The narrative is made and sustained by establishing Jerry's back story, then following his investigation and persuit of the truth which lead all the way up to a congressional hearing. Information on the chemicals found in the water and the effects on humans is presented in the film, and it does have an emotional impact at these diseased effect children and destroy families and lives.
“the demands placed on an investigation have as much, or more, to do with defining the dominant investigator and quickly addressing the fears and anger of the press, government, and an outraged public than they do with discovering the definitive technical truths of a catastrophic event.” (Knowles 11)
“The Hague Street inquest featured many experts, none with the authority to effect real change. The result was a blanket of blame that covered everyone” (Knowles 19)
“With the exception of federal oversight, Iroqouis set the tone for investigations of modern disasters from the Baltimore Conflagration (1904) to the world Trade Center collapse.” (Knowles 24)
The author of the article is Sonja D. Schmid. She is an associate professor in the Department of Science and Technology in Society at Virginia Tech. She holds a Ph D in STS from Cornell University. Dr. Schmid speaks fluent Russian and primarily investigates the history and organization of Soviet and Eastern European nuclear affairs, as well as the the challenges of global nuclear emergency response.
The bibliography indicates that a large ammount of the information for this article was drawn directly from field work, including interviews with workers at the chernobyl site during the inial response efforts and in the recovery efforts undertaken in the aftermath, as well as effected citizens, officials, and healthcare practitioners involved in the new welfare/healthcare system formed in the aftermath for those who were exposed.
The article provides statistics of approved applications based on the medical reason for the application and the department the application was processed at based on location, to show how different acceptance rates are. The article also provides many stories of applications, invoking an emotional response that allows the reader to sympathize with the personal challenge that faces medical officers and government officials making the discussions that may dramatically affect the health and wellbeing of individuals.
According to its mission statement, "The American Red Cross prevents and alleviates human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors."
This article finds that based on the culture an individual belongs to, with its special beliefs, stigmas, and customs, how a patient may describe the "narrative" of an illness can vary greatly. A connection is shown to exist between the physical impact of an illness on the individual, how the illness is percieved by their culture, and the way they will describe the illness and seek treatment for it.
This system would definitely be difficult to use directly in the field as it does require steady internet connection to allow for collaboration between users. Another likely problem would be collaboration between users who speak a different language, although the publishing aspect of the app, and adaptable software downloads allow for multiple languages. Integrating numerical data between users who’s primary languages differ creates technical challenges that could range from complete field incompatibility to something as simple as interpreting a comma as thousands rather than a decimal point.
The red cross relies on notification systems of disaster to mobilize their volunteers such as those created by FEMA, NOAA, and other goverment services, transportation infrastructure and technology to move supplies and people from place to place, established red cross infrastructure of supply stockpiles, specialized vehicles, and training centers.
Three ways the arguements of this article are supported are: