The formation of a disaster community in cyberspace: The role of online news media after the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake

Convergence

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 40-56

  Kodrich, Kris ^a   Laituri, Melinda ^a  

^a Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 44649172295     PISSN: 13548565     EISSN: 17487382     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/135485650501100304     Document Type: Article

References (58)

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2. On 26 December 2004, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the island of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean, causing a massive tsunami that devastated a dozen countries, killed more than 200,000 people, by some estimates, and left millions homeless. An online disaster community formed almost immediately, capitalising on lessons learned from Hurricane Mitch in Central America (1998), the Gujarat earthquake (2001), the 11 September terrorist bombing in the USA (2001), and the Bam earthquake in Iran (2003). The online disaster community has evolved and become more sophisticated. Internet capabilities for donations have dramatically improved in terms of security, links to donation sites, and innovative methods for donations. The distinction between private donations and national aid efforts was made explicit; governments pledge money to be made available at some future date, the public gives money which is immediately accessible. The synergistic relationships between the online media, traditional media and informal media facilitated information dissemination and continued coverage long after the event. Prior to this event, online disaster communities were composed of two tiers: the disaster and humanitarian aid programmes that are ongoing in terms of raising public awareness, and the transitory disaster response that coalesces around a particular event. A third tier of the online disaster community model can be identified from the tsunami event that monitors relief efforts, reconstruction, and aid allocation. The authors presented preliminary research regarding the online disaster community and the tsunami at the International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society, 18-20 February 2005, Berkeley, California, USA
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57. Because the websites for the three newspapers maintained daily archives of their web pages, it was decided to analyse roughly a two-month period of coverage after the earthquake. Unfortunately, when attempts were made later to access the The Times of India archived materials, it was discovered that not all of the material could be assigned to specific dates. Because the authors did not want to exclude The Times of India, they decided to continue to use the available material with the understanding that the material would contribute to a descriptive study, while negating the utility of tests for statistical significance
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