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Sequestering of Suffering Journal of Health Psychology Copyright © 2008 SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore www.sagepublications.com Vol 13(4) 463–474 DOI: 10.1177/1359105308088518
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Critical Discourse Analysis of Natural Disaster Media Coverage
ROBIN S. COX, BONITA C. LONG, MEGAN I. JONES, & RISA J. HANDLER University of British Columbia, Canada
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Completion of this article was made possible in part by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada award to Bonita C. Long, and doctoral fellowships awarded to Robin S. Cox by the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Parts of the study were based on a doctoral dissertation by Robin Cox, under the direction of Bonita Long. COMPETING INTERESTS:
None declared.
Abstract
This article is a critical discourse analysis of the local print-news media coverage of the recovery process in two rural communities following a devastating forest fire. Two hundred and fifty fire-related articles from the North Thompson Star Journal (2003) were analyzed. Results revealed a neoliberal discursive framing of recovery, emphasizing the economicmaterial aspects of the process and a reliance on experts. A sequestering of suffering discourse promoted psychological functionalism and focused attention on a return to normalcy through the compartmentalization of distress. The dominant ‘voice’ was male, authoritative, and institutionalized. Implications for disaster recovery and potential health consequences are discussed.
Keywords ■ ■
ADDRESS.
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BONITA LONG,
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Correspondence should be directed to: University of British Columbia, 2125 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T1Z4, Canada. [email:
[email protected]]
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disaster recovery discourse analysis media natural disasters rural communities 463
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natural disasters affect the lives of thousands of people worldwide. The long-term and multi-dimensional nature of the disaster recovery process involves a cluster of complex stressors that cut across economic, social, political, psychological, and spiritual domains (Echterling & Wylie, 1999). Some researchers suggest that the myriad hardships and challenges faced during the recovery process may be more significant to the well-being of affected individuals and communities than exposure to the impact of the disaster event itself (Flynn, 1999). Despite the complexity of the recovery process and a growing awareness of its salience to individual and collective well-being, the psychological research on disaster recovery has maintained a relatively narrow focus. This body of research draws almost exclusively on individualistic and mechanistic models of stress and coping. The social practice of disaster recovery (i.e. the discourse) has been largely ignored, rendered simply as a background variable in an individual’s psycho-emotional processes. The cultural assumptions that shape normative understandings of the anticipated trajectory of recovery and the dominant models of service delivery have, therefore, remained largely unexamined and unquestioned (Norris, Friedman, & Watson, 2002a; Norris et al., 2002b). A small body of critical research on disasters and disaster discourse has focused attention on the ways in which dominant North American or western cultural assumptions and perspectives have been applied in developing nations (Bankoff, 2001). This research has illuminated how the discourse of risk and vulnerability has been associated with government policies and donor and development programs, which contributed to rather than diminished the impact of disasters while also reproducing power dynamics that favor state and business elites. Similar research has pointed to the ways in which dominant discursive constructions of disasters have drawn on and reinforced a hierarchy of credibility in which local voices were marginalized in favor of experts (Harwell, 2000). In the present study, we extend the critical research on the discourse of disasters by focusing closer to home, critically examining the dominant discursive construction of disaster recovery as it was evidenced in the local media coverage of a Canadian natural disaster, the McLure Fire in British Columbia (BC), Canada, in 2003. The choice to study the media coverage as a site of disaster recovery discourse is supported by research that has demonstrated the power of media to convey
and normalize dominant cultural assumptions (van Dijk, 1988) and influence social attitudes, healthrelated behaviors, and concerns regarding health (Davidson, Hunt, & Kitzinger, 2003; Hodgetts, Masters, & Robertson, 2004). Indeed, research on the intersection of media and disasters has suggested that media plays a critical role in influencing not only public opinion about the salience of a disaster (Sood, Stockdale, & Rogers, 1987), but also attitudes toward and evaluations of the official response to the disaster and the preferred responses of those directly and indirectly affected (Gaddy & Tanjong, 1986; Garner, 1996). Media texts produce and reproduce meaning in the choice of topics covered and the way those issues are represented through relative positioning, choice, and use of language—reproducing dominant ideologies or discourses (Lupton, 1992). One such discourse is the discourse of neoliberalism. As a coherent socio-political philosophy, neoliberalism extends market ideology beyond the production of goods and services to frame an increasing range of social interactions in terms of market transactions (Harvey, 2003). Neoliberalism draws on a network of discursive practices to ensure a mobility of capital and a construction of society that, theoretically at least, moves closer and closer to a pure free market based on an ‘individualist micro-economic model’ (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 9). Interests and rationalities of economic, governmental, and other organizational systems seep into everyday life (Fairclough, n.d.), framing the normative self in economic and entrepreneurial terms. The power of individuals to creatively adopt or resist this construction rests in part on their awareness of the constitutive role of discourse, a perspective that is rarely acknowledged or expressly promoted within mainstream cultural contexts. Given that news media functions as one of the key vehicles for mobilizing the dissemination and normalization of neoliberal discourse (Schiller, 1992), an examination of such media coverage of a disaster could be predicted to reflect and constitute a meaningful picture of the dominant discourse of recovery. In the present study, therefore, we examined the North Thompson Star Journal’s (NTSJ) coverage of the disaster recovery process in two rural communities affected by a wildfire—Barriere and Louis Creek, BC, Canada. Our choice to focus on a regional paper was based in the demonstrated power of such papers to produce and maintain cultural values through a heightened sense of trust
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Content analysis In order to examine how the discourse was broadly constructed and whose voices were most and least prominently represented in the NTSJ texts, we conducted a content analysis consisting of an adapted version of Huckin’s (2002) four-step analysis of newsprint media. The purpose of the content analysis was to identify thematic patterns in the media discourse of disaster recovery including what Huckin referred to as ‘textual silences’ (2002, p. 356). The coding process involved three coders who met on a weekly basis to discuss their coding.
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engendered by the locality of their coverage (Hall, 1992). The local newspaper coverage of a disaster acts as a local as well as a broader cultural resource for affected individuals and communities in determining the ‘correct’ way of responding to and recovering from the disaster. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which the NTSJ constructed the recovery discourse by drawing on dominant discourses (e.g. neoliberal discourse) and reinforcing material and social arrangements within the two affected communities. In addition, we considered whose voices were most and least represented in the NTSJ’s coverage, and how individuals and groups of individuals were subjectively positioned as a result of this construction.
The context: McLure Fire, 2003
The ‘McLure Fire’ was one of the most devastating of a series of forest fires in what was the worst forest fire season on record in BC. It devastated 1600 square miles of forest and rangeland in the North Thompson Valley in southern BC, virtually wiping out the small community of Louis Creek, destroying 73 homes and businesses and an industrial park in neighboring Barriere. The fire destroyed the Tolko sawmill in Louis Creek, and with it, the primary economic engine for both communities. The company’s subsequent decision not to rebuild meant the loss of almost 200 of the North Thompson area’s top paying jobs.
Method
Text: NTSJ
The corpus of texts were drawn from the NTSJ, a weekly, regional paper published in Barriere and distributed free of charge to households throughout the North Thompson region (circulation approximately 2500). We manually reviewed paper copies of relevant articles in the NTSJ’s first three months of coverage of the McLure Fire—from 1 August to 31 October 2003. Criteria for selection required that the text refer directly or indirectly to the McLure Fire and the recovery process in response to, or as a result of the fire. We identified 250 articles (42 in August issues, 146 in September issues, and 62 in October issues). News articles (43%) and Letters to the Editor (24%) accounted for two-thirds of the texts, whereas Feature Stories (18%), Editorials (4%), Captioned Pictures (4%), Advertisements (4%), and Columns (3%) made up the remainder.
Step 1 A review of the NTSJ texts and interviews with community members conducted for a broader ethnographic study of the recovery process (Cox, 2006) led to the identification of four main categories (see Fig. 1) addressed in the discourse (i.e. effects of the fire; public response to the effects; identified needs and issues). Using these categories as a guide, the texts were submitted to a second, detailed reading that further defined each main category by creating 18 to 25 subtopics forming a Context Matrix. Step 2 An Identity Matrix was similarly developed to explore the ways in which subject identities were constructed in the texts, and to identify the textual silences that resulted from the absence of certain voices. We used the most common geographic identifiers (e.g. Barriere, Louis Creek, North Thompson District) as well as occupational identifiers (e.g. rancher, Tolko mill worker) to represent subjects in the texts. Step 3 The Content and Identity Matrices were then used to conduct a more thorough coding of the texts based on a conceptual analysis rather than simply a scan for keywords. We used the Content Matrix to identify whether the subtopics were present or absent in the four main categories. We then determined the frequency of occurrence of each subtopic, and their relative weight in each main category. Similarly, we used the Identity Matrix to identify the geographic and occupational identities of the primary subjects in the text. This coding schema accounted for all relevant and significant topics. Step 4 As our analysis progressed, the Content Matrix subtopics eventually became grouped into themes. The frequency of occurrence of these themes and the subject identifiers were then summarized and examined to highlight their relative contribution. The frequency of each theme and subtopic in each main category was also determined. 465
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IDENTITY MATRIX
Main Categories
Effects of the Fire
Response to the Effects
Identified Needs
Identified Issues
Geographic and Occupational Identifiers
Subtopics 25
21
18
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18
Themes:
– economic-material –psychological-emotional –environmental concerns –information-knowledge –spiritual contemplative – ‘other’
Figure 1. The Content Matrix consists of four main categories and multiple subtopics found in articles selected from the North Thompson Star Journal. The subtopics were subsequently collapsed into themes. The Identity Matrix consists of geographic and occupational identifiers found in the articles.
Ten percent of the articles from each of the three original raters was randomly selected and independently coded by the alternate rater. Despite the interpretive nature of the analysis, the reliability check revealed that there was relative consistency in the coding of subtopics, and high overall consistency in the identification of six themes.
Discourse analysis
As a second stage in the data analysis, we used critical discourse analysis (CDA; Wetherell, Taylor, & Yates, 2001) to examine the language used in the 250 NTSJ articles. Consistent with a Foucauldian (e.g. Foucault, 1972) approach to discourse analysis, our goal was to identify the systems of meaning (i.e. the order of discourse) and institutionalized relations drawn on in the social construction of recovery as evidenced in the media texts. We were interested in identifying and exploring the normalizing effects of the dominant discourse of recovery. In contrast to a more linguistic approach to CDA, our analysis focused less on the specific, individual constructions of recovery (i.e. the grammar of recovery), and more on the patterns of construction or the availability of discourses as evidenced across 466
a large sample of texts. The discursive construction of recovery within this approach to CDA affords and/or constrains certain perspectives and ways of being (Sykes, Willig, & Marks, 2004). Drawing on a modified version of Willig’s (2001) approach to discourse analysis, the first author read the texts multiple times for familiarity and worked with the research team to identify the dominant discourses of recovery evidenced in the NTSJ texts. These discourses were then examined for variation and cohesiveness and similarities and differences within and between them. To illustrate these discourses, in reporting our findings we include verbatim quotations from the texts (indicated by quotation marks). When the quotation is more than a few words, reference to the citation is made after the quotation by sequential numbering (e.g. A1 is the first citation). This list of references for the lengthier NTSJ quotations may be requested from the first author.
Results and discussion We focus initially on the results of the content analysis through which we identified major discursive themes and whose voices were heard. We then
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describe the links between the discursive construction of recovery and the dominant social practices and discourses of neoliberal ideology. Following that, we explore the discursive strategies identified through CDA and used in this framing of recovery, as well as the subject positions made more or less available through these constructions.
Content analysis: major discursive themes and voices
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The results of the content analysis consisted of four main categories (i.e. effects of the fire, response to the effects, identified needs, and identified issues) each with 18 to 25 subtopics, ranging across six major themes, which were developed in an iterative manner. Through an analysis of the frequency of subtopics, a substantial textual silence was identified. There was an absence of subtopics relating to adverse psychological or emotional effects of the fire, accounting for only a minimal portion of the total coverage (11%). In contrast, subtopics relating to economic and material aspects of the effects of the fire accounted for 56 percent of the texts and existed in all but the first month of coverage. Public responses to the effects of the fire were also framed primarily in economic and material terms. For example, funding and practical/material support accounted for 54 percent of the public response, whereas psychological support was only apparent in 22 percent of the coverage. The economic focus accounted for over a quarter of the content, directing attention to rebuilding homes and businesses, and the economic and employment ramifications of the loss of the Tolko Mill. This subtopic independently accounted for 24 percent of the content, whereas psychological-emotional issues were represented in less than 1 percent of the texts, with the exception of the subtopic community supporting community (16%), a subtopic geared to sustaining public morale in a disaster (Dynes, 1974). The six themes revealed an unfolding story in the coverage of the recovery process. The economicmaterial theme was clearly dominant (43%) in all of the four main categories. The psychological-emotional theme followed (26%), although it was considerably less proportionate than the economic-material topic. The catchall ‘other’ theme was the next largest domain (14%), which is not surprising given that it included references to fire fighting and the fire that continued to burn through most of the period. Finally, the theme environmental concerns (10%) outweighed the themes of information-knowledge (4%)
and spiritual-contemplative concerns (< 1%). This pattern of coverage is consistent with neoliberalism’s extension of the market place to social processes, its emphasis on production and consumption, as well as the self as primarily an economic being. The results of the Identity Matrix analysis highlighted a paradox in whose voices were most frequently represented in the NTSJ texts. As might be anticipated in a local paper, the voices of community members dominated the texts (60%), however, those hardest hit by the fire, residents of Louis Creek, were heard relatively infrequently (8%). In contrast, the residents from Barriere dominated throughout the texts (44%). Also of interest was the aggregate voice—residents were often referred to as North Thompson Valley residents (28%) rather than identified by their specific community. This focus on a regional identity blurred the significant differences between the two communities, both in terms of the disaster’s effects and their separate cultural identities. Given the significance to both communities of the loss of the Tolko mill, exemployees seemed to be under represented (5%). In part, this may have been an artifact of the choice of data, as the announcement of the mill closure was made during October 2003. However, these findings support the notion of a hierarchy of credibility and are consistent with the media discourse associated with technological disasters (Ploughman, 1997).
Discursive construction: the neoliberal discourse of recovery Consistent with the pattern of themes identified in the content analysis, the findings from this initial step in the discourse analysis revealed an assemblage of neoliberal discourses that constructed recovery as a process of returning to a status quo, in which normal or even improved economic functioning was the primary goal. In this construction, residents were framed primarily in utilitarian and individualist terms as producers and consumers. Several broad, social discourses, recognizable as part of a neoliberal ideology and contributing to this economic-material framing, were identified in the NTSJ texts. These included: (a) global capitalism; (b) workforce flexibility; (c) the good consumer; and (d) expert discourse. Global capitalism Although the thematic trends identified in the content analysis were certainly consistent with neoliberalism, the presence of a global capital discourse in the texts provided more specific 467
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Good consumer In the texts, the worthy citizen struck just the right balance between full participation as a consumer, gaining status through the accumulation of goods, while also saving for the future and banking against contingencies in an uncertain world—an inherent characteristic of modernity. Those who did not insure themselves sufficiently were at times vilified for their lack of foresight and responsibility: ‘To the people affected by this man-made disaster, I offer my sincerest hope of recovery; just keep your hands off my money and next time buy insurance’ (A6). At other times they were framed as hapless victims whose marginal economic status suggested that they were unsuccessful participants in the marketplace.
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evidence of this link. Throughout the texts there were comments about the search for economic opportunities (e.g. ‘Group agrees on initial steps … examines opportunities, bureaucratic necessities and local strategies for valley’s economic future’ (A1)); and focused on ‘options’, ‘strategies’, and ‘diversification’. There was also evidence of ex-Tolko workers’ resistance to this discursive framing of Tolko’s decision not to rebuild in comments that countered the ‘company-as-victim of global forces’ discourse. The workers’ ironic comments suggested that the fire had simply served to cement plans for closure that had been underway prior to the fire: ‘The reasons? “No natural gas,” they said. “No easy rail access. No end to the softwood lumber fiasco.” To that we add, No intention’ (A2, emphasis in original). Their letters to the editor drew on a critical discourse to frame the decision not to rebuild as resulting from the greed of ‘monolithic companies’, and the complicity of ‘government bureaucracies’ (A3). These and other examples of the global economic discourse were drawn on in the texts in ways that rendered as fact the need for and logic of a global economic perspective. Further, the promotion of a regional identity (i.e. North Thompson Valley) evidenced in the content and discourse analyses was consistent with the global imperative of economies of scale. In neoliberal discourse, size matters. Workforce flexibility The local Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) drew on a workforce flexibility discourse to justify Tolko’s decision not to rebuild the mill, implying that workers had demonstrated a lack of flexibility that had undermined the viability of the mill prior to the fire: ‘MLA … suggested Tolko-Louis Creek millworkers could help persuade the company to rebuild by committing to be more productive and flexible on the job’ (A4). An open letter responding to this comment offered an oblique critique of the flexibility discourse and its demand for workers’ adaptation to change: Now I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box but it occurs to me that we improved productivity already … [with] a six-year agreement and contract language that would allow for running the mill seven 24s … certainly the most flexibility of any previous agreement. (A5)
Within neoliberal economic discourse, workforce flexibility is constructed as an inevitable and desirable aspect of globalization and contemporary economics (Martin, 1994). 468
Expert discourse The neoliberal valuing of experts and expertise was evidenced in the post-fire analysis of why local knowledge had been minimized or excluded in the fire fighting and recovery processes. For example, forest service firefighters were constructed as ‘trained’ and ‘experienced’ experts who ‘knew what they were doing’. When it came to the economic recovery of the communities, ‘a qualified, experienced economic development officer’ (A1) was considered as the answer—someone who will ‘Come here and stick with us, get to know us, understand where we’re coming from and what our needs are and guide us through a process whereby we actually figure it out’ (A7). Tolko’s executives were constructed as ‘diligently’ working to ‘analyze opportunities’ and ‘expedite the solution’ within the context of complex international, global economic factors (A4). In contrast, the locals’ specific, contextual, and experiential knowledge was minimized and constructed as potentially dangerous: ‘Unless you are an experienced firefighter, it’s hard to know what to do in this type of emergency’ (A8). At the same time, resistance to this discourse was evidenced in residents’ call for meaningful inclusion in key decision-making processes related to the Tolko site and the distribution of relief funds. The Chamber of Commerce president proclaimed: ‘They’re not going to be telling the people of Barriere what to do, but what’s available by way of recovery assistance … We’ll decide what we need here as a community’ (A9). By drawing on these neoliberal discursive threads, the public discourse of recovery implied as a moral imperative the need for residents and communities to return to efficient economic functionality as quickly as possible. This economic imperative
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and its reliance on the mediation of experts and expertise is one of the hallmarks of neoliberal discourse and its tendency to contribute to the erosion of local individual and collective empowerment (Giddens, 1991).
Discursive strategies: sequestering of suffering
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The discursive moves that emphasized a return to economic functionality simultaneously promoted the need for a psychological functionality, a trend foreshadowed in the Identity Matrix by privileging the voices of those less extensively impacted by the fire. In this way, the economic imperative was framed as a personal imperative. In order to return to economic functionality as quickly as possible the dominant discourse of recovery required what we termed a ‘sequestering of suffering’. This construction tended to obscure the unique and complex psychological and social issues faced by those who lost their homes and livelihoods. The sequestering of suffering discourse constructed recovery as an accelerated process characterized by the re-establishing of routines and overcoming suffering through three primary discursive strategies: (a) multiple eclipsing of emotion; (b) return to normalcy; and (c) erasure of Louis Creek.
Louis Creek only provided a brief mention of ‘grief counselors’ standing by to assist ‘those who have lost virtually everything’ (A12). In the same issue, however, the possibility of grief was immediately contrasted with ‘the quiet dignity, courage and resolve in the face of tragedy was truly heroic’ (A13); and similarly, the tears of men were not moved by grief, loss, or frustration, but ‘by human goodness’ (A14). Suffering and loss were juxtaposed with positive coping in ways that focused attention on what had been preserved and away from what had been lost: ‘Fires burned homes, businesses, but not spirit’, and ‘the stories of personal loss were incredible, but the stories we heard of hope and strength were even more amazing’ (A15). A related strategy employed downward comparison: ‘People have suffered in the past, much worse. There were fires, droughts, famines, wars’ (A16). Another strategy employed an imagined positive outcome in which the adverse events were positioned as having prevented other undesirable events: ‘There are, however, a couple of things on the plus side, like not having to worry about West Nile virus this year because the fires seem to have thinned the mosquito population out’ (A17). The sequestering of specific emotions was accomplished by positioning distressing emotions as something to be avoided. Anger was discouraged except where used as motivation, as in, ‘Anger, unless it’s channeled into productive effort, is a wasted and miserable emotion’ (A3). A general sequestering of emotions was framed as desirable and easily accomplished through comparisons to the apparent resilient capacity of children: ‘Children continue to set the example of letting go of the bad and embracing the good’ (A18). Productivity was positioned as an effective coping strategy, even as the tenuousness of this construction was acknowledged: ‘Good company and productive activity help her get through. The peace Judy finds in that is fragile; too much talk of her loss brings tears to her eyes and a hoarseness to her voice’ (A19). Similar to findings from the content analysis and consistent with neoliberal discourse, various losses were overwhelmingly constructed as economic or material, and explicitly or implicitly minimized. Homes were described as ‘framed constructions’ or ‘manufactured homes’ (i.e. houses) and evaluated in terms of their monetary rather than emotional value (A12). Income and households were ‘disrupted’ and ‘damaged’, and people were described as having lost ‘jobs and assets’ (A20). This emphasis on house-asproperty rather than house-as-home further diminished
Multiple eclipsing of emotion Suffering and associated emotions (e.g. grief, sadness, anger, despair) were minimized and often rendered invisible in the texts. Two dominant strategies, sequestering of emotions and the economic framing of loss, were identified as the key strands in this discursive construction. When the emotional and psychological aspects of recovery entered the discourse, they were largely compartmentalized as either letters to the editor or in a special issue of the NTSJ (29 September 2003). Doing well (i.e. psychological functionalism) was implicitly promoted as the responsibility of being a ‘good’ citizen or community member (e.g. ‘This community is going to pull together. You’ll see: We’re going to be fine’ (A10)). It was constructed as the need to let go of all that was considered ‘bad’, as one resident wrote: ‘Surely we have learned already the value of sticking together and remaining strong in the face of adversity. We must hold that thought’ (A11). When mention was made of personal difficulties, they were immediately qualified by an upbeat addendum. Coverage published just days after the confirmation of the loss of homes and businesses in
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pick our way back toward normalcy in the North Thompson’ (A24). The return to normalcy discourse was evidenced early on in discussions of the importance of carrying on with annual community events as though the disruption resulting from the fire had not occurred. The re-establishment of routines, such as the return to school for children, was represented as constructive and a ‘welcome and comforting security’ (A18) with no acknowledgment of the difficulty of reestablishing routines for those who had lost their homes and jobs. The proposition of there being a ‘normal’ to return to is problematic as it indicates a preferred state that minimizes the idiosyncratic nature of the human response to change. Furthermore, through the silencing of other possibilities, it suggests a way of being that constructs those who fall outside that state as abnormal (cf. Szasz, 1987). Within the construction of recovery in the texts, the emphasis on returning to this nominal state may have exacerbated the sequestering of suffering by promoting the appearance of normalcy and by minimizing the significant challenges faced by those who lost homes and businesses. This discursive strategy echoed a construction of suffering characteristic of modern medical discourse in which the individual is held responsible for engaging in effective even heroic coping strategies when faced with illness, while simultaneously being discounted as a nonexpert within the medical system (Clarke, 2000).
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the emotional cost of losing a home: ‘We have sustained great losses locally, but thank God they are only property losses … property can be replaced’ (A21). Ironically, these same texts tended to use evocative and emotional language to describe losses that were framed economically, such as: ‘Tourism has been ‘eviscerated’ by the fire season’ (A22, emphasis added); or the headline, ‘Tolko employees “emotional,” “devastated,” “upset”’ (A23, italics added). On the one hand, this construction of recovery contradicts much of the existing disaster health research, which has shown that the emotional and psychological consequences (e.g. anger, grief, despair, depression, anxiety) of a disaster can be pervasive and persist for many years following the disaster (Norris et al., 2002b). On the other hand, it reflects a consensus within the psychological literature on disasters that getting back into normal activities and normal functioning is predictive of more positive, long-term outcomes (Norris et al., 2002b). This contradiction reflects in part the difference between drawing on grief and loss discourse to frame a disaster and drawing on stress and trauma discourse. Within the former, the need to mourn and process loss is acknowledged and emphasized in both individual and collective activities, whereas within the latter, the emphasis shifts somewhat to focus on re-engagement and active coping strategies. The stress discourse framework is more congruent with neoliberal ideology wherein emotions, particularly those that might disrupt productivity (i.e. grief) are construed as something to be self-managed, privatized, and constrained. In this way, the goals and needs of the state are positioned as congruent with those of the individual, both of which would be organized in accordance with the logic of the market (Giddens, 1991). We have termed this tendency within the discourse of recovery, ‘return to normalcy’. Return to normalcy The push to return to normalcy emphasized a return to productivity characterized by a focus on economic activity, rebuilding and repairing structures, and allocation of material resources. The imperative of moving on and getting back to pre-fire levels of individual and community functioning was emphasized as the common goal of governmental and non-governmental agencies, residents, and the communities: ‘Powerful forces are at work all around us. Agencies with names known across Canada, and around the world are working with government and community groups to begin to 470
Erasure of Louis Creek The return to normalcy and the sequestering of suffering discourses intersected in one of the most striking trends in the media coverage following the McLure Fire, namely the relative absence of Louis Creek in the texts. We have termed this discursive move, the ‘erasure of Louis Creek’. The relative invisibility of Louis Creek in the coverage was a trend foreshadowed by the dominance of Barriere residents’ voices found in the Identity Matrix analysis. Despite the significant losses in Louis Creek, losses that would likely involve ongoing psychosocial challenges, relatively little coverage highlighted the struggles and challenges these residents faced in reconstructing their personal lives and their community: ‘In Barriere’s center you could hardly tell anything’s happened. Louis Creek and Exlou are hardest hit, but in Barriere Center it’s almost like something out of a scary movie—emergency vehicles only’ (A10). Moreover, when the texts focused on specific
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losses, the attention was often on the relatively minor losses in Barriere (e.g. food spoilage, smoke smell), while ignoring the loss of homes in Louis Creek. An editorial published a little over a month after the fire illustrated the multiple ways Louis Creek residents’ subjectivities were erased:
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Almost exactly a month ago, North Thompson residents were returning to the valley. Most came back to their homes, to smelly refrigerators, burned out lawns and faded flowers. Not everybody was so lucky. Many found homes seemingly miraculously undamaged but their future uncertain. (A25)
and enduring survivors. The discourse generally constructed the ‘good’ citizen as one who put on a brave face and carried on regardless of adversity. Within this construction, the need to contemplate or mourn the symbolic and material losses of those most adversely affected by the fire was rarely acknowledged. As the recovery progressed and issues began to arise regarding relief funding, those who were receiving relief funding were paradoxically positioned heroically as ‘those who are rolling up their sleeves’ (A27) or as ‘wimps taking handouts unable or unwilling to take care of themselves’ (A6). Consistent with the Identity Matrix findings and in accordance with Dynes (1974), collective language was often employed that implied homogeneity of experience. Various texts constructed the two communities as a family, united in their plight of a ‘shared dilemma’ (A28), and their steadfast willingness to ‘work together’ toward a better future and ‘remain strong in the face of adversity’. Within this more heroic construction, there was little room for actual agency because individuals from outside the communities were more likely to be positioned as authorities in the recovery process. Residents both acknowledged and resisted their lack of agency through indirect, ironic references to the local MLA as ‘the messiah of the Liberal Party’ (A29) dispensing ‘pearls of wisdom’ (A5). A more explicit reference was made to their lack of representation on a regional committee that directed allocation of resources: ‘A committee which includes exactly one member from the Barriere-Louis Creek area—is the nearest thing we’ve got to a shared voice in this matter’ (A25). The dominant, available subject positions often lacked spiritual or psychological dimensionality and, with their emphasis on the economic-material aspects of the recovery process, often occluded the relational and domestic aspects of the process. Women and children were essentially positioned as an invisible background other in a stereotypically gendered picture of recovery that positioned men as authoritative, active agents, directing the process. A hierarchical, problem-solving discourse dominated the texts, focusing attention on creating solutions within domains dominated by men (e.g. forestry, business, waged-work). The sequestering and minimizing of emotions favored masculine styles of coping and socialization, framing emotions as irrational and something to be suppressed or denied. Constructed as minor participants in the economic
The major structural losses in Louis Creek had far ranging implications for that community and its residents, but the dominant construction of loss exhorted patience from these residents in the face of their complaints that their losses were being minimized: ‘To Louis Creek residents who feel we’re focusing too much on the future of Tolko, we say the obvious: When that firm announces its determination to continue to be Barriere’s economic backbone, we’ll all sleep easier.’ (A26) The textual silence on the specific experiences in the hardest hit community intersected with the active promotion of normalcy and the avoidance of suffering, positioning the residents of Louis Creek as out of step with the dominant discourse.
Subject positions
The assemblage of discourses drawn on to construct recovery made the availability of several subject positions more likely than others. The predominant subject positions were paradoxically disempowering, suggesting agency and action, yet constructing the survivor as inadequately equipped to take action without outside support and guidance. The subject positions most available included the ‘disenfranchised survivor or passive recipient of help’ and the ‘expert intervener’. In the texts, residents were described as ‘evacuees’ or ‘refugees’, borrowing a term more often associated with political violence and turmoil. When referred to at all, those who had lost their homes were described as ‘unfortunate’, ‘the hardest hit’, those ‘in a terrible predicament’. When referring to the community as a whole, terms such as ‘rudderless’, ‘in need of redefinition’, and ‘crippled’, positioned the community also as victimized, leaderless, and handicapped. As the recovery progressed, residents and communities alike were afforded an equally disempowered, but alternate subject position as courageous
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hidden away; or define this suffering in purely economic terms and seek economic and material solutions that may or may not have addressed the broader implications of the ontological insecurity of having your world literally go up in smoke. The explicit lack of attention to the potential adverse health consequences of the fire and the wideranging, indirect promotion of emotional suppression that permeates the media texts occludes public acknowledgment and discussion of such implications. In the absence of their acknowledgment, distressing emotions and other social consequences of the fire (e.g. social fracturing) may have been rendered invisible with implications for both individual health and community recovery. Research has shown that the inhibition of social sharing and disclosure of the distress associated with traumatic events and loss has the potential to contribute to adverse health outcomes (Gortner & Pennebaker, 2003). Those who were out of step with the dominant framing of recovery may have been less willing to access appropriate support given the stigma already associated with accessing mental health services in general (Ottati, Bodenhausen, & Newman, 2005). The social silencing of suffering may also have contributed to the adoption of cognitive avoidance strategies characteristically associated with poorer health outcomes in cases of acute stress and trauma (Weisæth, 1994). In this way, the sequestering of suffering discourse may have undermined the identification and prevention of longer-term psychiatric problems (e.g. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) and the availability of adequate and relevant psychological support services. The divisions created within the discourse, between those who were coping well and those who were not, may also have exacerbated the social fracturing that often occurs in communities following a disaster (Erikson, 1995) and inadvertently undermined the potential development and re-creation of strong relational support networks in the communities. The construction of recovery as a process guided by experts and outside agencies may have foreclosed on the possibility of fostering individual empowerment, community development and leadership, and forms of collective processing of the fires (e.g. memorials, community gatherings). From a health perspective, privileging expert knowledge and dismissing local experience and meaning, ‘perpetuates the exclusion of [residents] … from discussions about their health problems and appropriate treatments’ (Howarth, Foster, & Dorrer, 2004, p. 237). Thus, media representations focusing on expert knowledge
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or public spheres, women and their contributions to the recovery process appeared inconsequential. The impact of the fire on the complex web of relational and domestic activities including familial relationships, kinship networks, and the social fabric of the community (e.g. domains commonly associated with women) was absent. The effects of the stress of recovery on marital relations, parenting, or the waged and non-waged work of caring for others also were not mentioned. The absence of women’s voices in the direction and focus of the recovery process in Barriere and Louis Creek implied a taken-for-granted stance regarding their contributions as major providers of care, healthcare, childcare, and the maintenance of domestic routines, while negating their contributions and roles within the public sphere of the recovery environment. A growing body of research has shown that neglecting to attend to the gendered patterns in disaster recovery experiences (e.g. vulnerability, effects, coping styles, leadership, and decision making) has contributed to an exacerbation of women’s social vulnerability, role strain due to caregiving, and increased levels of stress (Enarson & Morrow, 1998).
Implications
The social and psychological implications of the neoliberal and sequestering of suffering discourses for the health and well-being of those affected by the McLure Fire are various. Overall, the discursive contexts and constructions and the subject positions we have described may contribute to the individualizing of social problems and the marginalization of individuals who are most vulnerable to emotional, psychological, and social distress, while simultaneously providing little to no guidance about how to navigate these problems other than through economic solutions. In the absence of a more engaged social reflection on the causes, meaning, and responses to the psychological/emotional distress and suffering engendered by the disaster, individuals were left on their own to navigate what Giddens (1991) described as a ‘fateful moment’ (p. 114), a moment in which the taken-for-granted or businessas-usual stance no longer holds, and the individual’s ‘protective cocoon’ (p. 114) is shattered. At such a time, the dominant message as evidenced in the NTSJ texts afforded limited options. Either conform to the dominant narrative of suffering (i.e. something to be managed effectively and moved beyond as quickly as possible), where failure to do so was considered a character flaw or something to be 472
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process, and how positive outcomes should be measured and evaluated. The present study provides an important first step in illuminating the discursive framework apparent in local newsprint media that guides the experiences of ‘recovery’ from natural disasters and associated healthrelated consequences.
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functions to maintain current disaster recovery practices with little or no acknowledgment of how these practices may or may not best serve the needs and interests of specific communities. The promotion of a reliance on experts to direct the recovery process limits the likelihood that residents would seize the momentum of the disaster response and harness it for capacity building in health and social domains. The hierarchy of credibility that privileged the voices of experts over those of community residents is counter to much of the current research, which suggests that a bottom–up approach or a client-centered model is more likely to be effective in addressing the complex array of individual and collective stressors arising from the disruption and loss caused by disasters (King, 2005; Norris et al., 2002a). This may be of particular importance in rural areas where health and other social resources are often already marginal, and where the short-lived influx of disaster-related resources might offer a unique opportunity for supporting sustainable capacity building initiatives.
Conclusion
The dominant discourse of disaster recovery evidenced in the NTSJ has the potential to undermine the provision of necessary resources and social programs that might best support individual and collective health through the recovery process and beyond—a trend already identified as an effect associated with neoliberal discourse (Coburn, 2004). Further, it is unlikely to foster any critical social analysis of who most benefits from a return to the status quo or what concerns deserve attention, funding, or discussion during the recovery process. Future research is needed that examines the disaster recovery discourse evidenced in other media coverage and, more broadly, in venues of public discourse (e.g. emergency management organizations and government departments’ policies). Future research is also needed that acknowledges the complex social context of disaster recovery and the role of the media in shaping individual and collective attitudes and health-related behaviors in disaster-affected communities. Such investigations would contribute to: (a) the development and implementation of health service strategies that support individuals and their communities; and (b) a social discussion that might expand the understanding of what constitutes optimal recovery, who should be involved in directing that
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Author biographies
is a Doctoral Candidate in the Counselling Psychology Program at the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, University of British Columbia, Canada.
ROBIN S. COX
is an MA student in the Counselling Psychology Program at the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, University of British Columbia, Canada.
MEGAN I. JONES
is an MA student in the Counselling Psychology Program at the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, University of British Columbia, Canada.
RISA J. HANDLER
is Professor of Counselling Psychology at the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, University of British Columbia, Canada. BONITA C. LONG
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