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Reporting Catastrophes: Mainstream Media and Vulnerability to Disasters in the United States

In: Natural Disasters in the United States

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  • Natalie Rauscher

    (Würzburg University)

Abstract

As a country that experiences natural disasters on a regular basis, the United States today is highly vulnerable to these events—more so than other countries. What could be the reasons behind this high vulnerability and lack of resilience in the United States today? This chapter explores the role of mainstream media in disaster situations such as hurricanes by arguing that through the structure and focus of mainstream media in a politically polarized context, there is little reflection of underlying reasons for high risk and vulnerabilities to disaster including a lack of discussion of government policy in this area. By investigating a textual corpus of media data around natural disasters based on transcripts from the New York Times, ABC News, and Fox News between 2017 and 2020 using quantitative and qualitative methods from corpus linguistics, this chapter contributes to previous research illustrating that there is little reflection in US mainstream media of underlying causes of high vulnerability to disasters. This likely contributes to a lack of awareness of the origins of disaster situations as well as possibly an unwillingness to support political reform in this area. Media discourses thus play a crucial role in the cycle of failed disaster risk reduction in the United States.

Suggested Citation

  • Natalie Rauscher, 2025. "Reporting Catastrophes: Mainstream Media and Vulnerability to Disasters in the United States," Risk, Governance and Society, in: Natalie Rauscher & Welf Werner (ed.), Natural Disasters in the United States, pages 167-190, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:rischp:978-3-031-96436-7_9
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-96436-7_9
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