TY - JOUR
T1 - Communicating catastrophe
T2 - Blame, Black Saturday and newspaper constructions of bushfire risk
AU - Bainbridge, Jason
AU - Galloway, Chris
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - In the crucible of a major bushfire crisis, such as Victoria's devastating 2009 Black Saturday fires, media not only function as sources of information but also help to construct events through discourses that include disaster and blame. While local radio is often the 'go to' source for bushfire information, it is in newspapers that these discourses play out most extensively. In this article, we use Black Saturday as a case study, focusing on the newspaper reportage in the week immediately following (8-13 February) to explore how newspapers function as 'interpretive communities' for a public trying to make sense of a complex cauldron of risks.
AB - In the crucible of a major bushfire crisis, such as Victoria's devastating 2009 Black Saturday fires, media not only function as sources of information but also help to construct events through discourses that include disaster and blame. While local radio is often the 'go to' source for bushfire information, it is in newspapers that these discourses play out most extensively. In this article, we use Black Saturday as a case study, focusing on the newspaper reportage in the week immediately following (8-13 February) to explore how newspapers function as 'interpretive communities' for a public trying to make sense of a complex cauldron of risks.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80053487784&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1329878X1013700112
DO - 10.1177/1329878X1013700112
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:80053487784
SN - 1329-878X
VL - 137
SP - 100
EP - 108
JO - Media International Australia
JF - Media International Australia
IS - 1
ER -