Deconstruction of Destruction Stories: Narrative, Inequality, and Disasters

• In Event: 324 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 13. RGC, Representations, and Inequality

Abstract

There is a commonly held belief that natural disasters do not discriminate. However in this paper, I ask the following theoretical question: What can the elision of race, class, and gender in the news media tell us about disasters in the neoliberal era? I employ ethnographic content analysis to examine two prominent newspapers and their coverage of the recovery process after devastating tornadoes in two towns: Joplin, Missouri and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I make the following arguments: 1)The narrative of the news media is one we are familiar with and can understand, this narrative fits into larger “formula stories.” I use social psychological concepts to explain how differences are erased and make us complicit to hegemonic representations. 2) I use critical theory to elucidate why this occurs and draw from Goldberg (2002) to suggest the news media uses “fantasies of homogenization” when representing communities after disaster. In conclusion, I emphasize the crucial need for interrogation of the news media and whose lives it purportedly represents.

Author

• Ashleigh Elain McKinzie, University of Georgia