Children's Coping In The Context Of Disasters

Words: 1899
Pages: 8

The media have grown astronomically in the past years due to social media. We can be informed of natural disasters or of scary events that have taken place within a matter of minutes. We rely solely on the roles of the media to enlighten the public of information, yet are oblivious to the repercussions that victims or others will face. Media’s influences during times of disasters have positively impacted the effects disasters create through spreading awareness to the public. In spite of this, issues regarding the psychological and ignorant responses of individuals - due to the media - manifest supplementary reasons that debunk the positive effects. Therefore, we must remember the psychological and the ignorant effects that impacts repercussions …show more content…
For example, she incorporated research of “children and adolescents involved in Hurricane Katrina” (Pfefferbaum 85). She lucidly states that the coping ideology of children is still unknown, yet Pfefferbaum continues to refute that the media does, in fact, have a negative impact due to children being “separated” and “evacuated” from their families and homes while viewing “disaster-related media coverage” (Pfefferbaum 85). This holds validity to an extent because she later concedes that their form of “negative coping” actually relates back to PTSD (Pfefferbaum 85). In detail, Pfefferbaum supports the overarching assertion that the media - in times of disasters - is detrimental because she interprets the coping aspects of children which summarizes the negligent effects through research. Bluestein also does the same; however, she analyzes children in the context of school …show more content…
Michael O’Connor’s article, titled Ignorance is Bliss: The Media and East Timor, depicts a new portrayal of the disaster's effect on the media not the media’s effects on disasters. O’Connor allows for a form of concession towards the media as he promptly questions the underlying inquiry of “public expectations” and the media “own expectation” of itself as well as “its ability to meet those expectations” (O’Connor 4). He offers a new perspective of the negative relationship between disasters and the media and even includes a scenario in which he enunciates the idea that, depending on the media’s ignorance and the audience’s ignorance, the information presented and interpreted can be manipulated through bias. Specifically, O’Connor mentioned “the difference in media coverage” in an incident where four Victorian officers were shot and two soldiers wounded, declaring that the media offered information regarding “the officers’ names and their injuries”; however, left out information that were considered “intrusive reporting” (O’Connor 5). With all this in mind, the media is delineated with numerous occurrences in which controversial information can be added or altered in a way that deceives the public. Through a disaster like this, people will argue that the media respected the request of the police authorities to leave out intrusive reports, but this leaves people