The effects of media descriptions on judgements about earthquakes

Abstract

The present research examined whether the way that newspaper reports are written about earthquakes effects people's fatalistic judgements about these natural disasters. This study examined the influence of different types of media information (e.g., earthquake agency, general damage, and specific damage) on students' (N=160) judgements of earthquake damage. When earthquake damage was portrayed as selective (i.e., specific damage information) participants gave lower estimates of damage and attributed the damage to a controllable cause (e.g., building structural design). More generalised damage descriptions (i.e., earthquake agency and general damage information) produced more fatalistic judgements about earthquakes, in the form of higher estimates of earthquake damage, lower judgements of damage preventability, and attributions of earthquake damage to an uncontrollable cause (e.g., earthquake magnitude). This study also showed that judgements of damage preventability were influenced by the type of question asked. When preventability was framed in a specific manner, in which participants judged whether a specific action would reduce damage, earthquake damage was seen as more preventable. These findings have clear implications for the way the media and civic education programmes present information on earthquakes.