Fukushima, Tsunamis and Earthquakes: The Meanings of Risk in the 21st Century (original) (raw)
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Vernacular epistemologies of risk: The crisis in Fukushima
On 11 March 2011, an earthquake of a 9.0 magnitude and the consequent tsunami destroyed Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant. Known as 3/11 in Japan, the effects of this triple disaster will continue for decades. How did the media covering the catastrophe articulate issues of risk to the general public? This article is a textual analysis of accounts about the Fukushima disaster published between 11 March 2011 and 11 March 2013 in four of the most prominent media outlets in the United States. In particular, the analysis explores the practices through which these US media constructed the presence and meaning of public health risks resulting from the nuclear meltdown. The article illustrates how systematic media practices minimized the presence of health risks, contributed to misinformation, and exacerbated uncertainties. In the process, the study demonstrates how the media created vernacular epistemologies for understanding and evaluating the health risks posed by nuclear radiation. The article concludes by weighing the implications of the vernacular epistemologies deployed by media.
The Nuclear Risk Fixation in Media Reporting Following the Tsunami in Japan
Western media coverage of events in Japan focused obsessively upon purported radiation risks from the damaged Fukushima reactor rather than the wider impact of the devastation wrought by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. This short paper substantiates this discrepancy and highlights its potentially damaging consequences in the context of the urgent need to switch from fossil fuels and towards more efficient nuclear power.
Masters Dissertation, 2016
This study uses a mixed-method approach to analyse the coverage of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan’s two major English-language newspapers – The Japan Times and The Daily Yomiuri. Quantitative coding is combined with critical discourse analysis to determine whether the coverage was, overall, predominantly alarming, reassuring, or relatively balanced and neutral. This is done to ascertain whether the newspapers were sensationalising the crisis, echoing the official government and industry communication thereof, or reporting in a critical, responsible manner as the fourth estate. To answer the research question, key aspects of the coverage like foci, framing, sources, narratives, actors and agency, and criticisms are closely examined. It is revealed that the coverage was neither predominantly alarming nor reassuring, but was problematic in other ways. The implications of the complex findings, both for the Japanese media industry and international disaster reporting, are discussed. The study is situated in a broad literature framework that draws on agenda setting theory, research about the roles and responsibilities of the media, the field of risk communication and the reporting of radiation events in history.
Insights into the Coverage of the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis in Japan's English- Language Newspapers
The Asian Conference on Media & Mass Communication 2015 Official Conference Proceedings, 2015
This paper presents the preliminary findings of a study into the reporting of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan's two major English-language newspapers. Coverage in the print editions of The Japan Times and The Daily Yomiuri (now The Japan News) between 11 March and 12 May 2011 was examined to determine, primarily, whether it could be said to have been alarming, reassuring, or relatively balanced and neutral. This assessment was undertaken in response to conflicting criticisms that the media was sensationalizing the nuclear crisis while the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the utility in charge of the Fukushima nuclear plant, were downplaying the severity of the situation. A mixed-method content analysis, with both a quantitative coding component and a qualitative critical discourse analysis component, was used in the study and data meeting and going beyond the primary research objective were obtained. This paper focuses on findings pertaining to the framing of the nuclear crisis, use of sources, keywords, representation of the energy and political authorities involved, and the reporting of radiation information in the two newspapers. The implications of the findings fall beyond the scope of this cursory working paper, but a call is made for further analysis and research.
Location, Location, Location: How U.S. newspapers covered Fukushima Daiichi
The nuclear meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daichii nuclear plant in March 2011 was the most severe international nuclear event since the 1986 incident at Chernobyl. Due to language and geographical barriers, U.S. media organizations played a unique role in communicating the causes, events and effects of the meltdown to the American public. These organizations did not provide a homogenous flow of information about the Fukushima disaster. Rather, I find that information on Fukushima and U.S. nuclear facilities was more abundant in media markets closer to domestic nuclear plants. In addition, an analysis of city newspaper archives reveals that newspapers closer to U.S. nuclear plants provided more coverage of nuclear technology, safety and domestic nuclear facilities, while newspapers farther from U.S. nuclear plants devoted more coverage to human interest and health implications. This project illuminates how news organizations deliver varying messages to their audiences based on their geographical locations. By doing so, they alter the ways in which communities understand international events and the risks or benefits of nuclear power.
Journal of radiological protection : official journal of the Society for Radiological Protection, 2016
Any activity that might result in exposure of a population to contaminants requires communication of the associated risks. This communication is complicated by several factors including public perceptions, distrust, uncertainties in risk assessment and news media. These factors are especially prominent in communication of risks from ionizing radiation. A number of guidelines about the communication of risks related to radiation exposures have been made by national and international authorities and other stakeholders. The present paper investigates whether those guidelines were followed and evaluates how the radiation risk related information was presented in European newspapers and Russia in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident. It examines the use of measurement units and risk comparisons, the quality of the statements on radiation risk related issues and the use of visual materials in 1340 newspaper articles from Belgium, Italy, Norway, Russia, Slovenia and Spain. Our results i...