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By Satya Sivaraman The media has been very predictable in its coverage of the Asian tsunami. But then, why expect anything else?
On December 26, 2005, a year after the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami struck south and Southeast Asia many of those who suffered its wrath feared a return of the deadly sea surges to their shores. They need not have worried, as the chances of another tsunami happening on the same date were as low as that of your average politician keeping his/her promise.
But what they should have watched out for was the very predictable tidal wave of media coverage triggered by the first ‘anniversary’ of the Asian tsunami. In the month leading up to the anniversary, television channels everywhere have already recycled reams of dramatic footage the disaster spawned in its wake, while newspapers revisited incidents, personalities and concerns highlighted nearly a year ago.
All this is only to be expected, as the modern mass media is a creature as much evolved around the clock and the calendar as all of industrial civilisation itself. Among the most basic requisites of reporters in every medium -- radio, print or television -- is the replacement of their hearts with time bombs triggered by magical dates on the calendar and defused only by the meeting of ‘deadlines’.
Why is it important to recognise this fundamental reality of how the mass media works? More specifically, how is it relevant to discuss the media’s response to last year’s deadly tsunami?
To begin with, understanding the structural pressures and constraints under which journalists work pre-empts superficial criticism about how the media constantly ‘switches on/off’ and does not provide consistent and continuous coverage of serious social issues. That surely is a weakness of the media, and an obvious one at that.
But then, which sector of our society is immune to this short-attention-span syndrome that has reached epidemic proportions in our times, everywhere? Government, NGOs, the private sector -- aren’t they all guilty of working towards soulless deadlines, targets and indicators that often have nothing to do with the day-to-day needs of the people in whose name all their activities are carried out?
The truth is nobody except the communities that actually underwent the terrible suffering and displacement wrought by last December’s tsunami can really reflect on the event as if it all happened just yesterday. They are the only ones who cannot forget the loss of loved ones, the wiping out of generations of work in a few fleeting seconds, and the painful burden of starting life all over again with nothing in hand but the possible goodwill of the world.
Instead of harping on the banal fact of media fickleness let us instead look at other significant aspects of the media’s response to the Asian tsunami.
The good news
The first thought that occurs to me about the role of the media in the coverage of the tsunami is that, with all its flaws, it did manage to get the message out to the remotest parts of the world. There is no doubt at all that it was the extensive coverage of the Asian tsunami for a full month after the event that evoked the unprecedented outpouring of support and solidarity from ordinary folk everywhere.
Sure there was voyeurism and the sensational portrayal of those who died in the tsunami by sections of the media. There was also a bit too much self-congratulation in the depiction of both the western and Asian middle classes donating money and material to help tsunami survivors.
But overall the media at the local, national and international level did report the impact of the tsunami, the human stories behind the tragedy as also tales of greed, corruption and inefficiency accompanying any event of this magnitude. And by doing so it managed to mobilise people and governments around the globe to respond urgently to the needs of the tsunami-affected.
Behind the good news
Some media critics have argued that the Asian tsunami evoked the response it did from the global media (which, in turn, influenced national media) simply because the disaster killed a lot of foreign tourists in Sri Lanka and Thailand and devastated parts of Asia that are the playgrounds of the rich and famous.
They point to the mute response of the media in the case of the Kashmir earthquake early October this year. For a natural disaster that has killed over 90,000 people and displaced millions mostly in Pakistan, the media and the world seem to have forgotten it as quickly as they do a routine traffic accident.
For that matter, the media is indifferent when tragedies happen quietly without offering up dramatic spectacles, or in remote parts of the world, far from the insulated enclaves inhabited by their audiences. The daily deaths of 3,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa from malaria, or the thousands of deaths due to malnutrition in South Asia are hardly worth reporting because they are ‘too mundane’ in the way they happen. There is a lot of merit to these arguments and it is indeed true that the term ‘mass’ media is a bit of a misnomer; instead it should really be dubbed ‘class’ media, for it is to the upper classes of the world population that it really caters. Then again, anybody who still believes the aggressively commercial and corporate media we have today is interested in the welfare of the poor is either too naïve or has a special chip implanted in his/her brain.
Press and prejudice
If one were to take such criticism further, there is evidence that the media is not only elitist by nature but, in many parts of the world, also staunchly ‘nationalist’, even ‘chauvinist’ in its coverage of events, including national disasters.
In Sri Lanka, for example, survivors of the tsunami in the north and east of the country -- Tamils and Muslims -- have received little attention from the country’s media outlets, according to activist groups working in these areas. This of course follows in the footsteps of the Sri Lankan government, which has been repeatedly accused by many humanitarian workers of not sharing foreign aid adequately with its minority populations.
The Indonesian national media, already hostile towards anything Acehnese, due to the province’s long-running battle for independence, paid little attention to stories of ordinary folk being dubbed as ‘separatist militants’, and killed by the Indonesian army even after the tsunami struck.
In India and Thailand too, marginalised groups such as the dalits and the Moken sea gypsy people have remained curiosities on the sidelines of the ‘big’ stories about the tsunami -- there only to provide a bit of variety to the main show.
There has also been inadequate coverage of the very special problems faced by sections of society like the disabled, the elderly and those mentally traumatised by the tsunami. This could be as much due to ignorance in media circles as indifference, because the average journalist does not have either the background or the training to recognise these as vulnerable groups.
Information flaws
While the Asian tsunami showed little respect for national or international boundaries in its devastation, the media in each of the individual affected countries has been guilty of confining its coverage of the post-tsunami situation to within its own borders. So, the Thai media hardly had any stories from India, the Indian media ignored the situation in Sri Lanka, the Indonesians had little time for the Thais, and all these four countries happily forgot that the Maldives and distant Somalia too suffered due to the tsunami.
How useful it would have been for people in each of these countries to compare the quality and quantum of their own relief and rehabilitation with that in other affected countries. Or to find out how survivors of the tsunami across shores were faring or fighting to have their concerns heard by the powers-that-be.
It is still not too late, and one of the very important media efforts required right now is to provide a detailed comparison of what’s happening on all these fronts in each of the tsunami-struck nations.
Even the international media has been strangely silent in telling the world the stories of tourists from Europe or North America who suffered immensely due to the tsunami, particularly in Sri Lanka and Thailand. For example, except in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami I have not seen any reports about how those in Sweden (which lost several thousand citizens) are coping with the loss of family and friends in the disaster.
The other media
While much of this analysis has been confined to the world of mainstream media, such as print and television, the medium that probably is the most important one in any post-disaster situation anywhere is radio. By cutting across the serious barrier of illiteracy and being easily accessible to the largest number, radio can play a very valuable role in everything from helping coordinate relief and rehabilitation to dealing with psychosocial trauma.
One of the most valuable media interventions using radio has been in Thailand where, within months of the tsunami, seven community radio stations were set up amidst the affected populations providing regular information on issues such as compensation, government regulations and long-term rehabilitation. These stations, mostly run by people from within the community, have also served as a great morale booster for the affected people and helped improve their bargaining power in relation to both the government and NGOs.
While most of the tsunami-affected countries have very low levels of Internet penetration, there is no doubt that web-based information outlets also played a very significant role in everything from helping people around the world search for missing relatives, to mobilising resources for relief and rehabilitation. Web bloggers, who started reporting from day one of the tsunami, gave the world a very personal picture of what was happening at the micro-level -- something the mainstream media struggled to do for days after the event.
The other communication
At some stage we should stop being fixated on the idea of the media as alluding to only a few forms of mass communication -- print, television, radio or even the Internet -- and start thinking about the myriad ways in which communication really happens among the masses.
In most rural and traditional communities in the developing world, for example, the fastest mode of communication is rumour. Irrespective of what one thinks of this form of spreading information (or disinformation), it is a reality that needs to be addressed by all those seriously interested in using the media for development purposes.
To this day, for example, such is the fear instilled by last year’s tsunami that people in the affected areas worry about another similar upheaval from the sea hitting them on full moon nights or on the first anniversary of the event. Awareness about the power of rumours among humanitarian groups working in tsunami-hit areas can help mitigate their impact or even convert them into a means to spread positive information.
Folk theatre, songs and handicraft are other forms of communication that, when creatively used, could help sort out a number of problems typically found in post-disaster situations. In Phuket, Thailand, for example a group of puppeteers have done excellent work using their art to educate people about their rights, while in Nagapattinam, India, some groups have penned songs for children to help them overcome their trauma and also revive their interest in education.
The last word
To conclude this analysis of the media’s response to the tsunami I would argue that one of the most important lessons to be learnt is that, in the long run, the empowerment of local communities to create and disseminate their own ‘news’ is the only way to help them prepare for disasters well before they happen. The era of a few centralised sources of information whimsically turning on and off the flow of news is passé and certainly not very productive any longer.
Another lesson is that by keeping our eyes and ears open to the various non-obvious ways in which communication is practised by both people and agencies of all kinds, we can improve our understanding of what exactly is happening on the ground. Otherwise, given the sheer volume of blah, blah that so-called information-providers indulge in these days, the net result will be that news at some point will no longer be of use but will become mere nuisance.
(The author is Editor, Regional, indiadisasters.org) www.indiadisasters.org, December 2005
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