Monitoring Media Coverage of Natural Hazards in Italy
by
Federico Aligi Pasquarè
Università degli Studi dell'Insubria, Como
Coauthors: Lara Terraneo

Between September 2002 and December 2003, several natural catastrophic events struck Italy, confirming the high degree of seismic, volcanic and geologic-hydraulic hazard in our Country.

Etna Volcano (Sicily) resumed its activity after a period of quiescence, and, in November 2002, entered a sustained eruptive phase with the emission of lava flows and the occurrence of explosive episodes with the production of high eruptive columns whose volcanic ashes blanketed the city of Catania, producing damages and leading to the closing of the local airport.

In the same days, an increase of the well-known submarine degassing off Panarea Island (Aeolian Island), attracted the attention of the volcanologists and the media.

In December 2002, Stromboli Island (Aeolian Island) was hit by two tsunamis generated by landslides from the Sciara del Fuoco; there was no casualties, since the island was in those days almost inhabited.

Four earthquakes struck Italy in close succession, between September and November 2002: the Palermo earthquake (M 5.6), the S.Venerina earthquake (Sicily, M 4.4) and the S.Giuliano di Puglia earthquake (Molise). This event (M 5.4, claiming the lives of 29 persons, mostly children), in particular, drew the attention of the scientific community and the media on the need to better predict seismic events in areas previously considered only slightly affected by seismic hazard, as well as to elaborate strategies for mitigating the consequences of such events.

In November 2002, a M 4.2 earthquake hit the little town of Iseo, causing only little damage but raising worries about seismic hazard in Lombardy.

Moreover, a series of geologic-hydraulic events hit the North of Italy in Autumn 2002 and Autumn 2003: The most relevant are the landslides that hit the Lecco and Bergamo provinces, and the November 2002 flood of Lake Como, that caused damage in the city and received a great deal of local media coverage.

With the purpose of analysing the ways in which newspapers report issues related to extreme natural events, as well as identifying the role played by the media in influencing the general public's perception of natural hazards, we carried out a textual and semanthic analysis of 430 newspaper articles.

These have been subdivided as follows: 130 web articles, 92 articles published by national newspapers, 208 articles published by the Como leading local newspaper (La Provincia).

The analysis has been carried out using a list of selected indicators, such as ``Journalistic accuracy in using risk-related terms'', ``Selection of informative sources'', ``Use of anthropomorphic representations when describing natural processes such as volcanism'', ``Alarmist tendency when describing natural hazards'', ``Scientific, in-depth coverage of natural hazards'', ``Tendency to the political instrumentalisation of the consequences of natural events'', ``Attitude towards dealing with the damages caused by natural events, rather than their prevention''.

The results of the analysis show that media tend to gather information on natural hazards mainly from politicians and local administrators, rather than from academics and researchers. Therefore, information on natural hazards, at the national level, in most cases lacks scientific accuracy and presents a biased picture due to a lack of independence from political considerations.

As opposite, local information shows a higher degree of independence and does not indulge in alarmistic tones and dramatizations.

Prevention does not appear a key issue for both local and national newspapers, and in-depth coverage of natural hazards-related topics is the exception rather than the rule.

The results of the monitoring show how the gap between scientific knowledge and the information provided by the media is still large, and that a major effort from both the journalists and the scientific experts is required in order to produce an environmental risk communication that is unbiased, accurate and independent.

Date received: July 14, 2005

Copyright © 2005 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caqy-32.