How Development Affects News Media Coverage of Earthquakes: Implications for Disaster Risk Reduction in Observing Communities

Thomas Jamieson and Douglas A. Van Belle
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Thomas Jamieson: School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182, USA
Douglas A. Van Belle: School of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6140, New Zealand

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 7, 1-26

Abstract: Previous research suggests that lesson-drawing news coverage of disasters can create windows of opportunity for policy learning in the observing communities. This is especially important for cities facing similar vulnerabilities to disaster-affected communities, where they can learn from their events to pursue disaster risk reduction policies to mitigate against those risks at home. However, little is known about the conditions under which newspapers in at-risk communities provide the type of news coverage necessary for policy learning. Using logistic regression to analyze an original dataset produced from a content analysis of five newspapers’ coverage of five earthquakes, we demonstrate that the level of development of the disaster-stricken community systematically influences the nature of news coverage in at-risk communities. These results have important implications for the understanding of urban disaster risk reduction, suggesting that the conditions for bottom-up policy learning are more likely to occur following disasters in wealthier countries.

Keywords: disaster risk reduction; development; news coverage and reporting; content analysis; logistic regression; earthquakes; newspapers; international communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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