Ploughman P
Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York 12866-1632, USA.
Disasters. 1995 Dec;19(4):308-26. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7717.1995.tb00352.x.
In 1985, five international 'natural' disasters received prominent print news media coverage in the United States. Content analyses of selected print news media accounts of these five disasters were conducted. The purported evidence of alleged cause-effect relationships describing and explaining these disasters as 'objective' realities was evaluated in the light of the subjective selection of explanatory factors, themes, frameworks, and value assumptions which underlie the media's analysis and 'construction' of these events as 'natural' disasters. Analysis of the American print news media coverage of these disasters indicated an emphasis upon the dramatic, descriptive, climatological or geological qualities of these events rather than upon causal explanations emphasizing the role of human acts or omissions in the development of these disasters. The print news media 'constructed' these events as 'natural' disasters despite clear evidence of their hybrid, natural-human origins.
