The Role of the Media and Media Hypes in the Aftermath of Disasters
Reading Summary #1 ESMG 4200
Jeff Neal
References:
Vasterman, Peter, Yzermans, Joris and Dirkzwager, Anja. (2004). The Role of the Media and Media Hypes in the Aftermath of Disasters. Oxford Journals, Volume 27, Issue 1, p. 107-114, http://epirev.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/1/107.full
Theme: This article discusses the affect the media has no the health of a community following a disaster. Many times the health of a community decreases due to the mass amount of media attention to the disaster. And many people that were not affected by the disaster are affected by the media.
Summary: There are more disasters today then every in History because there are more people. If an earthquake hit North America in the year 1500 no one would know about it. It may have happened but no one was around to document it. The media plays a major role in public policy today. Emergency service workers cannot do anything without a mass amount of media coverage. This media coverage not only affects policy's it affects the health of a community following a disaster. According the Vasterman the media uses keywords like disaster, hystia, health concerns, and plays events over and over again following an incident. This repeated use of keywords combined with long term coverage of an event is detrimental to a community. Studies conducted by Vasterman and his associates examined hundreds of articles and media coverage and found that this repeated use of words and repeated coverage of a disaster caused the public health to decrease. One example of this was the 911. The media played the images of 911 over and over, repeating the same images of the aircraft hitting the world trade center. This media coverage is believed to have caused the "Manhattan cough" and "World Trade Center syndrome". Patients that had no exposure to 911, and worked in areas with good air quality still complained of these two health issues following 911. When looking at all disasters Vasterman stated that not only did the health of a community decrease but the number of visits to the local health clinics and hospitals increased drastically. The Medias effect on communities is evident, and according to this article media coverage of disasters may be doing more harm than good. As emergency responders we need to be aware of the negative affect media has on our community.
Application to the lesson topic: As emergency service providers we need not only be prepared for a disaster but we also need to be prepared for the media impact on the community after the disaster. Our call volume will increase and the public will be at a higher level of awareness.
Application to emergency services: I saw the impact of the media related to anthrax while I was working for Salt Lake City Fire. We had an Anthrax incident in a business, and the media coverage was extreme. Following this event the media coverage cause the public to be at a high level of awareness. Any time a letter or box with white powder was found we were called in on a possible anthrax problem. We would respond and evacuate the building or post office, call in hazmat and then wait while until the substance was identified. 99% of the responses ended in a false report, the substances were not anthrax. During this time we also responded on numerous patients claiming to have been exposed to anthrax. This run of anthrax calls was cause by the media.
