Preconditions of Disaster: Premonitions of Tragedy

Disasters are not events; they are processes. True, news media inevitably focuses our attentions on the disaster singularity because it makes such compelling coverage. In the era of reality TV it's about as good as it gets. Buildings are torn apart as we watch, people are seen in abject distres...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social research 2008-10, Vol.75 (3), p.691-724
Main Author: Mutter, John C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cameras
Civil wars
Climate change
Definitions: What We Talk about When We Talk about Disasters
Disasters
Economic development
Economic hardship
Economic sociology
Economics
Evacuations & rescues
Face (Body)
Floods
Food
General studies. Economic systems
Hurricanes
Levees & battures
Looting
Media coverage
Mortality
Natural disasters
News Coverage
Peace
Poverty
Property
Property & casualty insurance
Risk and disasters sociology
Social Conditions
Social research
Sociology
Sociology of economy and development
Sociology of knowledge and sociology of culture
Sociology of leisure and mass culture
Sustainable development
Television
Tsunamis
Victimology
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Summary:Disasters are not events; they are processes. True, news media inevitably focuses our attentions on the disaster singularity because it makes such compelling coverage. In the era of reality TV it's about as good as it gets. Buildings are torn apart as we watch, people are seen in abject distress; there are miraculous escapes and heroic rescues and, as the cameras follow rescue workers into the rubble of buildings or search houses as flood waters recede, we might even see a real (live?) corpse. The only thing to compare is war reporting. Watching disaster coverage live on television is something akin to necro-voyeurism. But like wars and other forms of deadly conflict, disasters are anything but the singularities portrayed in news coverage. They have long portentous rehearsals and extended coda, little of which makes for entertainment like graphic scenes of destruction. The purpose of these remarks is to highlight the social conditions that lead to disaster, drawing on global and local lessons from natural disasters and deadly conflicts. Adapted from the source document.
ISSN:0037-783X
1944-768X
1944-768X
DOI:10.1353/sor.2008.0018