Tsunami lessons for the mass media

One reason for the huge number of tsunami headlines was the fact that the tsunami appeared as a 'new' type of catastrophe, affecting nations far away. It was not a political conflict. It was not an annual flood or monsoon, but it represented an attractive theme for journalism: people’s struggle against the has always fascinated the media. A new word, tsunami, was added to the global vocabulary. Until 2004 it had belonged only to expert discourse.

Although the death toll and destruction were by far the highest for Indonesia, the other eight countries in the region carried their share of the burden as well. Tourists from the wealthy North learned that their welfare networks cannot save them from hard experience if a tsunami hits. Thus it is justified to state that the tsunami, unlike most other catastrophes, stretched all over the world. The tsunami experiences evidenced the cynical fact that the global media agenda is limited and selfish. The earthquake in Pakistan in 2005 never achieved the same volume of attention, because it did not directly touch the industrialised world. And while the world was focusing on the tsunami and its aftermath, the human suffering in Darfur – reaching a death toll equal to that of the tsunami – disappeared from the media agenda.

Short-tempered media, persistent grassroots

No doubt the enormous publicity assisted in the collection of solidarity funds, mitigating the post-tsunami destruction in the countries around the Bay of Bengal, however poor coordination of the relief operations might have been, especially in the beginning. There is evidence that the size of emergency assistance followed the big headlines. When the headlines became smaller, public interest in the issue dropped accordingly. The tsunami became 'outdated'. In this sense, reliance on media publicity in catastrophes has its limitations. Media attention is short, anarchistic and capricious, and the news is the dominant mode of delivery. This means that only rarely are the reasons and consequences of catastrophes properly discussed in the media. The aid agencies try to collect funds for long-term assistance. For example, early warning systems would decrease human suffering, but the construction of such infrastructures requires long and systematic funding. Hectic media attention does not promise much support for such an exercise.

In the sharing of information, local networks have turned out to be best in the long run. Civil society seems to have been far better at communicating about local priorities and provided networks that gave people time to recover in South-East Asia. However, the State and the military have also been needed in relief operations, although it seems to have been difficult for NGOs to work with public agencies which tend to represent totally different worldviews than NGOs. This has been documented in detail in, for example, the World Disasters Report 2005. However, the 'odd bed-mates' that communication networks have created during the months after the tsunami might, in the long run, have a role to play in the work for democratic communication in societies hit by the catastrophe.

But recovery takes time and has many phases. As an Oxfam field officer in India said in March 2005, 'People seem to be going through the usual phases of recovery: shock and denial, frustration and anger, then recovery. The anger is powerful!' During the months after the tsunami, the anger was partly able to break down the strong bureaucracies that tend to prevent relief action. Grassroots anger has assisted in making communication more democratic, at least sporadically. This should not be romanticized, but it should be remembered. The victims of catastrophes are motivated and innovative, if given a chance.

Solidarity and citizenship

Worldwide attention tends to be short-lived and quite selfish, focusing primarily on the nearest. For example, in the Nordic countries, some 80-85% of the total volume of tsunami reporting focused on their own citizens after the first shock which lasted for two days. As soon as all Finns, Danes, Swedes and Norwegians were brought home, the headlines became smaller and discussed entirely the domestic problems the tsunami had caused. Cynical analysts have even suggested that the solidarity toward 'the Other' was expressed in the form of aid and assistance money, while the real sympathy and empathy was reserved for 'Us' alone. According to this interpretation, people bought themselves free from solidarity.

Nordic media coverage was quite superficial concerning the Bay of Bengal nations. In fact, after the two first days, the media apparatus focussed entirely on what happened to Nordic citizens in the area. A deeper interest in the Bay of Bengal nations increased after a few months, when journalists travelled to the region to check whether assistance funds had been used properly. The losses of the Nordic countries were still minimal compared to Indonesia, Sri Lanka or Thailand. However, the audience did not criticise their media for selfishness or limited scope. What it was not satisfied with was how the media treated their receivers.

In many countries, considerable criticism about the activities around the tsunami was directed at the doings of the authorities, but the media received their share of criticism as well – even if one takes into account the fact that those motivated to react and write letters to the official investigation commissions naturally tend to be those who felt that they or their loved ones had been treated badly. Relatively speaking, the strongest criticism in both directions was expressed in the Nordic countries. The ideology of the welfare state obviously made people think that the State is responsible for its citizens’ well-being also when they voluntarily and without informing the authorities travel to far-away countries. For example in Sweden, the Prime Minister was threatened with a court action, accused of neglecting citizens’ needs.

In the case of Swedish government, political confidence has been assessed fairly low in international comparisons. It was low before the disaster and the government did not succeed in improving the figures in its management of the catastrophe. First of all, the government remained silent far too long. When attempting to understand why citizens feel the way they do about their government, it is important to note that the subjective appraisal of government performance is what ultimately matters. Thus it is relevant to analyse both the information flows and the existing standards for public evaluations of political actors during a disaster.

A subdued and careful discussion about a citizen’s rights and responsibilities is gradually starting in the Nordic countries. How far do the responsibilities of a welfare state go, especially in the age of neo-liberal tendencies and privatization, which are also found at the heart of the welfare state? The question is highly relevant but politically sensitive, because welfare state rhetoric is still strong in Scandinavia, although the implementation of welfare policies has become more limited than, say, in the 1970s and 1980s.

The tsunami media coverage also showed interesting global tendencies. The web has established itself as part of the global information structures, but never before has it dominated the arena for a short while as strongly as it did immediately after the catastrophe. Radio has traditionally been the fastest medium to deliver information about social changes, also catastrophes. It still was, but very soon the internet took over. The Guardian reported on 29 December 2004 that as the use of conventional means for news transmission appeared slow, weak and out of focus, people turned to the Internet to get more information about the tsunami. Some researchers even claim that, in such a time of crisis as the tsunami, the conventional media houses turned out to be of secondary significance, while the Net appeared crucial. Also these daring researchers admit that such shake-downs of conventional media modes tend to be temporary. After a few days, the conventional media houses recover and take over again.

Reception studies in the Nordic countries indicate that people felt that they were treated like a mass without specific needs, while in fact they wanted to know what had happened to their loved ones vacationing in the region. Further, they felt that they or their relatives were treated unfairly by the media. People in shock were used as 'normal' interviewees, and children were exploited by journalists, shown as miserable and helpless on TV screens.

In the North, this was a middle-class rebellion, a rebellion of people who knew well their rights and responsibilities, although they perhaps had not often been in contact with the media before. Although a trip to the South once a year belongs to the lifestyle of most Nordics, only the well-to-do can afford an expensive trip to Thailand or India.

Option for two-way traffic

A middle-class rebellion could perhaps have been put into perspective, if the media use figures had not testified that the public did more than criticise. It really behaved in a way it had not done before. In addition to television, radio and the press, people used the web. This was not a surprise. Some 650,000 Finns on a daily basis visit the web versions of the conventional media, as well as the websites of authorities such as the ministries. Visiting the web belongs to the daily routine of Finnish media users. The exposure of these sources rose by one-third immediately after the tsunami. But the most radical increase was experienced neither by the media web versions nor the websites of the authoritie,s but by a few amateurishly-run websites of odd interest groups, such as Finnish divers operating in Thailand and the site of the Finnish-Thai Friendship Association. In Sweden, similar behaviour was detected.

The publishing policy of such websites was fairly similar: a 'mixed grill' with global news, petty details, local information and pictures, plus a multitude of discussion openings. People were encouraged to discuss, to seek specific information, and to comfort each other and to create 'I could have been one of them' proximity. This was obviously a very successful formula, because the number of visitors on these websites displayed a rising curve for three weeks in a row. Both Finnish sites were daily visited by more than 400,000 Finns for almost three weeks. After that, the figures dropped to their normal few hundred per day.

Thus the web discussions on these discussion sites did not offer any radically new communicative horizons as such. They were filled with news fragments, hero narratives, rumour-spreading, accusations and calls for help or comfort – elements which Elisabeth Anker calls 'villains, victims and heroes'. As such these elements were not unique; they could be found in conventional journalism as well. The State and its institutions were included only as targets of accusations and criticism. But the sites created an air of openness and assistance, which the conventional media obviously failed to do. This very fact suggested that there is need for a redefinition of the receiver in the media system.

Another medium which became crucial for the Nordics during the tsunami catastrophe was the mobile phone, especially its SMS mode. For a short while, telephone traffic between Scandinavia and the Bay of Bengal increased by 600-800%. The division of labour could be said to have been such that via the Net people sought comfort and therapy for themselves, while the mobile phone was the means to get into contact with the loved ones in the Bengal Bay region, although the two functions got mixed up occasionally. One of the reasons for complaints was the fact that while the Nordic countries were flooding with information about the tsunami itself and Nordics in the tsunami area, those Nordics themselves received scarce and scattered information predominantly in the form of 160-digit SMS messages. Thus, even in the technologically most advanced societies, the information overflow did not reach the people whom the catastrophe touched strongest.

The web and the legacy of mass communication

Within a few weeks use of the amateur websites dropped back to normal. Use of the conventional media did not drop. Criticism of conventional media coverage by its audience calmed down as well. However, it was admitted, for example in Finland, that the public arena just after the tsunami had surprisingly many conservative characteristics. Unlike studies stating that the multiple use of information technology reduces hierarchies, decentralises information distribution and leads people to focus on the future, Finnish society during the crisis seemed to do quite the opposite. It emerged as old-fashioned, hierarchical and more backward-looking than future oriented. Despite fine policies and delicately designed websites, public institutions adopted a top/down form of information, the media used predominantly the news format that can hardly be called democratic and attentive. The public was dissatisfied with the form and content of the information they received via the media and public websites.

It was interactivity, not information as such, that was missing in the post-tsunami days in the Finnish mediascape. In this particular situation, immediate interactivity was expected, because the need for information, comfort and therapy was immediate. In principle, the relationships between democracy, the public sphere and journalism are assessed to be closer in the web than in conventional journalism , but this was obviously not enough.

Some researchers have claimed that the challenge offered by the web discussions is not really dangerous for the media, because the Internet tends to privatise the political public sphere, since individuals can only tap its potential in isolation. Even when conversations in the interactive zones of Net communications include many people, they still have the air of exchanges between private persons, not action groups. The individual lacks the opportunity to emerge from the private sphere into a public space. True participation and the potential for empowerment are missing.

The new technology has opened new avenues for media/receiver relationships, and the public seems to have adapted to the potential of new technology faster than the media, although the media have reported so much about it. Media professionals obviously thought they could carry on a slow, regulated change which would still keep sender dominance as in conventional mass communication. But that is no longer possible. The tsunami aftermath burst that bubble. People – or at least the most active part of the public – no longer accept being treated as an audience, if news really touches them.

Another aspect requiring further scrutiny is the web public. The numbers of visits in the tsunami aftermath was enormous, but it is still only a fraction of the total population that discusses on the net. In Finland, it became clear that although the number of daily visits to the most popular websites was as high 400,000 for each, only a fraction – under 1,000, obviously mainly people with relatives or friends in the Bengal Bay region – participated in discussions. The majority just followed developments on the websites. Their behaviour thus came quite close to the use of conventional mass media. How is it that with the wide scope of possibilities to express oneself on the web, once again it is mainly the same people using this possibility, the rest just checking what is on the agenda? If the number of those participating remains small, it can be claimed that getting rid of the legacy of mass communication seems difficult for both the producers and the receivers of messages.

In any case, one could claim that during the tsunami catastrophe, the State and the conventional media, for the first time on a large scale, met a public having the characteristics associated with the 'information age' in slogans: these people did not accept being turned into an audience and served with non-tailored messages. They wanted special services; they wanted to have the choice of participating even if not everybody took it. During the first days after the tsunami, neither the State nor the media could meet this challenge. Such crossings of interest might become frequent in the coming years, also under normal circumstances, and neither side seems really prepared for this new situation. It is easy to talk about interactivity and difficult to implement it – not to mention empowerment.
Ullamaija Kivikuru is Professor of Journalism at the Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Finland. She was member of the Official Investigation Committee scrutinising the state and NGO activities, as well as media coverage about the tsunami in Finland.