Image of the pink dolphin
tschuetz“The Matsu Fish Conservation Union of Taiwan combined images of the Taiwanese goddess Matsu, protector of fishermen, with images of the Taiwan pink dolphin in order to bring more public attention to the anti-Kuokuang campaign. As argued by Peter S. Ross, Chairman of the Eastern Taiwan Strait Sousa Technical Advisory Working Group (ETSSTAWG), protecting dolphins and their habitat helps to protect and improve the health and productivity of coastal fisheries: the more dolphins there are, the stronger the food chain is, and the more abundant fishery resources there are (Huang).” (Chang, 2023, p. 176)
Disaster Media Heuristic
tschuetzThe authors "define disaster media as a heuristic, or approach, that recognizes the ways “natural” and human-made disasters are communicated about, constructed, and variously exacerbated or relieved through media means. This heuristic is not simply a temporary model for problem solving but tries to account for ecological forces and material conditions" (my emphasis).
They close the article with three provocations:
1) All Media on Deck: the current moment of combo disaster (COVID and climate crisis) requires the production of more public and open access materials (of various kinds), but also boosting of media literacy. The auhtors acknowledge the conundrum of producing more media, while being confronted with sustainability issues and the call for "no-carbon" media.
2) Relief and media Production: a critical look at the kinds of assumptions that governments/NGOs/industry bring to COVID-19 relief efforts (videos, websites, maps, algorithms...) -- what counts as relief and for whom?
3) Focus on Social and Environmental Justice: "In moving forward, it will be crucial to approach disaster media as a domain in which structural reform agendas that interweave social and environmental justice can flourish."