Librarry

THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA

IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT

AT AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES CONGRESS

KHARTOUM SUDAN 14^TH –25^TH JANUARY 2006

SISTER ROSE NYONDO

DEPARTMENT OF MASS OF COMMUNICATION

UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

PREAMBLE:

Scholars say communication and development are like two sides of one coin. This emphasis wants to drive home that the two are inseparable. We can make another premise that communication and media involvement in disaster management is as important as the air we breathe in.

The majority of people become vulnerable and are desperate for media products that can help prevent loss of lives and offer relief. Dr. Frank Press Founder of International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) writes; “Disasters are tragic, not only because of the great loses to the victims, but also because they are often avoidable…”

The process of communication is not as easy as we think it should be. Marriages have broken because of break down of communication. Nations have gone to war because of break down of communication; relationships have gone sour because of lack of communication or break down of communication. The process of communication is difficult in ordinary and daily times, and it is even more difficult in times of disasters because we use ‘words’ or ‘language’ which is a culture by its own. Words are neutral and only get the meaning when one attaches that meaning to them. Hence a single word can have as many meanings as the number of people who hear and use the word.

Meanings have historical biases, subjective to individual personal experience, geographical, tribal and ethical boundaries.

In spite of all these problems that language or words bring, communication has still to take place. As human beings, our task is to learn how to communicate and communicate clearly.

In time of disaster and crisis, the organization or institution involved has to respond with accurate, clear and complete information as quickly as possible.

Definitions:

When we talk of disaster we assume that a catastrophe has occurred in ways that the natural laws of nature have been violated or disrupted. There is disarray, confusion and panic.

The dictionary defines disaster as: An occurrence causing widespread destruction and distress. A grave misfortune; a total failure; an evil influence of a celestial body;

A calamity of great destruction; Hardships and loss of life; Grief; and tragic outcome with irreparable loss.

One definition is, “situations characterized by surprise, high threats to important values, and a short decision time” Another goes as follows: - “A disruption that physically affects a system as a whole and threatens its basic assumptions, its subjective sense of self, and its existence core”.

In industry or production plants they define disaster as: “An extraordinary event or series of events that adversely affect the integrity of the product the reputation or financial stability of the organization or health of the well-being of employees, community or the public at large.

During disaster period, all information needed does not come fast enough or should have come earlier, but nevertheless, let it come and as soon as possible.

We are no longer in the Stone Age where disaster should come as if we are helpless victims of God’s wrath.

In the modern technology of satellite, disasters can be prevented, controlled and bad effects made manageable and minimized. Six months before an earthquake occurs in California, the citizens are warned not only by the earth tremors but also by the scientists at earthquake centre who give details of the intensity of earth tremors and their probabilities up to the moment earthquake strikes.

Disasters do not only surprise us, but we do not know how to manage them or react to them not even plan for them.

Research done in different companies, intuitions and organisations that have experienced disasters and crises have shown that 86% of disasters or crises

Are called ‘SMOULDERING’ crises or disasters that the organisations or institutions are aware of their occurrence way before they happen and before the public find out about them.

The same research reveals that Management and mismanagement caused 78% of the crises and disasters by lack of crisis planning or disaster management planning.

One small example is the use of fertilizers and how they damage the natural powers of the Mother Nature but at the same time help our farmers produce bumper harvests.

This paper will explore ways on how the media can help in the management of disasters.

The media can educate the publics about disaster prevention and preparedness. The media can link scientists, disaster mitigation officials and the public. The media can provide analytical materials for future prevention. The media can remove the myth that disaster is caused by God’s wrath.

The role of the media is to provide a vital link among the people and the state. Kasoma 1990 says the media are cogs through which the people see the function or not of the government administrative machinery.

The media must help to co-ordinate government activities and operations so that both the receivers and givers of information they publish are served adequately. There should be no shortfalls or serious contradictions within the media. The media need to have proper liaison and lack of it could lead to destruction, disaster, and duplication of efforts leading to wastage of public funds. The media should provide the nation with useful important information on the state of the country as well as the outside world.

Unfortunately here in Africa, natural disasters surprise us as if we are still in the Stone Age. It must be the gods that are angry with us. Disasters do not only surprise us, but we do not know how to manage them, plan for them, or react to them.

The media are to provide educational material on any possible disaster that can occur in Africa. There must be a liaison between the officials, the scientists and relief agencies. All stakeholders must work together as a team. There must be an Internet website for each possible disaster that can occur in the region. Educational materials must be provided in all primary, secondary and high institutes of learning. Public libraries must all have these educational materials. Risk areas must display these educational materials.

EARLY WARNING- PREPAREDNESS

The media must provide information-warning signs. Nyondo, 1988 took a close look at the ancient narratives of our grandparents from different African countries. In these narratives, myth, folklore and stories, there are several of them that are related to warning about disasters such as droughts and floods. The Beautiful Giraffe; The Ancient and Wise Python; The Millipede. From these ancient narratives we know that drought disasters are not a modern phenomena. The question each one of us should ask is; How come we have not learned on how to cope with them?

Nearly every Zambian tribe or any tribe in Africa has a story on droughts; Management of these issues should not be something new and more disastrous than the disaster itself.

The media that can be used in early warning and preparedness no longer take the form of storytelling of our grandparents but modern technology that can reach beyond the fireside of a village hut. These modern means of communication systems that can be used in early warning are as follows:

1. Technical Communications systems such as satellites, air craft with

Remote sensing devices and computer networks and other technologies.

2. Disaster sites of communications (These maintain links with affected ministries and publics.

3. Organisational Communications (Communication within the organisation staff and other stakeholders within the country and international)

4. Communication for scientific development, which is always missing in developing countries. Nobody wants to own up to a mistake. Materials to analyses past disasters is not available. We have examples of disasters that happened in other worlds and not in our countries. The western media report on our disaster before the local journalists reports.

PROVIDING ANALYTICAL INFORMATION: AS A MEANS OF PREPAREDNESS.

The media are good at reporting events and functions. One of the negatives the media has during disasters is that they do not provide analytical information on what exactly happened? What is the history surrounding this particular disaster? What should have been done and by who? What are the future ramifications? What is being done to prevent future possible disasters? Answering these hard questions will be of great help in the prevention of future disasters. In summary then, early warning systems, disaster preparedness, analytical information, and the coordination and readiness for responses are all factors determined by people rather than “Acts of gods” beyond human control.

Fred H. Cate 1990 says humankind possesses the means to reduce the impact of disasters to save lives and reduce damage to property. If we do not accurately document and analyse our present disasters, we will never learn to cope up with them. When we die we will take all our experience and knowledge with us to the grave.

MEDIA PROBLEMS:

Negative presentations

One of the major problems of the media is that negative aspects of the story are more news worthy than the positive. Because of this weakness the authorities and all those answerable to any disaster resent the media and give distorted facts.

Avoid negative presentation, concentrate on the positives such as how people are being helped to cope with the situation. What is being done to relieve the affected and what is being done to avoid future ramifications?

Analytical Scientific Materials

Lack of proving analytical material and focussing on sensational information and events will always make us repeat the same mistakes. Analytical materials will help in:

1. LONG TERM PLANNING

2 Disaster preparedness and early warning

3. Reconstruction

4. Rehabilitation

5. Relief and mitigation

Media Causing Panic:

The media have to provide information that will eliminate panic and confusion. During disaster time the human mind is very vulnerable to panic and confusion. The media can provide information on how lives can be saved. What the relief officials are doing. What should be done to cooperate with the rescue teams?

We should never take it for granted that people know what to do. We human beings have a varsity of experiences and influences that affect our behaviour and the way we react to different events and issues.

A recent research done by Fiske and de Certeau-2000 found that the audience to media products are active producers of meaning and not passive consumers of media meanings. We decode media texts in ways that are related to our social and cultural circumstances and ways in which we experience those circumstances.

Taking all this into consideration the media and relief officials must handle disaster with great care.

In both conflict coverage and disaster coverage the media have done a poor job. Some of the reasons cited is lack of training, lack of proper facilities and assigning such duties to junior media trainees who have no experience. These negatives are in both Western media reporting on Africa as well as the African media reporting on Africa.

Corner 2000 says, unfortunately, international media agencies risk no penalties should they act unethically when reporting from non-western countries.

The Annenberg project revealed that most of the news and programs from the Southern hemisphere be it political, cultural, entertainment or disaster have suffered severe misrepresentation and distortion. The culprits in the distortion of disaster news are not just the media but also relief organizations. The relief organizations usually exaggerate the severity of problems to maximize fundraising. The media machinery itself is very complicated when it comes to the choice of news for the readers. A small example of strikes or protest coverage would suffice. The story that will show on the evening news is not the two days of negotiations of union leaders and management but the few minutes when the police will throw tear gas or beat up demonstrators.

Most of the on the spot news reporters called “stringers” are indigenous journalists who are very loyal citizens of their States. The

Gate Keepers (the editors) are different. What the world knows about the third world as Admason 1993, concluded in his report on World Vision U.K. public opinion survey results is “an impression that the developing world is exclusively a theatre of tragedy in which poverty and human misery figure prominently in almost every scene…. This misconception is as profound as it is widespread.”

The questionnaire done by Admson founder and author of UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children reveal a lot of what has gone wrong from both the media and relief organizations. According to Admson ‘s research there is no free health child in Africa, our children are starving to death, out of school and are street runaways.

OUR LOCAL MEDIA:

Local media have not been exempted to lack of skills, structure and capacity to adequately cover disaster news. What makes it even worse is the sour relationship that the media has with law enforcement agents, and disaster management units. The two have never enjoyed a good marriage.

The media and disaster management agencies need each other to perform their functions better. Information needs to be presented responsibly and timely. The media should not just report on what has happened and what is being done. The media should analyse what is not being done and prescribes what should be done. The question we should all shamefully look at and try to answer is that: Why should the Africa always experience hunger starvation massive loos of life after a drought or floods disasters?

Information on drought disasters flood disasters, industrial pollution disasters and all possible disasters in Africa should be given to all citizens free and readily available in schools, public libraries, and the internet.

Critical Media Problems:

The reporting of conflict and disasters in the world press is a disaster itself

Factual information is concealed and distorted at different stages of production of the media product.

a) Origination of the story: Victims of the disaster will relate the story according to their perception and their experience

b) Stakeholders (The people who are implicated in the disaster)

Institution, government, industry, company, family etc. will relate the story to save their tarnished image to the public.

c) The journalists involved have their own biases and experiences that accompany their objective reporting when they are honest and do a through job they face the following:

The journalists are accused of being un accurate giving distorted information biased, un experienced not trained to report on disaster and no analytical skills, traitors of the enemy The question they are asked is not how objective and truthful is your story but which side are you? On our side or the enemy?

d) The sub-editors of the story have their own ‘house style’ of reporting that each media house has adapted as their accepted format and style

The starving children in Africa are not news until we see skeletons on the TV screens. They decide what deserves to be called a disaster in their newsrooms.

e) The interests of the shareholders of the newspaper or media house have to be protected or served. The shareholders main objective is to make the business run and make some profit at the end of the day. Stories that will make poor sales or tarnish the credibility of the media house and shareholders will never be published. All these are problems that cannot be ignored if we want to address the issue of the role the media should play in disaster coverage.

WHAT MEDIUM SHOULD WE USE FOR WHICH DISASTER?

Radio:

Research has shown that during earthquakes, volcano ruptures and other related disasters the one item that people picked from their homes to escape with is a radio. A similar research was done in El Salvador, survivor’s even dead bodies were found with a radio in their hands or in the vicinity. Hence, radio becomes a very important medium in disasters.

However, the most recent research with American kids on; which media would you prefer to have? Internet was found to be the most preferable.

In Africa less than 2% of the population have access to a computer, Internet or Websites. This information should not discourage us since more than 99% of media houses both electronic and print, do have access to some computer, internet or websites. The so-called medium for the rich if properly utilised the information on the Websites can reach the grassroots in a matter of hours or minutes. It is therefore, time for experts on each disaster to:

1. Create websites for each disaster they foresee in the region.

2. Give correct information before the disaster occurs.

3. Give responsible and accurate information after and during disaster period.

4. Provide accurate analysis of the future ramifications and prevention of repetition of the disaster.

5. Provide address and contacts of relief services.

The public need constant education on all possible disasters. The education should include early warning, planning, prevention, and mitigation.

TRADITIONAL:

1. Face-to-Face communication will never be surpassed by any modern medium.

Education and training done by extension workers can be more productive to the small-scale farmer. Than mass broadcast.

2. Story telling: Fireside stories were told to warn people about possible disaster. The story of The Millipede; The story of the beautiful giraffe; The python; These ancient stories that are found in every African language and ethnic group do reveal to us that disasters of drought, floods etc. have been a common phenomena in our history.

3. Village meetings, debates, discussions, and deliberations took place at the Insaka. now popularly known as Indaba. Every village had these forums where issues were discussed openly and deliberation taken. They were effective because everybody was involved and participated in decision-making. When we examine communication models we see that development in Africa has delayed because we jumped the ancient village forum to the modern communication where information is given from above to the grassroots, ignoring the participatory aspect.

4. One very effective mode of communication is drama and plays or Theatre for Development (TFD) in urban areas as well as rural areas. These are very effective especially if they are followed by a group discussion facilitated by some experienced personnel.

ELECTRONIC:

5. The cheapest of them all in terms of MASS COMMUNICATION is radio. In Zambia and in most parts of Africa we claim that every citizen has access to a radio and that more than 95% of the households have a radio-Kasoma 2001. The saturation and access to radio makes it cheaper. We all know that the Internet will be even cheaper if it were available to the masses. The creation of a winding radio, a radio that does not need batteries is a great innovation for Africa where power is limited and during the time of disasters you usually will have no time to look for batteries or power. The creation of community radio stations in Africa will bring great strides in development if properly used. According to Kasoma 2001, the moment Community radio will become a property of the community and operated by the community without interference, development in Africa will make a difference.

6. Television audiovisual media such as slides, videotapes in house production of film can be very effective in the education of the public. They are effective because they engage both the eye and hear.

This media can be quite expensive both in production and disseminating of the product. When making a decision on what medium to use for ‘In House Training’ to prevent factory disasters or mine disasters television, videotapes, or a slide montage would be the best. In this way, you have both inter personal communication and a professional presentation.

7. Film and network video production and distributions. These are very

different from the "in house" production. They are meant for mass consumption. No matter how educational they are the element of entertainment surpasses that of educational tool. We can all recall the many films or TV programmes we have enjoyed and at the same time learned a lot from them. The element that made us enjoy the production and persevere in watching it up to the end was the entertainment value. Because of the Aesthetic elements in these productions we attach the word fiction to them. What we forget is that the narratives or folklores from our grandparents were also fiction but very educative

8. Satellite Communication: The satellite communication has made the

world into a global village. We are able to receive news from all

over the world within a few hours or minutes of occurrence. We are

able to watch the events as they occur - LIVE. We are able to

Access information, research from different universities and other

Academic and research institutions. The new technology of cell phones

has brought another element in the reporting of disasters. The first pictures

of Surnami disaster on CNN and BBC were not taken by journalist

but by tourists on the spot.

9. PRINT:

The Print Media: We must explore all print media outlets to

Disseminate all needed information. The beauty or practicality of

Print materials is that you can go back to it, refer to it, read and study

the material at your own pace and convenient time. However, during disaster time it becomes difficult to concentrate and comprehend sophisticated information. Rescue materials must be simple and summarized. The best print media conducive to disaster information are pamphlets, brochure and small leaflets. It has to be materials people can carry in their pockets.

DROUGHT AND FLOODS

The droughts and floods in one-way or another have affected us all They are part the way the world does its business.. Why on earth should the countries that have 6-8 months of snow be feeding us instead of us being of help to them? One missionary, who returned home for leave in giving a speech to aspiring missionaries, said “I love African weather, where you throw seeds away in the backyard and a few days later they will geminate and grow”. How long are we going to pose to the rest of world as a backward continent living in the "Stone Age" and have no knowledge on how to manage disaster? The agriculture extension workers are doing very well in some farming communities. But we need more mass education to supplement their efforts.

The Mozambique floods were badly handled by the media. We kept on seeing the young woman giving birth in the tree. The media usually does that to call for sympathy. There was no article that ever analysed as to why that flood?

CONFLICT:

The human element in us makes us watch conflict on the media partly as entertainment. Who is winning and who is losing? It is staged conflict, until when we start seeing dead bodies. We all can relate our own experiences on conflict in the region and the way our media have handled it. Apart from factual information being concealed from the media, the media is forced to take sides if they need any information. Any journalist who claims to be neutral is a spy, a traitor.

MINE DISASTERS

The mine disasters have become to frequent and an embarrassment to the world. The recurrences of these disasters demonstrate that we do not analyse our disasters to help us prevent or plan future disasters. The blame is across the board, from all stakeholders and the media as well as the mining authorities.

Summary:

An individual cannot overcome the poor coverage of disasters in Africa.

We need a change of policy. Policy that will compel all stakeholders to react, plan and manage the disasters to the interest of humanity.

The question of which side are you should never arise. Training, and materials on all possible disasters and conflict management should be available to the public.

Companies, institutions, or governments involved in the disasters must be accountable to publics by giving truthful, objective analytical information that will help prevent future disasters

One of the goals and tasks for a media house is to tell the people by merely broadcasting normal programmes that all is well in the country. Media houses have no communication policy in disaster management.

Media involvement in disaster time is implied. For a long time, as long as I have been a journalist, schools of journalism never included materials such as coverage of conflict, coverage of disasters. It is less than a decade that few Departments of journalism started to include conflict coverage and disaster coverage as topics on the curriculum at both undergraduate and post graduate level.

Victims of disaster should be treated with respect and dignity both by the media and relief organizations. State media policies must have clear guidelines on media roles in disaster coverage