Annotated Bibliography: Impact of Media in the Australian Community

This annotated bibliography examines the role of media in the Australian community, focusing on the coverage of bushfires and their impact. The bibliography includes analysis of various articles and journals, exploring how media outlets, including traditional news sources and social media, have reported on these events. It delves into the media's accountability, the portrayal of climate change, and the use of social media in emergency response. The research also investigates the impact of media coverage on tourism and community resilience, considering both the positive and negative aspects of media representation. The bibliography covers diverse aspects, such as media's proactive discourse in community building, the challenges in rural areas, and the emotional impact of media coverage. The analysis highlights the complexities of communicating scientific uncertainties, the role of government and emergency services, and the effects of media on public health and empathy during crisis situations.

Running head: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Annotated Bibliography
Name of the Student:
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1ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
The contemporary issue chosen for this assignment is: Role of media in Australian
Community.
In order to conduct this research I have considered the Google Scholars articles by
experts and the eminent authors in this field of the research. This is one of the most recent events
that has been witnessed and covered in the media. The impact of the bush fires in Australia
cannot be avoided at all, which means that they are quite important topic for the discussion.
The key words that has been used for the purpose of this research includes “bushfires”,
Australia, Victoria and a few more.
Anderson, D., Chubb, P., & Djerf-Pierre, M. (2018). Fanning the blame: Media
accountability, climate and crisis on the Australian “fire continent”. Environmental
Communication, 12(7), 928-941.
The paper consists of the qualitative analysis of the media which revealed certain truths
regarding the forest fires in Australia. The purpose of this paper is to bring forward the
compounded crisis due to extreme weather disaster in the country of Australia. As per the paper,
the media raise the questions that the policies regarding the bushfires in the country was
completely framed which gave rise to one of the most severe conditions. The day is known as the
Black Saturday in the history Australia, I which near about 173 people died. By analysing the
local state and the media coverage longitudinally, the entire scenario was brought into light. The
headline in “The Australian”, read “Litany of failures ‘killed my family’” (The Australian, 7
November 2009), which gave rise to more controversies. ABC on the other hand provided more
coverage putting more blame on the government of the country. However, ABC fails to accept
the fact that the Climate change is one of the main reasons for the bushfires in the country.

2ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berglez, P., & Lidskog, R. (2019). Foreign, domestic, and cultural factors in climate change
reporting: Swedish media’s coverage of wildfires in three continents. Environmental
Communication, 13(3), 381-394.
The article discusses about the role of domestic media in covering the forest fire in
Australia. How far the media can go for covering an incident is depicted in this paper. With the
help of the information gathered from the media, the impact of the bush fires on the climate has
been analysed. The article focuses upon the better side of the media which helps in conveying
effective information to the consumers with the help of the Qualitative analysis of the literary
evidences gathered. The misinterpretation of the media on the incident and its adverse effect on
the economy is not discussed in this paper.
Abedin, B., & Babar, A. (2018). Institutional vs. non-institutional use of social media
during emergency response: A case of twitter in 2014 Australian bush fire. Information
Systems Frontiers, 20(4), 729-740.
Social media can be extremely beneficial in case of disasters because of their ability to
deliver information over larger distance quickly. Disaster management has four major parts:
prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. In this research the response phase of the
disaster management is discussed. It not only examines the work of emergency response
organizations or EROs but also smaller and non-institutional troupes like, digital volunteers and
also differentiate how they use twitter in case of the natural disasters like the fire in the Victoria,
in February 2014. All though the information passed are informative for this research, they are
not exactly directive and rumours can also be spread via twitter.

3ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Freeman, J., Hess, K., & Waller, L. (2018). Communication life line? ABC emergency
broadcasting in rural/regional Australia. Communication Research and Practice, 4(4), 342-
360.
According to this article the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or ABC was given the
charge of informing various communities in Australia when a natural disaster occur in the
region. This has a lot of problems due to diversity, long distances between various inhabited
places of Australia as well as, due to problems of resources and structure in ABC itself. This
article also shows the problems which occurs due to media coverage and radio broadcasting in
the rural or the regional areas which includes unequal supplies of digital technologies. We also
find that the localness is greatly affecting the accuracy, timelines and frequency of the media
coverage. We find that the emergency service agencies are insufficient in providing access to the
media or radio broadcasting in rural areas and regional communities during disasters. All
though the inefficiencies are discussed in this article but the main cause of the bush fire in the
region is not discussed in this article.
McGaurr, L., Lester, L., & Painter, J. (2013). Risk, uncertainty and opportunity in climate
change coverage: Australia compared. Australian Journalism Review, 35(2), 21.
Climate change can get very difficult in tackling because of the complexities in
communicating the scientific uncertainties. This journal is reviewing all the results of a study
which is recently done using frame analysis to find out the coverage provided by media and
newspapers in six countries and also has a scientific reports and articles of climate changes in
Ice in Arctic Sea and also the reports on climate change provided by the inter-governmental
panel. This journal also analyses the Australian newspaper and media regarding their activities
in the Australian bushfires. This paper does not give any convincing report of any of this cases.

4ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Walters, G., Mair, J., & Lim, J. (2016). Sensationalist media reporting of disastrous events:
Implications for tourism. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 28, 3-10.
The representation of the media or its misrepresentation is determined with the help of
the qualitative analysis of the paper. This article talks about the actions of the media covering
disasters on the destinations meant for the tourist. This passes a negative reflection upon the
tourists regarding that particular sector tourism. All though empirical analysis yet to be
performed to check upon of the validity of the images. The primary objective of this paper was to
determine the extent to which the places are affected by the disastrous event of bush fire. There
were more than 250 media copies of the events were analysed for the purpose of this paper. The
findings of the research included that the due to this misrepresentation of the media there is a
loss of $100 million loss in the tourism sector which is disastrous as well. The article does not
discuss about the measures that has been taken against the media for this action.
West, S., Visentin, D. C., Neil, A., Kornhaber, R., Ingham, V., & Cleary, M. (2020).
Forging, protecting, and repairing community resilience informed by the 2019–2020
Australian bushfires. Journal of Advanced Nursing.
The primary objective of the paper is to determine the role of the media in the disaster
coverage. How the ABC has proactively taken part in providing important updates regarding the
forest fire such that the necessary resilience steps can be taken regarding the issues. All though
the emergency updates from the media has been apparently help for the people of the country,
the criticism of the role of the media in framing news regarding the bush fires, victimizing the
people and the residents of the place has been in discussion for quite a while as well. The paper
discusses about how the coverage of the media has exploited people emotionally has been

5ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
discussed in the paper as well. Both the good and the adverse side of the media has been depicted
in the paper.
Williamson, R. (2019). Seeing for Himself: Harold Holt, Bushfire and Newspaper
Depictions of Prime Ministerial Empathy. Journal of Australian Studies, 43(2), 249-261.
Since the development of the federation the newspapers and the media has been
responsible for empathising with the ministry regarding the instance of the recovery from the
forest fires. The effects of the bushfires is on the health is one of the major reasons due to which
the research is conducted. As it is quite known to all that the events like the bush fires or
earthquakes cannot be predicted at all. However, the exposure to such high temperature of the
bushfire can be truly hazardous for the health of an individual. The impact of the smoke on the
people includes the difficulties in breathing, problems like the asthma, cardio-respiratory
malfunctioning and many more. This research has been conducted such that neglectful behaviour
of the Australian ministers towards the issue that has been covered by the media can be
investigated closely but little did it discuss about the steps that has been taken to combat with the
after effect of the fire.
Sherchan, W., Pervin, S., Butler, C. J., & Lai, J. C. (2016). Project ACT: Social media
analytics in disaster response. arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.02228.
Social media can turn out to be a big source of information for government authorities,
relief agencies and general public especially during the disasters. But the efficiency and the
effectiveness of the social media is reduced due to the excess volume of data and also due to the
rumours that can be generated thorough it making it somewhat unreliable source of information
for intelligence purpose. A tool called Australian Crisis Tracker was developed by various

6ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
intelligence agencies which would help in analysing and understanding of information from
twitter during the crisis situation like the bush fire in Australia.
Zhang, W. (2018). Analysis of ‘proactive discourse’ in the construction of local community
by the media during the 2013 Tasmanian bushfire in Australia. Journalism,
1464884918816249.
Media plays an important role while covering the disasters in a country. This journal has
analysed the various methods or processes which are implemented by the media to increase the
unity between the communities by representation of the individual communities. Using various
modes of narratives as well as discourse analysis this journal has analysed various articles from
various national as well as local media and the way they has represented in 2013 during the
Tasmanian bush fires. It was discovered that the media was actually preparing a proactive
discourse that would help in unifying the Tasmanian community and enhance their power of
resilience by expressing their own experience of discourse by the local residents. This journal
states the importance of the media in proactive discourse for the enhancing unity within the
community. The article discusses about the ways in which community can brought together,
however how that can prevent the disaster is not discussed.

7ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
References:
Abedin, B., & Babar, A. (2018). Institutional vs. non-institutional use of social media during
emergency response: A case of twitter in 2014 Australian bush fire. Information Systems
Frontiers, 20(4), 729-740.
Anderson, D., Chubb, P., & Djerf-Pierre, M. (2018). Fanning the blame: Media accountability,
climate and crisis on the Australian “fire continent”. Environmental
Communication, 12(7), 928-941.
Berglez, P., & Lidskog, R. (2019). Foreign, domestic, and cultural factors in climate change
reporting: Swedish media’s coverage of wildfires in three continents. Environmental
Communication, 13(3), 381-394.
Freeman, J., Hess, K., & Waller, L. (2018). Communication life line? ABC emergency
broadcasting in rural/regional Australia. Communication Research and Practice, 4(4),
342-360.
McGaurr, L., Lester, L., & Painter, J. (2013). Risk, uncertainty and opportunity in climate
change coverage: Australia compared. Australian Journalism Review, 35(2), 21.
Sherchan, W., Pervin, S., Butler, C. J., & Lai, J. C. (2016). Project ACT: Social media analytics
in disaster response. arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.02228.
Walters, G., Mair, J., & Lim, J. (2016). Sensationalist media reporting of disastrous events:
Implications for tourism. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 28, 3-10.

8ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
West, S., Visentin, D. C., Neil, A., Kornhaber, R., Ingham, V., & Cleary, M. (2020). Forging,
protecting, and repairing community resilience informed by the 2019–2020 Australian
bushfires. Journal of Advanced Nursing.
Williamson, R. (2019). Seeing for Himself: Harold Holt, Bushfire and Newspaper Depictions of
Prime Ministerial Empathy. Journal of Australian Studies, 43(2), 249-261.
Zhang, W. (2018). Analysis of ‘proactive discourse’in the construction of local community by
the media during the 2013 Tasmanian bushfire in Australia. Journalism,
1464884918816249.