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Deconstruction of destruction stories: narrative, inequality, and disasters
Author(s) -
McKinzie Ashleigh Elain
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/disa.12184
Subject(s) - narrative , deconstruction (building) , poison control , inequality , human factors and ergonomics , suicide prevention , injury prevention , occupational safety and health , medical emergency , computer security , sociology , medicine , engineering , computer science , literature , art , mathematical analysis , mathematics , waste management , pathology
A commonly‐held belief is that natural disasters do not discriminate. This paper, though, poses the following theoretical question: what does the elision of race, class, and gender in the news media say about disasters in the neoliberal era? It draws on the author's analysis of two prominent newspapers—The New York Times and USA Today—and their coverage of the recovery process after devastating tornadoes in two towns in the United States (Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri) in 2011. The study asserts that the narrative of the news media is one with which people are familiar and that it fits into larger ‘formula stories’. It utilises theoretical treatments of narrative to demonstrate how differences are erased and how they lead to complicity in hegemonic representations. Critical theory is used to elucidate why this occurs, and the paper sources Goldberg (2002) in suggesting that the news media employs ‘fantasies of homogenisation’ when representing post‐disaster communities.