‘Catastrophic Failure’ Theories and Disaster Journalism: Evaluating Media Explanations of the Black Saturday Bushfires
Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: In recent decades, academic researchers of natural disasters and emergency management have developed a canonical literature on ‘catastrophe failure’ theories such as disaster responses from US emergency management services (Drabek, 2010; Quarantelli, 1998) and the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant (Perrow, 1999). This article examines six influential theories from this field in an attempt to explore why Victoria's disaster and emergency management response systems failed during Australia's Black Saturday bushfires. How well, if at all, are these theories understood by journalists, disaster and emergency management planners, and policy-makers? In examining the Country Fire Authority's response to the fires, as well as the media's reportage of them, we use the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires as a theory-testing case study of failures in emergency management, preparation and planning. We conclude that journalists can learn important lessons from academics' specialist knowledge about disaster and emergency management responses.
Source: Media International Australia
Authors: Alex Burns, Ben Eltham
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W124837435