Farabollini P., Lugeri F. R., Mugnano, S. (eds.) EARTHQUAKE RISK PERCEPTION, COMMUNICATION AND MITIGATION STRATEGIES ACROSS EUROPEPublisher: Il Sileno, Rende, 2019
In the aftermath of an earthquake, broadcast and traditional media play a crucial role, fulfillin... more In the aftermath of an earthquake, broadcast and traditional media play a crucial role, fulfilling complex social and psychological functions. Geoscientists are sought by the media to provide scientific assessments of seismic phenomena as to explain both what is happened and what is yet to come, also suggesting ways to mitigate risk at individual and societal level.The visibility of scientist and their ability to spread their voice across the media is a very important aspect of disaster narratives, as it provides an opportunity to disseminate and receive relevant messages about hazard, risk mitigation and resilience. The genuine appetite for scientific knowledge (Wein et al., 2010) stresses the role of journalistic mediation along the whole risk / science communication process, as it improves news media credibility along with public’s understanding of both seismic phenomena and related risks.The here presented research considered the media coverage of scientific issues during the Emilia 2012 and Amatrice 2016 seismic crisis by the four most circulating Italian national newspapers within the 31 days following the first earthquake shock. The comparative analysis of the two seismic crises considered 288 news stories, being analysed through content analysis, an empirical methodology that allows analysing media messages as well as other types of communicative texts, in order to formulate statistical inferences ontheir explicit meaning (Neuendorf, 2002).The analysis made emerge two relevant points. First, media coverage of geo-science follows the ‘typical’ life cycle of news. Most of the articles are indeed concentrated in the very first days, rapidly decreasing in the following days till to disappear at the end of the month. Second, the daily amount of news story is significantly defined by three variables: the maximum magnitude of aftershocks in the previous day, the number of days after the ‘zero event’ and the degree of controversy / conflict that arises from scientific evaluation of the ongoing phenomena.
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The paper is aimed at understanding whether and how the criminalisation of NGOs has affected the discursive construction of identity and representations of migrants, Italians and NGOs themselves, assessing which aspects have consolidated and which have changed. The study considers Twitter as a privileged arena to understand public debate: the paper is focused on "common users", by analysing their linguistic, paratextual and discursive strategies. The research is based on a corpus of over 800,000 tweets published between 2017 and 2020, adopting a combination of digital corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis methods. The combination of these analyses has shown that the emergence of criminalising rhetoric towards NGOs entails the following outputs: on the one hand, it sheds light on the relations between identity and otherness by re-articulating the relationship between 'us' and 'them' within media representations of migratory phenomena; on the other hand, it allows us to understand the development of the sovereignist political imagery, as an evolution of nationalism and right-wing populism. Research outputs highlight a strong de-humanisation of migrants through passivisation, impersonalisation and objectification. Through the study of the criminalisation of NGOs, this work contributes to shed new light on the static and dynamic elements of the media representation of migration in Italy and migrants' identities.
Keywords: media, earthquakes, science communication, risk framing, social amplification of risk, media hypes
different functions of different media in the aftermath of a disaster, drawing upon theoretical and empirical literature and case-studies in the light of Uses and Gratification perspective. Moving from the way people engage with media and interpersonal source, the chapter addresses disaster communication in the light of both collective needs and its related social functions, considering how people actually interact with communication to cope with disasters. A better understanding of the ways situational constraint, individual motivations, consumption patterns and communication cycles are arranged may improve our understanding of the whole disaster communication process, thus being very helpful to ground effective communication strategies, and to better understand the possible consequences of poor message shaping or use of wrong choices of channels.
The paper will also discuss complementary roles of broadcast media,
interactive digital environments and interpersonal channels to inform public discourse on disaster, improving preparedness measures, giving voice to exposed communities and informing both individual and collective decision, as well as mobilizing human and collective resources to foster return to normalcy.
Keywords: Disaster communication, Media functions in disaster, Uses
and gratification, Communication theory.
The author would like to thank Professor Alemanno for such an excellent way to introduce the book.
Suggested citation:
Alemanno, Alberto (2017) «Prefazione: per una comprensione pluralistica del rischio», in Andrea Cerase, Rischio e Comunicazione. Teorie, Modelli, Problemi, Milan: Egea, pp. 11 -15.
Summary: 1) There’s no risk without uncertainty – 2. The moral and political meaning of risk: toward the zero-risk society. – 3) Risk and the chain effects triggered by decisions. – 4) Uncertainty and Communication in the L’Aquila Trial. – 5) After the earthquake: risk and responsibility. – 6) Reducing uncertainty: the potential contribution of social sciences
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Questa in estrema sintesi è una delle maggiori evidenze emerse dalla “Ricerca nazionale su immigrazione e asilo nei media italiani” qui pubblicata nella sua versione integrale (insieme ad una sua sintesi già diffusa nel dicembre del 2009). Si è ritenuto utile pubblicare l’intero rapporto di ricerca al fine di contribuire al dibattito scientifico e al più ampio confronto con le ricerche sul tema, mettendo così a disposizione un quadro più completo dei dati raccolti nell’ambito di ricerche sviluppate sulle tematiche del rapporto tra minoranze e sistema mediale dal Dipartimento di Comunicazione e Ricerca Sociale della Sapienza Università di Roma. Un interesse che continua dal 2004, anno di pubblicazione del primo sistematico lavoro su questi temi in FuoriLuogo L’immigrazione nei media italiani, fino alle attuali attività di monitoraggio e riflessione scientifica che ruotano intorno alle iniziative per la “Carta di Roma”, il Protocollo deontologico concernente richiedenti asilo, rifugiati, vittime della tratta e migranti.
Comunicare il rischio
Su Arpatnews abbiamo pubblicato una serie di interviste ad esponenti di associazioni ambientaliste, giornalisti, professionisti della comunicazione, esperti delle tematiche della trasparenza, per approfondire temi quali la comunicazione, l'informazione ambientale e processi partecipativi.
Rivolgiamo qui qualche domanda ad Andrea Cerase, dottore di ricerca in Scienze delle Comunicazioni, ricercatore all’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia e cultore della materia all’Università la Sapienza di Roma. Oltre agli studi sulla comunicazione e gli impatti sociali del rischio, si è occupato di giornalismo e del rapporto tra media tradizionali e digitali e fenomeni di discriminazione ed esclusione sociale. Tra le sue numerose pubblicazioni sui temi del rischio si segnalano la recente monografia “Rischio e comunicazione. Teorie, modelli e problemi” (Egea, Milano, 2017).
very rare. Unfortunately, this belief is definitely false: at least 2,000 of the 80,000 victims of the great earthquake
in Messina (1908) were due to the tsunami that followed earthquake (Boschi et al. 1995). In 1956, a 7.7 magnitude
earthquake close to the Cycladic island of Amorgos (Greece) triggered large waves that also hit coasts of Amorgos,
Astypalaia and Folegandros, with run-up values of 30, 20, and 10 mt(Okal et al., 2009).
More recently, in 2003 a relatively small tsunami caused by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Boumerdes (Algeria)
hit the Western Mediterranean coast causing damage properties in at least eight harbours in Balearic Islands (Vela
et al. 2011) and two little tsunamis occurred in Dodecanese respectively in 2016 and 2017.
Such events, that are just a little part of the over 290 historically known events occurred in the Mediterranean
(Maramai, Brizuela & Graziani, 2014) should remind geoscientists that 1) tsunami hazard is everything but
impossible and 2) tsunami come in all shapes and colours, and even a small event can result in serious damages
and loss of lifes. In such a scenario, risk communication about Mediterranean Tsunami is a challenging enterprise.
According to Astarte project, which investigated people’s knowledge, preparedness and attitudes to cope with
Tsunami within six test sites across different nations, people have little knowledge about tsunamis, are likely to
underestimate both probability and consequences of such events, and their understanding is significantly affected
by media coverage (and social imagery) of big events such as the 2004 Sumatra Tsunami and the 2011 Tohoku
Tsunami (Astarte, 2014).
In such a scenario, where low probability and high uncertainty match with poor knowledge and familiarity
with tsunami hazard, risk communicators should avoid undue assumptions about public’s supposed attitudes
and preparedness, that may results in serious consequences for the exposed population, geoscientists, and civil
protection officers. Hence, scientists must carefully shape their messages and rely on well-researched principled
practices rather on good intuition (Bostrom, & Löfstedt, 2003).
For these reasons, the Centro Allerta Tsunami of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, to ground an
effective science communication strategy, promoted a survey to investigate tsunami’s risk perception in two pilot
regions of southern Italy, as to represent about 3.2mln people living in 183 coastal municipalities.
The research is based on a sample of > 1000 people, organized into six main sections: socio-demographic data
and information on respondents’ territory; knowledge and sources of information on tsunami risk; contextual
perception of risk posed by tsunamis; social representations of tsunami; role of cultural attitudes and worldviews;
messages and channels to be used for tsunami early warning.
Interviews will be administered within the end of February 2018, first data will be presented and discussed in this
session.
Media are a relevant resource for citizens to cope with disasters. Especially in the first days after the first big shake, scientists are asked by the media to provide scientific assessments of seismic phenomena, to explain both what is happened and what is purported to happen in a next future. As a consequence, geo-scientists visibility and voice across the media is doomed to rise till to become central in media narratives of disasters, providing an unprecedented window of opportunity to disseminate relevant messages about hazard, risk mitigation and resilience.
The urge to make sense of the event thus results in a genuine appetite for scientific knowledge (Wein et al. 2010), stressing the role of journalistic mediation along the whole risk / science communication process, as well as the ability of the media to provide public with steady and authoritative point of references to anchor their understanding of seismic phenomena.
The here presented research considered the media coverage of scientific issues during the Emilia 2012 and Amatrice 2016 seismic crisis, to the extent they were covered by the four most circulating Italian national newspapers within the 31 days following the first earthquake shock.
The research considered 248 editions of the mentioned newspapers, and collected and processed data by using content analysis, an empirical methodology that allows analysing media messages as well as other types of communicative texts, in order to formulate statistical inferences on their explicit meaning (Neuendorf 2002).
The comparative analysis of news media coverage of Emilia (2012) and Central Italy's earthquakes (2016) highlights the relationship between physical events and media representation of expert knowledge, highlighting key trends and some significant signs of change in the news frames used to assess and communicate seismic risk.
The newsworthiness of scientific advice is everything but taken for grant: in fact, analysis made emerge two relevant points. First, media coverage of geo-science follows a ‘typical’ life cycle, broadly compatible with hype media theory (Vasterman, 2005). Most of the articles are indeed concentrated in the very first days, rapidly decreasing in the following days till to disappear at the end of the month. Second, the daily amount of news story is significantly defined by three variables: the maximum magnitude of aftershocks in the previous day, the number of days after the ‘zero event’ and the degree of controversy / conflict that arises from scientific evaluation of the ongoing phenomena.
The research has been partially published by the Italian journal “Problemi dell’Informazione” (Cerase, 2017), but will be deepened still further in new articles, in order to give geo-scientists and risk managers a more comprehensive description of data and of their related implications on their own work.
Media are a relevant resource for citizens to cope with disasters. Especially in the first days after the first big shake, scientists are asked by the media to provide scientific assessments of seismic phenomena, to explain both what is happened and what is purported to happen in a next future. As a consequence, geo-scientists visibility and voice across the media is doomed to rise till to become central in media narratives of disasters, providing an unprecedented window of opportunity to disseminate relevant messages about hazard, risk mitigation and resilience.
The urge to make sense of the event thus results in a genuine appetite for scientific knowledge (Wein et al. 2010), stressing the role of journalistic mediation along the whole risk / science communication process, as well as the ability of the media to provide public with steady and authoritative point of references to anchor their understanding of seismic phenomena.
The here presented research considered the media coverage of scientific issues during the Emilia 2012 and Amatrice 2016 seismic crisis, to the extent they were covered by the four most circulating Italian national newspapers within the 31 days following the first earthquake shock.
The research considered 248 editions of the mentioned newspapers, and collected and processed data by using content analysis, an empirical methodology that allows analysing media messages as well as other types of communicative texts, in order to formulate statistical inferences on their explicit meaning (Neuendorf 2002).
The comparative analysis of news media coverage of Emilia (2012) and Central Italy's earthquakes (2016) highlights the relationship between physical events and media representation of expert knowledge, highlighting key trends and some significant signs of change in the news frames used to assess and communicate seismic risk.
The newsworthiness of scientific advice is everything but taken for grant: in fact, analysis made emerge two relevant points. First, media coverage of geo-science follows a ‘typical’ life cycle, broadly compatible with hype media theory (Vasterman, 2005). Most of the articles are indeed concentrated in the very first days, rapidly decreasing in the following days till to disappear at the end of the month. Second, the daily amount of news story is significantly defined by three variables: the maximum magnitude of aftershocks in the previous day, the number of days after the ‘zero event’ and the degree of controversy / conflict that arises from scientific evaluation of the ongoing phenomena.
The research has been partially published by the Italian journal “Problemi dell’Informazione” (Cerase, 2017), but will be deepened still further in new articles, in order to give geo-scientists and risk managers a more comprehensive description of data and of their related implications on their own work.