How Are LGBTI Disaster Experiences Reported by the Mainstream and LGBTI Media?
1 Disasters, queer narratives and the news: How are LGBTI disaster experiences reported by the mainstream and LGBTI media? Scott McKinnon, University of Western Sydney, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW, 2751, +61 2 9772 6179 Andrew Gorman-Murray, University of Western Sydney, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW, 2751, +61 2 9772 6649 Dale Dominey-Howes, University of Sydney, School of Geosciences, Sydney, NSW, 2006, +61 2 9351 6641 Abstract: The media plays a significant role in constructing the public meanings of disasters and influencing disaster management policy. In this paper, we investigate how the mainstream and LGBTI media reported – or failed to report – the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) populations during disasters in Brisbane, Australia and Christchurch, New Zealand. The implications of our work lie within recent disasters research suggesting that marginalised populations – including LGBTI peoples – may experience a range of specific vulnerabilities during disasters on the basis of their social marginality. In this paper, we argue that LGBTI experiences were largely absent from mainstream media reporting of the Brisbane floods and Christchurch earthquake of 2011. Media produced by and about the LGBTI community did take steps to redress this imbalance, although with uneven results in terms of inclusivity across that community. We conclude by raising the possibility that the exclusion or absence of queer disaster narratives may contribute to marginality through the media’s construction of disasters as exclusively experienced by heterosexual family groups. Keywords: disasters; media; sexuality; vulnerability; resilience; Australia; New Zealand Shortened title: Disasters, queer narratives and the news Funding support: This research was conducted as part of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP130102658) on LGBT disaster experiences.
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