Earthquake in Haiti: A Pop Culture Movement

The recent earthquake in haiti has deservedly created a huge media firestorm of stories and an outpouring of support from a wide variety of celebrities and organizations. As with natural disasters in the past, rightfully there is a huge media frenzy in covering the disaster. However, with natural disasters that occur in third world countries I personally feel that there is a sense of alienation between media coverage and those who receive it. Maybe because the coverage dies down after a few days or as a general population being constantly fed news by the minute, a story about a natural disaster becomes just another link in a long and continuous chain of information. Are we as a population jaded to natural disasters or human tragedy? Because we are constantly fed one story after the other, when a truly devastating occurrence like Haiti happens we are really spared from the true impact.

Personally I feel that the coverage of natural disasters (i.e. earthquakes, hurricanes) employs a lot of the techniques used in tabloidization. As Cashmore discussed our cultures obsession with scandal, the sensationalism and gossip that is reported during natural disasters is clearly meant to stir public interest. The media recognizes that when rare events occur people are tuning in to find out more information and so it is their job to make sure they keep viewers interested by reporting stories that increase viewership. So there's always that segment ,between a scene of 100,000 dead people where its "After the break we'll show you how a 82 year old women survived a week under a building!" This is actually a true story from CNN. Granted, I don't blame the news outlets for showing things like this but I really feel the true interest behind reporting these stories is to stir public interest simply for the sake of increasing viewers. The positive role of the media in helping natural disaster victims is really undeniable. Had the earthquake in Haiti occurred before the advent of television and internet, the amount of time it would have taken for help to arrive would arguably have been much longer. In this way the media has done its part in spite of their occasional sensationalism.