Summary of the text Rethinking media and disasters

in a global age: Whats changed and why it matters by Simon Cottle

Simon Cottle writes about how technology has changed throughout the years and about
the effect as well as impact it has had on media, disasters and media reporting about disasters.
He wants to see how modern devices and communication tools shape disasters from the inside
out and outside in as well as how media and communications enter into disasters, shaping
surrounding social relations, conditioning political power and projects for change, and
infusing them with cultural meanings (p. 4).

Cottle claims that the nature of many disasters has also changed throughout the years.
Global crises and disasters such as climate change and food, water and energy shortages are
not confined to one specific territory, nor are they events that erupt without warning. They are
events that are present around the globe and that can affect us all.

When it comes to the observation of disasters nowadays, Cottle states that

communication technologies are something that cannot be separated from disasters. He writes
that the extensity and intensity of media and communications around the world are
characterised by six analytically distinct features (p. 5). These features are scale (in terms of
the encompassing global reach), speed of media and communications around the globe, the
saturation of society with universal means of communications (e.g. mobile phones), social
relations, the surveillance capacity of modern media and the ability not only to read and hear
about disasters, but to also see them, sometimes also as they unfold live on our TV sets.
Communication technologies also play a crucial role when it comes to rescue missions and
helping people connect with their loved ones who are maybe victims of a certain disaster. The
2010 earthquake in Haiti is used by the author to illustrate how humanitarian help was
organized using precisely mobile technologies and how that kind of technology enabled
people to be a part of the crew trying to help those who have been affected by the disaster.

Cottle goes on to elaborate how the notion of disaster has changed and what disasters are
in a modern global context. He starts by saying that disasters could normally be explained as
any event with negative consequences and then introduces some authors that give their views
on disasters. Boin, for example, proposed that disasters [] are better conceived as a
subclass of 'crises, because the term crisis covers not only clear-cut disasters, but also
events one would not usually classify as a disaster, but events that nevertheless have a
negative consequence on somebodys life. Disasters are then, according to Cottle, crisis that
have gone bad (p. 9). In this regard, Boin states that the so-called trans-system social
ruptures play a crucial role. These trans-system social ruptures are a phenomena which (a)
jump across national, international and political boundaries, (b) at speed, (c) have no central
or clear point of origin, (d) are potentially catastrophic in terms of possible victims, (e) cannot
be resolved by local responses, and (f) involve both formal organizations and informal
networks (p. 9).

When it comes to politics in relation to disasters, major disasters have always been a
good platform for elites to use the shock of a catastrophic event to further their own economic
interests and establish political goals. Cottle claims that disasters shock societies into giving
up that which in normal circumstances would be defended against the further encroachments
of corporate capitalism and neoliberal governance (p. 11), meaning that a grieving society is
seen by some as a society which is easy to manipulate and use to ones own advantage.

When it comes to the media reporting on disasters, journalists usually report the news
without any bias, based on the official consensus. However, when the political centre also
shows signs of divide and uncertainty, then journalists feel capable of asserting a more
independent and critical view of the whole situation (p. 12).

In conclusion, the author states that disasters need to be conceptualized and theorized in
relation to [] global crises that are themselves expressive of late modernity and the
production of planetary threats (p. 17). According to Cottle, mediated disasters can also be
seen as opportunities for the legitimation of political authority and economic power. Disasters
can also have an effect on the society and communities, whether they are local, national,
international or transnational.