Public Relations and Journalism in Times of Crisis dissects crisis communication case studies from both the journalists' and the public relations professionals' perspectives. The authors, Andrea Miller, a former journalist, and Jinx Coleman Broussard, a former public relations professional, interviewed dozens of journalists and PR professionals involved in some of the most visible crises of the last few years: Hurricane Katrina, Ebola in America, the Blue Bell Ice Cream recall, Susan G. Komen vs. Planned Parenthood, race relations in Ferguson, Missouri, and at the University of Missouri, the great flood of Baton Rouge in 2016, and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Hundreds of press releases and press stories were also reviewed. The authors provide practical strategies for working journalists and public relations practitioners to enhance the flow of information in a crisis so that audiences and stakeholders can make educated, rational decisions to protect their families and livelihoods. The book also acquaints professors and students of PR and journalism with the realities of covering and managing crises, including what works and why, as well as mistakes that occur that could damage their organizations. Public Relations and Journalism in Times of Crisis is unique for its analysis of the communication of cases from both perspectives. At the end of each case are takeaways for both sets of professionals, as well as industry best practice suggestions.

Disaster Risk Governance offers the first extensive engagement with disaster risk governance in the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. In the last decade and a half Kenya, Jamaica, Dominica, and Zanzibar have all suffered massive destruction from disasters caused by natural hazards. Despite the tremendous investments in disaster risk reduction (DRR), disasters have wiped out the developmental gains of these countries. In this book, Denise Thompson argues that disaster risk governance (DRG) as a practical and academic matter has not been given the attention it deserves, and as a result, this neglect has undermined the time, money and resources invested in DRR in developing countries since the late 1970s and early 1980s. Thompson proposes that properly conceptualizing DRG based on context will help to address some of the deficiencies. Consequently, DRG needs to become a central focus, particularly for developing countries. Written with real-life implications for developing countries, Disaster Risk Governance is perfectly suited for practitioners and researchers in area studies, disaster risk reduction and disaster governance, as well as students of disaster studies.

The spate of disaster events ranging from major to catastrophic that have occurred in recent years raises a lot of questions about where and why they happened. Understanding the history of emergency management policies and practice is important to an understanding of current and future policies and practice. Continuing in the footsteps of its popular predecessors, the new edition of Emergency Management: The American Experience provides the background to understand the key political and policy underpinnings of emergency management, exploring how major "focusing events" have shaped the field of emergency management. This edition builds on the original theoretical framework and chronological approach of previous editions, while enhancing the discussions through the addition of fresh information about the effects and outcomes of older events, such as Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill. The final chapters offer insightful discussion of the public administration concepts of emergency management in the U.S. and of the evolving federal role in emergency management. Like its predecessors, the third edition of Emergency Management is a trusted and required text to understand the formation and continuing improvement of the American national emergency management system.

This book contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between migration, vulnerability, resilience and social justice associated with flooding across diverse environmental, social and policy contexts in Southeast Asia. It challenges simple analyses of flooding as a singular driver of migration, and instead considers the ways in which floods figure in migration-based livelihoods and amongst already mobile populations. The book develops a conceptual framework based on a 'mobile political ecology' in which particular attention is paid to the multidimensionality, temporalities and geographies of vulnerability. Rather than simply emphasising the capacities (or lack thereof) of individuals and households, the focus is on identifying factors that instigate, manage and perpetuate vulnerable populations and places: these include the sociopolitical dynamics of floods, flood hazards and risky environments, migration and migrant-based livelihoods and the policy environments through which all of these take shape. The book is organised around a series of eight empirical urban and rural case studies from countries in Southeast Asia, where lives are marked by mobility and by floods associated with the region's monsoonal climate. The concluding chapter synthesises the insights of the case studies, and suggests future policy directions. Together, the chapters highlight critical policy questions around the governance of migration, institutionalised disaster response strategies and broader development agendas.

This book is a revision of the author's original doctoral thesis on emergency preparedness through community radio in North Indian villages into a widening array of possible reapplications in other community development fields. The author expands on the process of transforming emergency preparedness education through community media in rural North India and applies this to the development of community-prosperity, defined simply as human and planetary well-being, anywhere in the world. A new theoretical framework is presented which combines the pivotal Integral Worlds Approach developed by Lessem and Schieffer with Critical Theory, thus exploring a new way to envision and implement social change, leading to innovation and social transformation. This book introduces the term "constructive resilience," which is a type of community-building that occurs alongside dominant societal structures that are either oppressive or ineffective. An evolving field of study and practice, it is emerging from the work of academics and community-builders who are members of the Baha'i Faith. Baha'i "consultation," a process of inquiry and decision-making, is offered as a systematic and effective method of defining problems and enacting solutions and is examined in the context of emergency preparedness education and local capacity-building. With its integral development approach, its unique combination of themes and theoretical components, and integration with the Baha'i Faith, as well as its interdisciplinary nature, this book will be invaluable reading for researchers in many fields. It will be of particular interest in university-based training programs in disaster management and the various disciplines of international community development, as well as practitioners in the areas of micro enterprise, disaster management, community development, rural communications, rural economics and emergency preparedness education.

In Gender, Heterosexuality, and Youth Violence, James W. Messerschmidt unravels some of the mysteries of teenage violence. Written by one of the most respected scholars on the subject of gendered crime, this book provides a fascinating account of the connections among adolescent masculinities and femininities, bullying in schools, the body, heterosexuality, and violence and nonviolence. After an introduction that lays out key concepts, including a revised structured action theory, Messerschmidt shares six compelling life-histories of white working-class boys and girls who have all been victims of severe forms of bullying at school. The book is unique in its comparative approach between violent and nonviolent youth, between boys and girls as offenders and non-offenders, between assaultive and sexual violence, and among a variety of masculinities and femininities. It also addresses how heterosexuality is related to sex, gender, and certain forms of violence or non-violence. The penetrating life histories are partially drawn from Messerschmid's previous books Nine Lives and Flesh and Blood, as well as several completely new life-history interviews. The book's cutting-edge conceptualization of these life histories provides novel insight into the vexing question of youth violence.

Sensationalized history can be credited with inspiring generations of truth-seeking experts and enthusiasts. The tragedy of the Johnstown Flood was an oft-exploited event as writers and publishers hawked hastily written articles in original form or pirated collections. Where many of the articles lacked fact, they were rife with exaggeration and imagination.

James Herbert Walker published one of the very first of these books, The Johnstown Horror, a pamphlet of some 40 pages. Experts cite the book as being sold in New York within a week of the disaster. Though the structure suggests the stories were gathered at rail stations in an apparent journey to the site, there has been debate whether Walker ever traveled to Johnstown. Yet the collection features accounts that do not appear in other publications following the flood.

Later, expanded editions swelled to over four hundred pages and included well-crafted woodcuts. As the flood occurred near the end of the nineteenth century, the engraved drawings are often generously labeled as remnants of Victorian art. It is not clear whether the inclusion of the cuts was an aesthetic or monetary decision, considering the period's developments in photography.

The final, massive collection of individual stories makes the book memorable, ranging from the accusations levied against wealthy Pittsburgh industrialists to the emergence of the Red Cross. So many unique details and personal chronicles capture the frantic mentality of a town, state, and nation trying to make sense of natural and yet not-so-natural disaster.

Household vulnerability to weather shocks and changing climatic conditions has become a major concern in developing countries. Yet the empirical evidence remains limited on the impact that changing environmental conditions have on households. This book explores climate change adaptation using a social resilience approach. The book is based on primary data from the Sundarbans, a densely populated area located across parts of Bangladesh and India (West Bengal) which is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events and climate change. The focus is on assessing how households are affected by cyclones: whether they are able to cope with, adapt to and recover from events and changes; whether they are warned ahead of time; whether they benefit from government safety nets and other social programs; and finally whether they are driven to either temporary or permanent migration. This assessment leads to a better understanding of how exposure to an area of climate change vulnerability and risk affects and shapes human responses.

What kind of country is America? Zachary Shore tackles this polarizing question by spotlighting some of the most morally muddled matters of WWII. Should Japanese Americans be moved from the west coast to prevent sabotage? Should the German people be made to starve as punishment for launching the war? Should America drop atomic bombs to break Japan's will to fight? Surprisingly, despite wartime anger, most Americans and key officials favored mercy over revenge, yet a minority managed to push their punitive policies through. After the war, by feeding the hungry, rebuilding Western Europe and Japan, and airlifting supplies to a blockaded Berlin, America strove to restore the country's humanity, transforming its image in the eyes of the world. A compelling story of the struggle over racism and revenge, This Is Not Who We Are asks crucial questions about the nation's most agonizing divides.

What kind of animals are human beings? And how do our visions of the human shape our theories of social action and institutions? In Moral, Believing Animals, Christian Smith advances a creative theory of human persons and culture that offers innovative, challenging answers to these and other fundamental questions in sociological, cultural, and religious theory. Smith's work is based on the assumption (unfashionable in certain circles) that human beings have an identifiable and peculiar set of capacities and proclivities that distinguishes them significantly from other animals on this planet. Smith argues that all people are at bottom believers, whose lives, actions, and institutions are constituted, motivated, and governed by narrative traditions and moral orders on which they inescapably depend. This approach - which has profound consequences for how we think about knowledge, culture, social action, institutions, religion, and the task of social sciences - will be of interest to scholars in sociology, social theory, religious and cultural studies, psychology, and anthropology.

This book contains the proceeding of the conferences on Disasters and the Small Dwelling, held at Oxford in September 1990. The 26 papers cover recent experiences of post-disaster shelter and housing provision, review what has been achieved, what needs disseminating and implementing, and assesses what needs further development. The volume thus defines an international agenda to achieve safer low-income dwellings in the course of the 1990s, designated International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction by the UN. It will be essential reading for anyone - whether governmental or non-governmental agency officials, academic researchers, representatives of private industry or consultants - whose work involves analysis, shelter, mitigation and reconstruction programmes for low-income dwellings in disaster-prone areas.

Sociology has developed theories of social change in the fields of evolution, conflict and modernization, viewing modern society as essentially unstable and conflict driven. However, it has not seriously studied catastrophe. A Theory of Catastrophe develops a sociology of catastrophes, comparing natural, social and political causes and consequences, and the social theories that might offer explanations. A catastrophe is a general and systematic breakdown of social and political institutions resulting, among other things, in what we could call a catastrophe consciousness. The Greek ‘cata-strophe’ formed the conclusion to a dramatic sequence of strophes. The cata-strophe was the final act of a drama, namely its denouement. Catastrophic denouements are without hope: genocides, military occupations, plagues, famines and earthquakes. A Theory of Catastrophe analyzes Pompeii, the Black Death, colonial genocide in North America, WWI and the Spanish Flu, and Nazi Germany and finally this century: terrorism, new wars, climate change and pandemics. As a study of sociological theory, Bryan Turner discusses Spengler’s Decline of the West, Marxism as a theory of catastrophic capitalism, messianic movements, Weber on modernity, and risk society. He concludes by comparing optimism and pessimism, and the idea of inter-generational justice.

Pandemic, climate change, or war: our era is ripe with the odor of doomsday. In movies, books, and more, our imaginations run wild with visions of dreadful, abandoned cities and returning to the land in a desperate attempt at survival. In The Next Apocalypse, archaeologist Chris Begley argues that we completely misunderstand how disaster works. Examining past collapses of civilizations, such as the Maya and Rome, he argues that these breakdowns are actually less about cataclysmic destruction than they are about long processes of change. In short: it's what happens after the initial uproar that matters. Some people abandon their homes and neighbors; others band together to start anew. As we anticipate our own fate, Begley tells us that it was communities, not lone heroes, who survived past apocalypses-and who will survive the next. Fusing archaeology, survivalism, and social criticism, The Next Apocalypse is an essential read for anxious times.

This comparative study at hand has been the result of a two-year research project on floods in 2014 in the Western Balkans engaging eight research teams from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia. Representing quite different disciplines, the authors of this volume have analysed diverse aspects of the crisis governance and its ramifications. This publication's goals are twofold. Firstly, it pins down the characteristics of the crisis responses during the floods of 2014 in three affected countries, preconditioned by the existing institutions, crisis leadership, the role of media and the social capital as well as the foreign financial aid. On the other hand, through the lenses of the crisis governance we conclude on the state capacities and the nature of political regime of the cases under study. The flood megacrisis did not constitute a "window of opportunity" for individual or institutional learning. On the contrary, it did unveil some authoritarian tendencies in Serbia and Bosnia, and thus stalled the hitherto ongoing democratization process.

What will the ethnic, racial and cultural face of the United States look like in the upcoming decades, and how will the American population adapt to these changes? Immigration, Cultural Identity, and Mental Health: Psycho-social Implications of the Reshaping of America outlines the various psychosocial impacts of immigration on cultural identity and its impact on mainstream culture. Thoroughly researched, this book examines how cultural identity relates to individual mental health and should be taken into account in mental health treatment. In a time when globalization is decreasing the importance of national boundaries and impacting cultural identity for both minority and mainstream populations, the authors explore the multiple facets of what immigration means for culture and mental health. The authors review the concept of acculturation and examine not only how the immigrant's identity transforms through this process, but also how the immigrant transforms the host culture through inter-culturation. The authors detail the risk factors and protective factors that affect the first generation and subsequent generations of immigrants in their adaptation to American society, and also seek to dispel myths and clarify statistics of criminality among immigrant populations. Further, the book aims to elucidate the importance of ethnicity and race in the psycho-therapeutic encounter and offers treatment recommendations on how to approach and discuss issues of ethnicity and race in psychotherapy. It also presents evidence-based psychological treatment interventions for immigrants and members of minority populations and shows how psychotherapy involves the creation of new, more adaptive narratives that can provide healing, personal growth, and relevance to the immigrant experience. Throughout, the authors provide clinical case examples to illustrate the concepts presented.

Creating Katrina, Rebuilding Resilience: Lessons from New Orleans on Vulnerability and Resiliency presents a unique, integrative understanding of Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans area, and the progression to disaster vulnerability as well as resilience pathways. The book integrates the understanding of vulnerability and resiliency by examining the relationships among these two concepts and theories. The disaster knowledge of diverse disciplines and professions is brought together in this book, with authors from social work, public health, community organizing, sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, anthropology, geography and the study of religion. The editors offer both expert and an insider perspectives on Katrina because they have lived in New Orleans and experienced Katrina and the recovery. An improved understanding of the recovery and reconstruction phases of disaster is also presented, and these disaster stages have been the least examined in the disaster and emergency management literature.

This first full-length book addresses disasters in the context of vulnerability of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands that comprise 572 islands in the Bay of Bengal. It looks at the disasters that the islands have experienced in the last 200 years and analyzes major disasters since colonization by the British. Raising some critical questions, this book attempts to understand the overall profile of disasters - the facts, causes, damage, response and recovery - in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It discusses earthquakes, cyclones, tsunami and epidemics, as well as impacts of World War II, the penal colony and the post-Independence resettlement on the tribal population. The work will serve as a rich resource with its detailed tables, figures, maps and diagrams; appendices; and database ranging from travelogues, Census of India reports and fieldwork to Right to Information (RTI) petitions that collect hitherto unknown facts. The book will be useful to students of geography, disasters and disasters management, climate and environmental studies, history, sociology, island and ocean studies, and South Asian studies.

Rossi develops a theory of the roles of "action" (social actor) and "structure" (sociopolitical resources, cultural resources, and economic resources) in disaster studies, using the data on community reconstruction after the 1980 earthquake in Southern Italy as a preliminary test of the theory. The focus of the study is not the response during the emergency period which immediately followed the earthquake, but the long-term recovery and reconstruction of the 44 communities which were officially classified as the most heavily damaged. Aspects of the post-earthquake industrialization of the region are also considered, since the physical reconstruction of the destroyed communities is inevitably connected with their socioeconomic development. Rossi outlines and tests a new framework which permits prediction of the different speeds of community reconstruction, and provides a dialectic theory of the interrelationship between structural and action principles of social action.

The Fukushima and Tohoku Disaster: A Review of the Five-Year Reconstruction Efforts covers the outcome of the response, five years later, to the disasters associated with the Great East Japan earthquake on March 11, 2011. The 3.11 disaster, as it is referred to in Japan, was a complex accident, the likes of which humans had never faced before. This book evaluates the actions taken during and after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident, for which the Japanese government and people were not prepared. The book also provides recommendations for preparing and responding to disasters for those working and living in disaster-prone areas, making it a vital resource for disaster managers and government agencies.

Science and Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction in Asia: Potentials and Challenges provides both a local and global perspective on how to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Topics demonstrate the advancement of scientific research as it applies to early warning systems, including identifying risk and the strengthening of infrastructure for different types of hazards. Through different major disasters, it has become evident that there must be a balance between hard and soft technology and physical, process and social solutions. This book demonstrates how this has been successfully implemented in Asia, and how these applications can apply on a global basis.

China suffers frequently from many types of natural disasters, which have affected the lives of many millions of Chinese. The steps which the Chinese state has taken to prevent disasters, mitigate their consequences, and reconstruct in the aftermath of disasters are therefore key issues. This book examines the single metropolis of Tianjin in northern China, a city which has suffered particularly badly from natural disasters - the great famine of 1958-61, the great flood of 1963 and the great earthquake of 1976. It discusses how the city managed these disasters, what policies and measures were taken to prevent and mitigate disasters, and to promote reconstruction afterwards. It also explores who suffered from and who benefited from the disasters. Overall, the book shows how disaster management was erratic, sometimes managed highly efficiently and in other cases disappointingly delayed and inept. It concludes that, although the Maoist state possessed formidable resources, disaster management was always constrained by other political and economic considerations, and was never an automatic priority.

A UN report recently found that the Asia Pacific is the world's most disaster-prone region. Indeed, considering that the region accounts for more than half of the total number of disasters in the world, building capacity and resilience to mitigate the devastating impact of disasters is a pressing task for local actors. This book takes a regional, multidisciplinary and multi-actor approach to improve understandings of how various actors respond to natural and human-induced disasters in the Asia-Pacific region. It examines the ideas and activities of four different categories of agents: civil society; military and state institutions; local cultural knowledge and the media; and economic initiatives, and these themes are approached from various academic disciplines, ranging from anthropology and cultural studies to economics, human geography and political science. The contributors draw their findings from a variety of countries in the region, including China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Myanmar and Samoa, and importantly, focus on the interconnection between vulnerability and resilience. In turn, the book highlights how the nature and magnitude of disasters are influenced by social conditions, and aims to contribute to policies that prioritize development opportunities to enhance resilience. Further, it explores the complicated and multifaceted role of agency in building resilience, and presents a comparative framework for analysis and key findings from the Asia-Pacific region. The focus of this book on recent and ongoing disasters makes it a topical and timely contribution to the growing field of disaster management, and as such it will appeal to students and scholars of environmental studies, development studies and Asian politics.

Urban Planning for Disaster Recovery focuses on disaster recovery from the perspective of urban planning, an underutilized tactic that can significantly reduce disaster risks. The book examines disaster risk reduction (DRR), in particular, the recovery stage of what is widely known as the disaster cycle. The theoretical underpinning of the book derives from a number of sources in urban planning and disaster management literature, and is illustrated by a series of case studies. It consists of five sections, each of which opens with a conceptual framework that is followed by a series of supporting and illustrative cases as practical examples. These examples both complement and critique the theoretical base provided, demonstrating the need to apply the concepts in location-specific ways.

Despite the current popularity of what is commonly referred to as an `ethics of care', no one has yet undertaken a systematic philosophical study of `care' itself. In this book, Jeffrey Blustein presents the first such study, offering a detailed exploration of human `care' in its various guises: concern for and commitment to individuals, ideals, and causes. Blustein focuses on the nature and value of personal integrity and intimacy, and on the questions they raise for traditional moral theory.