Seismic Risk: The Biases of Earthquake Media Coverage

Abstract

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> 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 <q>earthquake news</q>. Except for the <q>Nepal quake</q>, 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 <q>poor and vulnerable</q>. 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 <q>seismic crisis</q> 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?</p>

Analysis of Online News Coverage on Earthquakes Through Text Mining

“…Figure 3 shows the timeline of detected reports binned in weeks. The number of published online articles per week are on the same order of magnitude (tens to hundreds) of those reported by Devès et al (2019) for daily media coverage (with the exception of the Nepal earthquake in reference). Spikes in the number of news articles coincide with notable earthquakes such as the week following the 7.5 magnitude earthquake on September 28, 2018 near Palu, Indonesia, which also triggered a devastating tsunami (weeks 39-41).…”

“…The spread of news reports across the world is indicative of the attention the disaster brought on to the world. In general, the international community responds positively to calls for international aid and provide support to the affected community, however, the focus on the devastation fades out as new stories catch the media's attention (e.g., Devès et al, 2019). Thus, the gathering of information on news reporting in real time can help plan campaigns for relief efforts or fundraising particularly when the news reports are declining but the attention is still necessary.…”

“…Recently, Devès et al (2019) analyzed the articles published by worldwide newspapers in 2015 in English, Spanish and French. They found that the press covered a very small number of earthquake events.…”

Death Alive: The Challenges of Live Reporting On Disasters and Tragedies

“…Uloga medija u posredovanju vjerodostojnih informacija je u kriznim situacijama veoma značajna, jer većina ljudi ne doživi katastrofe (poput zemljotresa) lično, već se oslanjaju na posredovane prikaze (Jamieson i Van Belle 2019 prema Devès et al 2019). Ghassabi i Zare-Farashbandi (2015) pojašnjavaju da mediji mogu imati dva različita gledišta u vezi sa prirodnom katastrofom kakva je zemljotres:…”

“…Istraživanje je također pokazalo da se vijesti uglavnom koncentriraju na opis utjecaja zemljotresa i na ljudske gubitke, te da su u tom kontekstu vrlo česti senzacionalistički izrazi u izvještavanju. Sekunardne opasnosti od zemljotresa se također veoma rijetko spominju, što svjedoči o nerazumijevanju koncepta seizmičke krize, zaključuju Devès et al (2019).…”