Today’s media ecology and communication flows circumscribe the globe, extending beyond and intensifying earlier spatial–temporal communication trends. New and old media increasingly enter into disasters shaping them from the inside out, and outside in, reconfiguring disaster social relations, channelling forms of political control and projects for change, and circulating deep-seated cultural views and sentiments. Approached in global context, disasters can also no longer be presumed to be territorially bounded or nationally confined events, seemingly erupting without warning to disrupt routines, established norms and social order. Many disasters are now increasingly best reconceptualised and theorised as endemic to, enmeshed within and potentially encompassing in today’s globally interconnected (dis)order. This article elaborates on these twin propositions about the changing ontology of disasters in a globalizing world and their epistemological constitution through media and communications and provides theoretical and conceptual coordinates for improved understanding and future research.
AbbotCRogersPSlobodaJ (2006) Global Responses to Global Threats: Sustainable Security for the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford Research Group (www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk).
2.
AhmedN (2010) A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization. London: Pluto Press.
3.
AlexanderJ (2006) The Civil Sphere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4.
AlexanderJJacobsR (1998) Mass communication, ritual and civil society. In: LiebesTCurranJ (eds) Media, Ritual and Identity. London: Routledge, 23–41.
5.
AlexanderJGiesenB andMastJ (eds) (2006) Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics, and Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6.
AllanS (2006) Online News. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
7.
AllanSThorsenE (eds) (2009) Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives. London: Peter Lang.
8.
Amnesty International (2009) The State of the World’s Human Rights: Amnesty International Report 2009. London: Amnesty International Publications.
BeckU (2009) World at Risk. Cambridge: Polity Press.
14.
BennettL (1990) Towards a theory of press–state relations in the United States. Journal of Communication40(2): 103–125.
15.
BennettLLawrenceRLivingstonS (2007) When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
16.
BenthallJ (1993) Disasters, Relief and the Media. London: I.B. Tauris.
17.
BerglezP (2013) Global Journalism: Theory and Practice. New York: Peter Lang.
18.
BoinA (2005) From crisis to disaster: An integrative perspective. In: PerryRQuarantelliE (eds) What Is a Disaster? New Answers to Old Questions. Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris, 153–172.
19.
BoinA‘t HartP (2007) The crisis approach. In: RodriguezH. (eds.) Handbook of Disaster Research. New York: Springer, 42–54.
20.
BriggsABurkeP (2010) Social History of the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
21.
CalhounC (2008) The imperative to reduce suffering: Charity, progress, and emergencies in the field of humanitarian action. In: BarnettMWeissT (eds) Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 73–97.
22.
CastellsM (2009) Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
23.
ChouliarakiL (2006) The Spectatorship of Suffering. London: Sage.
24.
CooperG (2011) From Their Own Correspondent? New Media and the Changes in Disaster Coverage: Lessons to be Learned. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
25.
CottleS (2009a) Global Crisis Reporting: Journalism in the Global Age. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
26.
CottleS (2009b) Global crises in the news: Staging new wars, disasters and climate change. International Journal of Communication3: 494–516.
27.
CottleS (2011a) Taking global crises in the news seriously: Notes from the dark side of globalization. Global Media and Communication7(2): 77–95.
28.
CottleS (2011b) Media and the Arab uprisings 2011: Research notes. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism12(5): 647–659.
29.
CottleS (2011c) Cell phones, camels and the global call for democracy. In: MairJKeebleR (eds) Mirage in the Desert? Reporting the Arab Spring. Bury St Edmunds: Arima Publishing, 196–210.
30.
CottleS (2013a) Journalists witnessing disasters: From the calculus of death to the injunction to care. Journalism Studies14(2): 1–17.
31.
CottleS (2013b) Environmental conflict in a global, media age: Beyond dualisms. In: LesterLHutchinsB (eds) Environmental Conflicts and the Media. New York: Peter Lang, 19–33 .
32.
CottleSCooperG (eds) (2014Humanitarianism, Communications and Change. New York: Peter Lang.
33.
CottleSLesterL (eds) (2011) Transnational Protests and the Media. New York: Peter Lang.
34.
CottleSRaiM (2006) Between display and deliberation: Analyzing TV news as communicative architecture. Media, Culture & Society28(2): 163–189.
35.
DayanDKatzE (1992) Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
36.
DefoeD (2003[1704]) The Storm. London: Penguin Classics
37.
DillonMReidJ (2000) Global governance, liberal peace and complex emergency. Alternatives, 25(1): 117–143.
38.
DuffieldM (2001) Global Governance and the New Wars. London: Zed Books.
39.
DuffieldM (2007) Development, Security and Unending War. Cambridge: Polity Press.
40.
FlichyP (1995) Dynamics of Modern Communication. London: Sage.
41.
FranksS (2013) Reporting Disasters: Famine, Aid, Politics and the Media. London: Hurst.
42.
GaltungJRugeM (1965) The structure of foreign news: The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers. Journal of Peace Research2(1): 64–90.
43.
GiddensA (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
44.
Global Humanitarian Forum (2009) Human Impact Report: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis. Geneva: Global Humanitarian Forum.
45.
GowingN (2009) ‘Skyful of Lies’ and Black Swans: The New Tyranny of Shifting Information Power in Crises. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
46.
HallinD (1994) We Keep America on Top of the World. London: Routledge.
47.
HanniganJ (2012) Disasters Without Borders. Cambridge: Polity Press.
48.
Hänska-AhyMShapourR (2013) Who’s reporting the protests? Converging practices of citizen journalists and two BB World Service newsrooms, from Iran’s election protests to the Arab uprisings. Journalism Studies14(1): 29–45.
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRCRCS) (2005) World Disasters Report 2005. Satigny/Vernier, Switzerland: ATAR Roto Press.
55.
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRCRCS) (2013) World Disasters Report 2013: Focus on Technology and the Future of Humanitarian Action. Geneva: IFRCRCS.
56.
KaldorM (2006) New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity Press.
57.
KaldorM (2007) Human Security. Cambridge: Polity Press.
58.
KatzELiebesT (2007). No more peace! How disasters, terror and war have upstaged media events. International Journal of Communication1(1): 157–166.
59.
KleinN (2007) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. London: Allen Lane.
60.
KyriakidouM (2008) Rethinking media events in the context of a global public sphere: Exploring the audience of global disasters in Greece. Communications33: 273–291.
61.
KyriakidouM (2009) Imagining ourselves beyond the nation? Exploring cosmopolitanism in relation to media coverage of distant suffering. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism9(3): 481–496.
62.
LiebesT (1998) Television’s disaster marathons: A danger for democratic processes? In: LiebesTCurranJ (eds) Media, Ritual and Identity. London: Routledge, 71–84.
63.
MadianouM (2013) Humanitaran campaigns in social media: Network architectures and polymedia events. Journalism Studies, 14(2): 249–266.
64.
McNairB (2006) Cultural Chaos: Journalism, News and Power in a Globalized World. London: Routledge.
65.
MoellerS (1999) Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death. London: Routledge.
66.
MolotchHLesterM (1974) News as purposive behavior: On the strategic use of routine events, accidents, and scandals. American Sociological Review39(1): 101–112.
67.
NelsonASigalIZambranoD (2011) Media, Information Systems and Communities: Lessons from Haiti. Miami, FL: Knight Foundation.
68.
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) (2013) Humanitarianism in the Network Age. Geneva: United Nations, OCHA Policy and Studies Series.
69.
OlaussonU (2013) The diversified nature of ‘domesticated’ news discourse: The case of climate change in national news media. Journalism Studies (online: DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2013.837253).
70.
OrgadS (2012) Media Representation and the Global Imagination. Cambridge: Polity Press.
71.
Oxfam (2007) From Weather Alert to Climate Change (Briefing Paper 108). Oxford: Oxfam International.
72.
Oxfam (2012) Crises in a New World Order: Challenging the Humanitarian Project. Oxford: Oxfam Briefing Paper158.
73.
PanttiM (2013) Getting closer? Encounters of the national media with global images. Journalism Studies14(2): 201–218.
74.
PanttiMWahl-JorgensenKCottleS (2012) Disasters and the Media. New York: Peter Lang.
75.
PerryR (2007) What is a disaster? In: RodríguezH. (eds) Handbook of Disaster Research. New York: Springer, 1–15.
76.
QuarantelliELagadecPBoinA (2007) A heuristic approach to future disasters and crises: New, old, and in-between types. In: RodríguezH. (eds) Handbook of Disaster Research.. New York: Springer, 16–41.
77.
RaiMCottleS (2010) Global news revisited: Mapping the contemporary landscape of satellite television news. In: CushionSLewisJ (eds) The Rise of 24-Hour News Television: Global Perspectives. New York: Peter Lang, 51–79.
78.
RifkinJ (2009) The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. Cambridge: Polity Press.
79.
RobertsonA (2010). Mediated Cosmopolitanism: The World of Television News. Cambridge: Polity Press.
80.
RodríguezHQuarantelliHEDynesR (eds) (2007) Handbook of Disaster Research. New York: Springer.
81.
RoosvallATegelbergM (2013) Framing climate change and indigenous peoples: International urgency, spirituality and de-nationalisation. International Communication Gazette75(4): 392–409.
82.
ScanlonJ (2007) Unwelcome irritant or useful ally? The mass media in emergencies. In: RodríguezH. (eds) Handbook of Disaster Research. New York: Springer, 413–429.
83.
SeatonJ (2005) Carnage and the Media: The Making and Breaking of News about Violence. London: Penguin.
84.
SerraS (2000) The killings of Brazilian street children and the rise of the international public sphere. In: CurranJ (ed.) Media, Organization and Society. London: Arnold, 151–172.
85.
ShawM (2005) The New Western Way of War: Risk–Transfer War and Its Crisis in Iraq. Cambridge: Polity Press.
86.
StallingsR (1998) Disaster and the theory of social order. In: QuarantelliEL (ed.) What Is a Disaster? Perspectives on the Question. New York: Routledge, 127–145.
87.
TierneyK (2007) From the margins to the mainstream? Disaster research at the crossroads. Annual Review of Sociology33: 503–525.
88.
TierneyKBevcCKuligowskiE (2006) Metaphors matter: Disaster myths, media frames and their consequences in Hurricane Katrina. Annals of the American Academy604: 57–81.
89.
ThompsonJ (1995) The Media and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2012) Disasters through a Different Lens: Behind Every Effect There Is a Cause. New York: UNISDR.
93.
VirilioP (2007) The Original Accident. Cambridge: Polity Press.
94.
VolkmerI (1999) News in the Global Sphere: A Study of CNN and Its Impact on Global Communication. Luton: University of Luton Press.
95.
WangBLeeFWangH (2013) Technological practices, news production processes and journalistic witnessing: Hong Kong journalists in the 2011 Japan earthquake.Journalism Studies14(4) 491–506.
96.
YellS (2012) National disaster news and communities of feeling: The affective interpellation of local and global publics. Social Semiotics22(4): 409–428.
