AustLit

'Local news media play a key role in fostering citizen participation in public life and offer communities forms of supportive action during crisis, which lie at the heart of compassion. Through the lens of emotion, we can see that ‘the story’ of local disaster reporting is one of being local, where the journalist’s position between involved actor and interpretive observer is anchored in compassion for the local. In turn, a focus on compassion illuminates the power of oral history as a means to contextualise the experience of disaster – in this case, how cyclones are made culturally meaningful – and expand media research on climate-related disaster.' (Publication abstract)