Flood disasters in the United Kingdom and India : a critical discourse analysis

Solman, Paul and Henderson, Lesley (2019) Flood disasters in the United Kingdom and India : a critical discourse analysis. Journalism, 20 (12). 1648–1664. ISSN 1464-8849 (https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918762363)

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Abstract

Reports of flooding are becoming more frequent in the UK media, and evidence from the UK Environment Agency indicates that ‘living with flooding’ will become commonplace rather than exceptional. This study is the first to adopt a critical discourse analysis approach to compare UK newspaper reporting of floods in the developed and developing world. We present our analysis of major flood incidents in Northern England and Chennai, India, in 2015. Our findings identify that UK newspapers not only give greater prominence to flooding events that are local but also frame differently those affected. Reports of floods in Northern England reinforced similarities and shared values between victims and assumed readers by drawing upon personal stories, emotions and suffering. By contrast, reports about floods in Chennai portrayed victims as anonymous ‘distant Others’, emphasising the drama of the incident rather than the plight of individuals. We argue that the newspapers’ approach to covering flooding reveals how the Western-dominated global media continue to emphasise difference rather than similarity between people in the developed and developing world, presenting flooding in the United Kingdom as exceptional and flooding in India as normalised. We believe these findings have important implications in the context of globalisation and increasing migration.

  • Item type:Article
    ID code:86059
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    31 December 2019
    Published
    9 March 2018
    Published Online
    10 February 2018
    Accepted
    Notes:Solman, P., & Henderson, L. (2019). Flood disasters in the United Kingdom and India: A critical discourse analysis of media reporting. Journalism, 20(12), 1648–1664. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918762363 © The Author(s) 2018
    Subjects:Social Sciences
    Department:Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > Humanities > Journalism, Media and Communication
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:06 Jul 2023 13:38
    Last modified:11 Nov 2024 13:58
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/86059
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