned, except in the case of tsunami alerts. Together, these biases contribute to fatalistic judgments that damage cannot be prevented. If scientific messages are to be communicated, they should be broadcast a few hours after an event. Why not take the opportunity to familiarize people with the real timeline of seismic disasters?

scholarly journals Seismic Risk: The Biases of Earthquake Media Coverage

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maud H. Devès ◽  
Marion Le Texier ◽  
Hugues Pécout ◽  
Claude Grasland
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Seismic Intensity ◽  
Material Damage ◽  
Scientific Content ◽  
Safety Measures ◽  
The Press ◽  
Systematic Biases ◽  
The Media ◽  
Secondary Hazards ◽  
Event Magnitude

Abstract. The capacity of individuals to cope with threatening situations depends directly on their capacity to anticipate what will come next. The media should play a key role in that respect, but an extensive analysis of earthquake media coverage by the international press reveals systematic biases. Exploring a corpus of 320 888 news articles published by 32 worldwide newspapers in 2015 in English, Spanish or French, we found that the press covers a very small number of events: 71 % of the news was dedicated to only 3 earthquakes (among the 1559 of magnitude 5+). A combination of frequency and content analysis reveals a typical framing of the earthquake news. Except for the Nepal quake, the duration of the coverage is usually very short. The news thus tends to focus on short-term issues: the event magnitude, tsunami alerts, human losses, material damage, and rescue operations. Longer-term issues linked to the recovery, restoration, reconstruction, mitigation and prevention are barely addressed. Preventive safety measures are almost never mentioned. The news on impacts show a peculiar appetency for death counts, material damage estimates and sensationalism. News on the response tends to emphasize the role played by the international community in helping the poor and vulnerable. The scientific content of the coverage is often restricted to mentions of the magnitude, with the concept of the seismic intensity being largely ignored. The notion of the seismic crisis also seems unclear, with aftershocks sometimes being treated as isolated events. Secondary hazards are barely mentioned, except in the case of tsunami alerts. Together, these biases contribute to fatalistic judgments that damage cannot be prevented. If scientific messages are to be communicated, they should be broadcast a few hours after an event. Why not taking that opportunity to familiarize people with the real timeline of seismic disasters?

scholarly journals The Struggle for Control: How do Norwegian TV-Celebrities Deal With Critical Media Exposure?

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Fanny Duckert ◽  
Kim Edgar Karlsen
Keyword(s):  
Impression Management ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Media Exposure ◽  
Direct Effects ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Defensive Strategies ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
The Press ◽  
Critical Media ◽  
The Media

Ten Norwegian TV-hosts, all nation-wide celebrities, were interviewed about their experiences with critical media exposure. How did they perceive their relationship with the press?  What were the main sources of stress? How did they cope? All expressed a strong focus on impression management and self-presentation. The majority described an independent and often playful interaction with the press, in order to keep control over their programs and their privacy.All had experienced negative media exposure. Sources of stress were one-sided presentations, evil informers, personal attacks, and harming their family. They experienced both direct effects by the media coverage, and indirect effects through interaction with other people.The majority used problem-focused coping strategies, actively influencing the media coverage; emotion-focused strategies, regulating their thoughts and feelings; and meaning-focused strategies, allowing reflection. Proactive self-presentation work helped maintain and protect their identities.Two of the participants reported using more defensive strategies, and had suffered more intensely.

scholarly journals Economic Interests of Media in the Coverage of the News Value of Sex on the Harian Rakyat Aceh

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamdani M. Syam ◽  
Nur Anisah ◽  
Rahmat Saleh ◽  
Abdul Rani Usman ◽  
Dini Khairani
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Press ◽  
News Value ◽  
The Media ◽  
Spss Software

In addition to having the freedom to spread news to the public, the press also have the freedom to search and process news. In exercising that freedom, journalists always consider that news must be interesting so that people want to read it. The media coverage of sex, including stories on rape, sexual harassment, adultery, cheating, and sordid topics, is a news value that has a high rating for people. Sometimes in the economic interests of the media, journalists violate the norms and ethics of the news. This study is aimed to examine through content analysis the coverage of sex in the Harian Rakyat Aceh newspaper, which from January to April 26 featured 54 articles related to sex. This study examined this coverage in the context of Indonesia’s implementation of the journalistic code of ethics. Indonesian journalists are prohibited from mixing facts and opinions and from reporting sadistic and obscene news. Using the Holsti formula, inter-coder reliability resulted in a CR of 0.99, showing strong reliability. After data collection, coding sheets were analyzed using SPSS software to determine the results of each category. This study found that the news value of the 54 articles in the Harian Rakyat Aceh newspaper is considered to have violated the journalistic code of ethics. Thus, it can be assumed that there is an economic interest in the media’s reporting of sex in that newspaper.

An Analysis of the Media Coverage of the Socio-Economic Impacts Generated by Online Tourist Rental Platforms

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-63
Author(s):  
José María Martín Martín ◽  
Juan F. Prados-Castillo ◽  
Juan de Dios Jiménez Aguilera ◽  
José Manuel Guaita Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Multidimensional Scaling ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Economic Impacts ◽  
Statistical Techniques ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
Hierarchical Ascending Classification ◽  
Tourist Accommodation ◽  
Great Complexity

This work aims to determine, by means of a press analysis, the positioning of the media on the problems generated by the growth of tourist pressure in city centers and by the expansion of tourist accommodation intermediated online. The main objective of this work is to analyze, classify, and group the main press media and agencies and their positioning with respect to their coverage of socio-economic impacts linked to tourist accommodation platforms. Two different statistical techniques will be used, MultiDimensional Scaling and Hierarchical Ascending Classification (Clustering). Mainly, 24 impacts have been pinpointed, 12 positives and 12 negatives, which shows the great complexity of this phenomenon and the echo that the press makes of it. The impacts related to the ability to retain a dwelling in the tourist area are most frequently reported by the press, the increase in the price of rents/homes, the lack of regulation, the tourist pressure, or depopulation.

The Media Sounds the Alarm

Toxic Shock ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 77-110
Author(s):  
Sharra L. Vostral
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Health ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Toxic Shock Syndrome ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Federal Communication Commission ◽  
Toxic Shock ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
Medical Identification

Following the medical identification of tampon-related toxic shock syndrome (TSS), there was an urgent need to alert the hundreds of thousands of women using tampons and superabsorbent tampons that the products were potentially dangerous and deadly. Disseminating a message of risk challenged status quo journalistic practices, and chapter 3 examines the media coverage of a health crisis centered upon women’s reproductive health and menstrual management practices. The press had to figure out a way to talk about TSS in overly simplistic terms, in an era when the Federal Communication Commission only recently allowed feminine hygiene sprays, and then sanitary napkins and pads, to be advertised on television. Journalistic reports helped to disseminate messages and warnings about TSS and tampons, and also announce the recall of Rely—the tampon with the highest incidence of TSS—produced by Procter & Gamble. This contributed to a sense that the problem had been solved, but other superabsorbent tampons remained on the market and TSS was not eliminated.

The Arctic: Press, Policy and the Arctic Council

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-38
Author(s):  
Yelena Yermakova
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Media

The changing situation in the Arctic due to global warming has prompted media coverage of a supposed “scramble for the Arctic,” an “Arctic boom,” or an “Arctic Bonanza.” Some even go further, deploying the rhetoric of a “New Cold War,” predicting an inevitable clash between the United States and Russia over interests in the region. The press coverage in both countries over the past decade reflects this new sensationalism. The academic literature unequivocally confirms that the press exerts substantial influence on governmental policy makers, and vice versa. However, while scholars agree that international organizations (IOs) are essential to shaping policies, the existing literature lacks research on media’s relationship with IOs, which often struggle to obtain the coverage and publicity they deserve. The Arctic Council has provided an effective platform for constructive dialogue and decision making involving the USA and Russia. Accordingly, despite disagreements in other regions of the world, the two global powers have managed to cooperate in the Arctic – notwithstanding recent media coverage painting a different and incomplete picture. This project surveys the media coverage of the Arctic over the past decade in Russia and the USA and its correlation with the Arctic Council’s activities. The analysis draws upon two prominent news organizations in Russia (Kommersant and Izvestiya) and two in the USA (the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal), as well as the Arctic Council’s press releases from June 2006 to June 2017. The paper finds that there is a clear disconnect between media coverage of the region and the Arctic Council’s activities. It recommends that the media pay more attention to the organization, particularly since it is the only prominent platform for international cooperation in the Arctic.

scholarly journals The Right of Privacy and Freedom of the Press: The Concept of Legal Justice in Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Abdul Haris Nasution
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Press Freedom ◽  
Freedom Of The Press ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Moral Sanction ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Right Of Privacy ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

This study aims to describe the problems faced by the party who feels aggrieved or impaired by his personal rights due to media coverage. The dilemma arises because based on the legal system of the press, the media are given protection from lawsuits. This is to guarantee the position of freedom of the press in a democratic system. However, the impact that has been caused due to defamation cannot be resolved simply by using the right of reply. This study aims to explore how legal mechanisms provide justice for victims due to media behavior in line with the principle of press freedom in Indonesia. The results show that the Indonesian Press Law does not have a clear system of legal liability. The rule of conduct in the Press Law is absolutely not regulated. Thus, the right of reply that is contained in the media consciousness or "order" of the Press Council is not a binding and final decision because the Press Council's body only gives an opinion. Violation of the ethics of the press should not only have a moral sanction but also a legal sanction with all its consequences.

Narratives of past and present, freedom of expression and recognition – Justice Ngcobo’s judgment in Citizen 187 (Pty) Ltd v McBride

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1&2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meryl Du Plessis
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Media Ownership ◽  
Consumer Activism ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Law ◽  
The One ◽  
National Reconciliation

This contribution examines the balance to be struck between freedom of expression on the one hand, and dignity on the other.  It does so through the lens of narratives of South Africa’s past and present in Citizen 187 (Pty) Ltd v McBride and a consideration of how narratives shape our construction of reality.  It is argued that the newspaper narratives about Mr McBride’s planting and detonation of a bomb in 1986 contain various omissions and half-truths, which impacts adversely on the media’s contribution to post-apartheid South Africa.  In particular, such media coverage mimimises Black persons’ realities in the past and present, which is an infringement of their dignity.  However, the law of defamation, it is argued, is not suited optimally to address the shortcomings in macro narratives of South African history advanced by the media.  The use of the law of defamation for that purpose may have the effect of stifling, unduly, conversations that are integral to national reconciliation. Alternative mechanisms through which to hold newspapers accountable may include complaints addressed to the Press Council, consumer activism and the creation of a plurality of voices within media spaces, both in terms of media ownership and the promotion of ideological diversity.  Ngcobo CJ’s judgment is therefore preferred, as it protects the media’s freedom of expression, while also emphasising the importance of the dignity of those who become media subjects. 

scholarly journals Brexit, the Press and the Territorial Constitution

2020 ◽  
pp. 096466392092192
Author(s):  
Gregory Davies ◽  
Daniel Wincott
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Uk

Brexit has unveiled previously hidden aspects of United Kingdom (UK) society, law and politics. It provides a valuable opportunity to investigate the social reception of law, and in particular the mediation of the law and constitution in the press. The distinctive constitutional arrangements and histories of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England have given rise to different territorial interpretations of the UK state. These asymmetries have parallels in the UK’s territorial media landscape, yet we have little understanding of how this landscape contributes to constitutional discourses. This article offers quantitative content and thematic analysis of UK-wide media coverage of major court judgments which have served as critical junctures in the Brexit process. The analysis reveals striking territorial variation in the volume and substance of coverage. Here, the media appears to reinforce divergent understandings of the constitution: while English reporting chimed with a more unitary account of the constitution, reporting elsewhere was more consistent with a vision of the UK as union-state. In the light of these findings, we argue that media analysis can make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the law and the constitution.

‘It just seemed like your normal domestic violence’: ethnic stereotypes in print media coverage of child abuse in New Zealand

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 707-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Maydell
Keyword(s):  
Child Abuse ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Ethnic Stereotypes ◽  
The Press ◽  
Health Practitioners ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Ongoing Concern

Child abuse in New Zealand is a matter of ongoing concern for the government, public officials, health practitioners and wider society, with most information on the issue coming from mass media, which have played an influential role in forming public opinion. This study investigates the coverage of serious child abuse between November 2007 and November 2009 in three largest New Zealand newspapers: The New Zealand Herald, The Dominion Post and The Press. The analysis of 205 articles shows that three-quarters of the data described severe physical abuse and/or death, and one-quarter described sexual abuse. More than half of all media pieces (56%) represented reporting of ‘crime stories’, such as police and court reports, in addition to statistical data, recommendations and critique (44%). Two cases of Nia Glassie and the Kahui twins’ deaths were sensationalised by the media and were described or mentioned in 63 articles altogether. The dominant construction of child abuse as a ‘Māori issue’ was achieved through individual framing, focused on the personalities of the perpetrators and their inferred innate characteristics, such as being prone to violence and dysfunctional by nature, which were further generalised to Māori society as a whole.

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