Return to ‘a new normal’: Discourses of resilience to natural disasters in Australian newspapers 2006–2010

Global Environmental Change 26 (2014) 14–26

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Global Environmental Change journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gloenvcha

Return to ‘a new normal’: Discourses of resilience to natural disasters in Australian newspapers 2006–2010 Anne M. Leitch a,*, Erin L. Bohensky b a b

ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University Townsville, Australia CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Townsville, Australia

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 12 February 2013 Received in revised form 3 February 2014 Accepted 18 March 2014

Resilience, as a concept that conceptualises response to change, is gaining currency in the public discourse. In Australia, the term ‘resilience’ is frequently used by the news media in connection with natural disasters. Media representation of resilience to natural disasters—as rapid onset events characterised by visible thresholds—provides an instructive lens through which to learn about resilience, and bring into focus, differences between academic and broader public perspectives on the concept. In this paper we analyse resilience discourses in Australian newspaper articles from 2006 to 2010. We consider the use of the term ‘resilience’ and three attributes of resilience that are important in determining how communities respond to disasters: structure and function, self-organisation, and learning and adaptation. Our results show that while the media discourse helps to illuminate what makes communities resilient to disasters, it also highlights how resilience can be undermined when: the term, used most often by actors at from outside the affected community, becomes an ‘aspirational rhetorical device’; place attachment manifests as ‘lock in’ whereby individuals cannot easily leave a disaster-affected community; emphasis post disaster is on reinstating the status quo rather than encouraging transformation; and excessive or inequitably distributed external assistance to a community threatens self-efficacy and cohesion. Media discourse tends to lack reflection on learning beyond formal preparedness programs, but places value on sharing experience. Our analysis has theoretical and practical outcomes: theoretically, this analysis further enriches the descriptions of the three attributes as central concepts in resilience theory. Practically, this work highlights the difficulty in communicating about resilience to encourage constructive response to disasters, but also provides insight into making resilience theory more accessible and relevant to the disaster management community for Australia and globally. ß 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Resilience Disaster Media Australia

1. Introduction ‘Reconstruction is on track with more than $1 billion spent. This would not have been possible without the incredible strength, determination and the resilience of local communities. While many people have said things will never be the same we have to believe that the fire-affected communities will return to a ‘new normal’ and thrive once again.’ Chair of the Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, Sunbury Leader, 2.03.2010, 2009 Victorian bushfires. In recent years ‘resilience’ has emerged as a framework for conceptualising and navigating various types of environmental,

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 409661094. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (A.M. Leitch). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.03.006 0959-3780/ß 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

economic, political, or cultural change, including disturbance events such as natural disasters (Walker et al., 2002; Folke, 2006). The concept of resilience is also gaining currency in the public discourse—in news media and public policy for example—in relation to societal hardships or situations of adversity affecting social– ecological systems (e.g. Brown, 2013; Turner, 2013). The construction and use of the resilience concept in broad society differ from the theoretical underpinnings of resilience espoused in some academic circles (with some exceptions e.g. Manyena, 2006; Hastrup, 2008). While there is no universal definition or conceptual model of resilience—nor do we suggest one is needed—it is instructive to understand both the similarities and differences between resilience theory and its usage in the ‘real world’ and the relevance of resilience scholarship to pragmatic concerns (Gunderson and Folke, 2011). Concepts of resilience are increasingly linked to natural disasters including through media reporting. During and following

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The analytical framework in this paper brings together two broad arenas of problem framing in the context of natural disasters: resilience theory and news media.

‘disorder’ stories with news values of proximity, relevance, magnitude, human interest, unfolding drama, as well as portraying the dichotomy of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ (Galtung and Ruge, 1965; Harcup and O’Neill, 2001; O’Neill and Harcup, 2009). Typically media coverage of a disaster includes description of the event, the response and recovery, and responsibilities (Vasterman et al., 2005; Norris et al., 2008). The media news cycle tends to move from general causal claims to specifics (Cowan et al., 2002): Pantti and Wahl-Jorgenson (2011, p. 108) describe this as a ‘discourse of horror’ depicting consequences of the tragedy, followed by a ‘discourse of grief’ focused on victims and communities to satisfy news requirements for ‘local’ or ‘humanizing’ angles (Scanlon, 2007). Media coverage is considered important for raising awareness of the tragedy yet its scrutiny is criticised for its power to influence responses (Davis and French, 2008) and also its intrusiveness can tie up resources and create additional pressure for affected communities and recovery (Vasterman et al., 2005). The role of the news media during times of natural disasters has been widely studied, in particular there has been a focus on the factors and values that influence a disaster’s news worthiness and therefore media coverage (e.g. Gortner and Pennebaker, 2003; Barnes et al., 2008; Joye, 2010). Media scholars have considered the related issues of the nationalism or ethnocentricity of national versus foreign coverage (e.g. Joye, 2010); media discourses of hierarchy, inequality and suffering of an affected region (e.g. Joye, 2009; Dow, 2010); relationships between media coverage and humanitarian aid (Franks, 2008); and public perceptions of risk regarding natural hazards (Cohen et al., 2007; Miles and Morse, 2007; Pasquare´ and Oppizzi, 2012). There is evidence that differences in media coverage of disasters can contribute to differences in community risk perception and preparedness (Kitzinger, 1999; Miles and Morse, 2007; Cowan et al., 2002) and community cohesion (Hawdon et al., 2012).

2.1. News media and natural disasters

2.2. Resilience theory in the natural disaster context

The news media provides a social construction of an event: it can reflect and shape public opinion by defining and limiting the discourse around key events such as disasters (Miles and Morse, 2007; Carvalho, 2000) while focusing public attention on particular aspects (McCombs and Shaw, 1972; Parenti, 1993; Carvalho, 2007). Despite the rise of social and electronic media, newspapers still set the daily agenda for other forms of media and influence opinion formation of decision makers (Miles and Morse, 2007; Josephi, 2011). Newspaper articles, as an archived source of social data, have the advantage of providing easily accessible data from a breadth of perspectives through non-intrusive methods (Gortner and Pennebaker, 2003; Carvalho, 2008) and better quality data than online media sources (Holt and Barkemeyer, 2012). Like other types of social data, however, use of news media includes assumptions and caveats that require a cognisance of the filtering and framing that occurs through journalistic practices (Boykoff, 2011). Media discourse tends to be shaped by cultural, organisational and ideological mechanisms that operate through all stages of the news production processes including: editorial judgments of news values and newsworthiness (Scanlon, 2007; Fahmy et al., 2007); selection of news sources; and the social influence of these actors through their ‘framing power’ (Carvalho, 2000, p. 23). Framing power occurs through language, images, sound bites, and pull quotes (Bednarek and Caple, 2012); and positioning mechanisms such as location on a front page or leading a news bulletin. All of these are set within the vested interests of the media organisation and of the issue’s stakeholders (Parenti, 1993). Natural disasters—and the associated social and ecological disruption and recovery—are highly ‘newsworthy’ (Barnes et al., 2008; Davis and French, 2008). As focusing events, disasters are

Natural disaster analysis has traditionally focused on concepts of vulnerability, risk, and emergency management (McEntire et al., 2002). Increasingly, perspectives from social–ecological system resilience theory are being considered in the disaster context (Longstaff and Yang, 2008; Masten and Obradovic, 2008; Gunderson, 2010; Mainka and McNeely, 2011; Walker and Westley, 2011). Resilience theory views a natural disaster as a perturbation or disturbance to a social–ecological system (Gunderson, 2010). Resilience theory can add value to the existing scholarship on disaster management through its emphasis on complex systems dynamics (i.e. uncertainty, non-linearity, unpredictability); ideas of flexibility, novelty and innovation; and multiscale (spatial and temporal) perspectives. Thus a resilience approach can support more proactive engagement in managing change such as human response to, and recovery from, natural disasters. There are numerous definitions of resilience (Norris et al., 2008). Whilst divergence in these definitions may be attributed to scale, unit of analysis, or discipline, there tends to be general agreement on notions of capacity, complexity, connectedness, adaptation and feedbacks (Brown, 2013). A widely used definition of resilience that has been applied to both social and ecological systems follows Carpenter et al. (2001), Walker et al. (2002), Folke (2006) and Gunderson et al. (2006). In line with ‘resilience thinking’ (Gunderson and Holling, 2002), this definition of resilience attempts to consider the underlying system processes and controls that confer or erode resilience as the system evolves through time. Central to this paper, this definition suggests that a resilient system has three attributes, each of which is important in determining how communities respond to disasters: (1) a

natural disasters, news media coverage creates a collective social script which helps to shape how the community, both at the affected and broader scale, begins the coping and recovery processes (Gortner and Pennebaker, 2003). News coverage of the disaster may also prompt response by citizens (Bohensky and Leitch, 2014) as well as state and national agencies (Barnes et al., 2008; Norris et al., 2008). The news media both reflects and shapes public opinion and therefore, critical examination of use of concepts of resilience to natural disasters in news media can provide insights to resilience theory. Such insights from ‘everyday use’ of concepts of resilience can improve application of resilience thinking (Walker and Westley, 2011), build theory with practical examples (Anderies et al., 2006; Aldrich, 2012), and better support management of social–ecological systems (Gunderson, 2010). While the increasing use of notions of resilience is noted across a number of domains (Xu and Marinova, 2013) there has been no systematic study of the use of the term resilience in the media. Like similar complex, intangible and uncertain issues, resilience is a difficult issue for the media to convey (Carvalho, 2000; Morehouse and Sonnett, 2010). To explore how themes of resilience to natural disasters are constructed in the news media we systematically investigate Australian newspaper coverage of natural disasters from 2006 to 2010. Our aim was to examine the media construction of resilience in the context of natural disasters and to compare how this discourse reflects the central tenets of resilience theory. 2. Analytical approach: resilience and natural disasters in the media

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‘structure and function’ that is flexible in response to changing environmental and social contexts, (2) an ability to ‘self-organize’, rather than be controlled by external forces, and (3) an ability to build the capacity to ‘learn and adapt’. To consider these attributes in the disaster context we expand these definitions in our analytical framework.  The attribute of ‘structure and function’ describes the ability of the community to retain its identity, structure and function following a disaster. Hence, a resilient community is to be able to be, do, resemble, or represent what it did before the disaster. It is able to absorb the shock to recover to a similar structure and function. A less resilient community—or a more significant disaster—may result in a community crossing a threshold beyond which it changes permanently. Typically the event driven nature of media reporting tends to focus on the physical nature of the disaster and leads to an emphasis, at least initially, on the disruption and damage to structure and function (e.g. Morehouse and Sonnett, 2010).  The attribute of ‘self-organisation’ describes the organisation of support and resources for community preparation, and refers to the response or recovery that can be arranged and provided by the community rather than relying on aid or assistance from elsewhere. By some definitions (e.g. Etkin and Dore, 2003), a disaster inherently overwhelms the affected community’s ability to self-organise, and external intervention is necessary for the community to respond and recover. During and following the disaster event the media focus is on coordination of relief efforts and responsible authority figures as well as allocation of accolades or blame for disaster management (Vasterman et al., 2005; Littlefield and Quenette, 2007; Norris et al., 2008).  The attribute of ‘learning and adaptation’ describes internalising lessons from past experience and knowledge of disasters, putting such lessons into practice, and avoiding past mistakes. It considers building individual and community capacity to learn and adapt through formal and informal knowledge exchange and education. It emphasises being able to adapt by accepting, embracing and driving change. News media is one avenue for sharing information to support learning. There has been no systematic study of the use of the term ‘resilience’ in the media. Researchers, however, have considered similar terms that also represent grand narratives in the media such as climate change (Weingart et al., 2000; Boykoff and Boykoff, 2007; Carvalho, 2007; Olausson, 2009) and related terms such as tipping points (Russill and Nyssa, 2009), or domains such as international development (Doulton and Brown, 2009). Similarly studied are terms of sustainability (Holt and Barkemeyer, 2012) and related concepts such as ‘green jobs’ (Kouri and Clarke, 2012). Our study takes as its point of departure the consideration of the term resilience, as defined by Gunderson et al. (2006), and how it is used in the media in the context of natural disasters. While other authors have sought to provide clarity in the use of the term resilience (Davoudi et al., 2012) we attempt to draw insights from the breadth of the term through its vernacular usage linked with natural disasters as critical discourse moments or specific events that have potential to challenge normative discursive positions (Carvalho, 2000). 3. Methodology 3.1. Empirical context: natural disasters in Australia While natural disasters affect all regions of the world, the nature of the Australian climate and landscape means Australia is prone to slow onset hazards such as droughts as well as rapid onset natural hazards such as bushfires, floods, and landslides and

extreme weather events like hailstorms and tropical cyclones. With a changing climate, projections indicate that most natural hazards are likely to continue, or increase (IPCC, 2012). As a developed country, Australia is considered to have a high level of capacity to respond to natural disasters (Haddad, 2005; COAG, 2009; Alliance Development Works, 2011), which is not always harnessed in practice (Bohensky et al., 2010). This capacity is operationalised through cooperative arrangements for emergency management with both professional and volunteer personnel organised across the local, state and national scales (COAG, 2011). Resilience-related concepts of coping with adversity in a harsh landscape are considered part of the Australian psyche (McAllister, 1997; West, 2000). Similar to other countries, Australia is experiencing a shift in political and policy rhetoric from ‘disaster vulnerability’ to ‘disaster resilience’ as a means to better engage the community in natural hazard reduction (Cutter et al., 2008). 3.2. Research aims Our specific research questions in relation to media discourse were: 1. Who uses the term resilience in relation to natural disasters? 2. How does the use of the term resilience in the media relate to academic definitions of the term? 3.3. Article selection and analysis The empirical evidence in this study comes from the purposive sampling and systematic reading of newspaper articles in Australia over a five year period. We use a discourse approach which draws from a social constructionist perspective that considers language has a social function and mediates social action through constructing meaning (Edwards, 1997; Doulton and Brown, 2009). Our integrated analytical approach uses both deductive and inductive techniques (Matthes and Kohring, 2008). We use a broad discourse analysis similar to Doulton and Brown (2009: based on Dryzek, 2005; Carvalho, 2000) to examine the use of the word ‘resilience’ and how it is embedded in narratives or storylines in the media. We draw from Carvalho’s (2000, p. 7) notion of frames as ‘structures present in discourse’ which can be ‘identified and used by receivers for decoding of texts.’ We consider how three attributes of resilience theory—structure and function; self-organisation; and learning and adaptation—as defined above, are constructed in news articles in association with the term resilience. In this way discourse analysis can enable deeper understanding of societal meanings of resilience than a narrow linguistic discourse analysis or quantitative analysis commonly used in media studies. Articles were identified through the news database Newsbank which scans full text articles from approximately 160 Australian newspapers. After trialling various terms, the keywords ‘resilien*’ AND ‘disaster*’ were used as search terms for the time period 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2010. This time period included a range of types of natural disasters across several states (thus sampling several different major daily newspapers) and was long enough to generate a suitable sample (>100 articles) and detect broad patterns in the data. The resulting search yielded a total set of 979 articles which was filtered to include only articles relevant to the resilience of communities to natural disasters in Australia. Disasters included in this period included wildfire, floods, storms and tropical cyclones and drought and descriptions of these disasters can be found in Appendix A. The final data set included 127 news articles from outlets including the national newspaper The Australian, state newspapers The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Courier Mail, Adelaide Advertiser, and The Canberra Times; and

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regional newspapers including the Atherton Tablelander, Ayr Advocate, Cairns Post, Geelong Advertiser, Herbert River Express, Hobart Mercury, Newcastle Herald, and Townsville Bulletin. Each article in the data set was read by both researchers and the text relating to resilience was extracted and coded for: (1) surface descriptors (date, publication), (2) actor using the word ‘resilient’ or ‘resilience’ (politician, journalist, community member, disaster relief agency, NGO, celebrity), (3) whether the actor was referring to general or specific resilience, (4) type of disaster (bushfire, flood, storm, drought), (5) disaster topic (disaster event, disaster program, anniversary), and (6) text relating to the three resilience attributes as defined in our framework in the disaster context (structure and function, self-organisation, learning and adaptation). The articles were further inductively coded within each of the three attributes to identify the most common themes. To reduce researcher bias and ensure rigour the two sets of coding were compared and any discrepancies between the two sets of coding were discussed, definitions further refined, and the articles recoded. Simple descriptive statistics were used to examine features of the discourse such as frequency in news sources, media publication and references to the resilience attribute. The constraints of this method include firstly the assumption that ‘resilience’ is a key term of importance: it is beyond the scope of this paper to consider synonyms or metaphors of resilience in use in disasters. Secondly, our interest was in the resilience of communities rather than individuals: yet the resilience of communities is determined by its constituent individuals and understanding of individual resilience to natural disasters is also still emerging (Norris et al., 2008; Bonanno, 2012). Thirdly, what is determined to be a ‘disaster’ is defined by the media (Benthall, 1993; Franks, 2008) through its power to frame events (Fairclough, 1995). For example, the heatwave in Victoria in January 2009 resulted in 374 heat related deaths and 173 bushfire related deaths (Victorian Government, 2009) yet deaths from the bushfire generated far more media attention than those from the heat wave because of the higher news values of bushfires (e.g. Ungar, 1999). 4. Use and utility of the term ‘resilience’ in newspaper discourse 4.1. When is the term resilience used? Our limited quantitative enquiry offered some preliminary insights of when the term resilience is used, by whom, and in what

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context. There has been increasing academic scrutiny of the growing use of the term resilience as a ‘buzzword’ or ‘boundary concept’ (e.g. Xu and Marinova, 2013). Our study was not designed to rigorously test this quantitatively: rather we present these results to set the context of the use of the term resilience for our more detailed qualitative analysis. Our scan of newspaper articles showed the term resilience was used in articles that discussed specific natural disaster events as well as broad themes of natural disaster (see Table 1). The events which prompted most references to resilience were Cyclone Larry in 2006 and the Victorian bushfires in 2009. These two disasters were significant in their community impact (i.e. damage, lives lost) and were discrete events (compared to slower onset or diffuse hazards such as drought or floods) which presumably would increase their newsworthiness. The most common disaster theme was ‘disaster organisation and preparedness’. Our results showed resilience is used more often in regional or state newspapers than national newspapers (see Table 2). Highest use was in Queensland: the site of Cyclone Larry (the disaster event most often linked with resilience) but also the state with the highest risk of natural disasters (Queensland Government, 2013). However, this usage may also reflect characteristics specific to the region such as a parochial sense of state and national identity (Allen, 2013) and so requires further research. 4.2. Who uses the term resilience? Media discourse reflects journalistic practices and, in times of disaster, journalists tend to use authority figures as sources (Sood et al., 1987; Littlefield and Quenette, 2007; Cottle, 2013). Cox et al. (2008) note that disaster sources tend to be ‘male, authoritative and institutionalized’ presenting a ‘hierarchy of credibility in which expert voices were privileged over those of local residents’ (p. 401). Likewise Allen (2013) describes resilience in this context as ‘an aspirational rhetorical device used by outsiders to describe an inside situation’ (p. 12). Our sample echoed this trend as most news sources had an official status of politician, government or agency official or researcher. ‘Non official’ actors such as community members were also used as sources presumably to provide the humanising angle of the unfolding catastrophe. Sources who referred to the resilience of a specific community were generally from scales beyond the local affected community: for instance, the politicians or government sources were generally from a state or national scale rather than members of an affected

Table 1 Key events and themes of articles that discuss ‘resilience’ (n = 127). Topics Natural disaster event

Broad themes of natural disasters

Total

Date Cyclone Larry (Qld) North Queensland floods Newcastle storms (NSW) The Gap storms (Qld) Northern NSW floods Victorian bushfires/heatwave Ingham floods (2009, 2010) (Qld) Qld & NSW floods Western Australia floods Victorian floods Drought (multiple locations) Total Disaster organisation and preparedness Anniversary of disaster events Reflection on disasters Disaster research Disaster funding Total

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Multiple

Number of articles on this topics

Percent of total articles

26 2 7 1 1 15 5 4 1 1 4 67

20.5 1.6 5.5 0.8 0.8 11.8 3.9 3.1 0.8 0.8 3.1

29 17 7 5 2 60

22.8 13.4 5.5 3.9 1.6

127

100

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Table 2 Details of newspapers which publish articles that discuss ‘resilience’, by (a) type and (b) state (total = 127). Type, scale and location of newspapers

Number of newspapers

Number of articles in these outlets

Percent of total articles

(a) Type of newspaper

Regional newspapers State wide newspapers National newspapers Total

18 9 2 29

56 54 17 127

44.1 42.5 13.0 99.6

(b) State

Queensland (Qld) New South Wales (NSW) Victoria (Vic) Aust. Capital Territory (ACT) Tasmania (Tas) Northern Territory (NT) South Australia (SA) Total

13 4 3 1 1 1 1 24

46 28 21 7 3 2 1 108

35.0 22.0 16.5 5.5 2.4 1.6 0.8 83.8

Table 3 Use of the term resilience by different types of news sources from local, state or national scales. Type of source using the term resilience

No of sources from the local scale

No of sources from the state or national scale

Politician Journalist Government official or plan document Researcher Disaster or environmental group Community member Community agency official Corporate e.g. insurance agencies Celebrity

10 3 – – – 10 9 – –

25 23 17 15 11 -

Total and proportion at each scale

31

96

community (Table 3). Similarly, journalists from state or national scales tended to use the term resilience more often than journalists from a local paper referring to their own, affected community. We found newspaper sources tended to use the term resilience in different ways. For instance politicians and state and national bureaucrats focussed on the importance of community cohesion, associating it with mateship as an aspect of the Australian identity. As Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said; ‘I’ve just seen the great Australian story at work, people looking after their neighbours’ (Geelong Advertiser, 6.02.2010). Local scale officials, however, focussed on community structure and function to link resilience with disruption and ‘damage’ to ‘vital services’. Disaster organisations associated resilience with notions of learning and preparedness: either getting ready for a disaster or in learning from a recent event. Community members described coping mechanisms and discussed aspects of their daily life and routine and often ‘getting back to normal’. For example, one community actor described that post disaster ‘planning had been difficult’ but was confident he could return to ‘business as usual’ (The Age, 10.09.2010, Victorian floods). Politicians also used the term resilience to express support for and pay tribute to communities: ‘Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull praised exhausted emergency services personnel, saying Queenslanders were tough, strong and resilient’ (Gold Coast Bulletin, 6.02.2009, Ingham floods). Some such statements were interpreted cynically with comments about politicians’ ‘instincts to speak to the mood of the moment to conspire to stop us learning’ (Journalist, Sydney Morning Herald, 2.08.2010, Victorian bushfires). One local businessman also acknowledged the futility of talk to address the tangible needs of those affected: ‘We hear many stories of the spirit and the resilience of our fellow Queenslanders, but this will not be enough, they need so much more’ (Brisbane City News, 30.03.2006, Cyclone Larry). There was use of the term resilience by some sources with little explanation to provide context for its meaning. Victoria’s former Emergency Services Commissioner reflected on the Victorian

4 1

Percent of total articles 27.5 20.4 13.3 11.8 8.6 7.8 7.0 3.1 0.8 100

bushfires: ‘I’m a Pollyanna. I believe in community. I believe in community resilience. That’s what I’m going to work towards’ (The Age, 6 August 2010). Some usage even seemed frivolous: ‘a resilient and lively crowd gathered for morning tea at [bushfireaffected community] Kinglake West yesterday. . . flanked by rows of home-baked chocolate cream sponge’ (Journalist, Geelong Advertiser, 19.5.2009, Victorian Bushfires). We also observed a ‘resilience fatigue’ highlighted in an article published on the first anniversary of the Victorian bushfire. As the political leaders visited to bear witness to the devastation and the analysis of what went wrong cranked into overdrive, the most over-used term in describing how locals dealt with the aftermath was ‘resilience’. No one was resilient. The people wandering back to a blackened moonscape that was once their green oasis; the exhausted and defeated fire crews—indeed, all Australians—were humbled and frightened by what had occurred there’ (journalist, Courier Mail, 6.02.2010). Our results also indicated that use of the term resilience in the media may negatively influence the resilience of an affected community. For instance the above examples of seemingly gratuitous use of the term resilience, or its use as empty rhetoric, may serve to undermine resilience through an emerging cynicism towards its use in the context of disasters. (Here we are cautious to note the subjectivity inherent in such an appraisal: usage of resilience that appears to lack rigour from a scientific perspective may have meaning for the actors using the term as they cope with and make sense of their disaster experience.) Similarly there is growing concern that the popularity of the concept in the public domain—particularly news media which aims for simplicity and brevity over scientific complexity and elaboration (Bell, 1994)— may dilute the usefulness of the concept of resilience by inhibiting critical reflection noted with similarly board concepts such as empowerment or participation (Cornwall and Brock, 2005; Hansen, 2009). In addition, our results highlight potentially negative effects of labelling a community as resilient in the media if this results in

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reduced support to the community. Norris et al. (2008) caution that ‘that the concept of resilience does not erode into a justification for denying help to individuals or communities in crisis’ (p. 146). Our results align with concerns expressed by Allen (2013) of ‘outsiders’—those beyond the affected community— making assumptions that different communities have similar needs. This also aligns with vulnerability research that suggests that vulnerabilities and inequalities may be reinforced in the post disaster process to then ‘set up’ the next disaster (Bolin and Stanford, 1998). 5. Attributes of resilience in the media discourse Each of the three attributes of resilience, as defined in the analytical framework, was represented in the media discourse with the two attributes ‘structure and function’ and ‘selforganization’ both evident in 70 (55%) of the articles analysed. Less commonly occurring was the attribute ‘learning and adaptation’ observed in 39 (31%) articles. The attributes are not mutually exclusive with resilience frequently linked with all three attributes. For example, as one journalist wrote in response to the Victorian bushfires: The fire ruined lives, but in their aftermath has come a remarkable resilience and a determination to start afresh. What has hurt Victorians is now helping them to avoid another Black Saturday. Following the chaos of that day, we know there is a time to stay and fight and a time to go. But the greatest lesson that has been learned is that a community can overcome its losses by sticking together (journalist, Herald Sun, 6.02.2010). 5.1. Structure and function Disruption of communities has high news values (Sood et al.,1987) and we observed a strong ‘discourse of disaster’ through descriptions of disaster related disruption to the structure and function of daily life at the individual and community scale. Within the structure and function attribute, we identified three main themes: community physical and social structure, place, and returning to normal (see Table 4). 5.1.1. Physical and social structure Aspects of community structure were described in the media articles as both physical properties disrupted by disasters as well as more latent properties which emerged in response to disasters. Physical disruption of community structures was represented by ‘damage bills’, ‘insurance claims’, ‘personal losses’ and changes to ‘vital services’. These aspects of structure and function were also described in anniversary articles through reflection on recovery of structure and/or function since the disaster event. While abrupt disruption caused by rapid onset disasters such as fire ‘changes lives forever’, slow onset disasters such as drought were considered to reduce resilience through erosion of a community’s capacity to cope. Conversely drought was also credited with building resilience, as farmers could affect community structure by acting as ‘a force that drives future growth, jobs and prosperity’ even after ‘more than a decade of drought’. Changes to community structure—such as ‘urban sprawl’ which extends into the vulnerable ‘flammable. . . leafy rural urban mix at the edges’—were also discussed as potentially altering resilience characteristics. For example the Victorian Bushfire commission report was quoted to warn that future heatwaves could: ‘test the resilience of the expanding metropolitan areas unless forewarning and other adaptation strategies are successful’ (journalist, The Age, 6.12.2010).

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The cohesiveness of the community was also linked with the community structure in terms of enabling the community to withstand disruption. This was expressed through comments such as: ‘People build more resilient communities through better interaction with each other’. Here resilience was discussed as a latent characteristic that emerged in response to a threat: ‘You come through this with a resilience you never knew you had’ (community member, Herald Sun, 8.02.2010, Victorian bushfire anniversary). Individuals reflected on a cohesive community structure that, across all types of disasters, had been tested: ‘it’s these kinds of events that bring the community together’ resulting in community ‘bonds that have never been stronger’ (community member, Herald Sun, 8.02.2010, Victorian bushfire anniversary). 5.1.2. Place In the media articles, resilience was often linked to place such as ‘bush’ or ‘country’ (regional and rural): such attachment to place was inferred to both enhance and undermine resilience. Specific regions that experienced disasters—and their inhabitants because they were from that place—were identified as resilient. One local politician expressed: ‘Far North Queenslanders are a tough bunch and it takes more than a big blow to knock them down’ (The Courier Mail, 17.05 2007). The resilience conferred by place was often linked to experience (and identity) attributed to living in a harsh Australian climate: ‘It is a tribute to the Australian character that farmers have not been beaten by the relentless march of droughts across the centuries’ (Journalist, Weekly Times, 17.10.2007). This resonates with disaster and resilience literatures that suggests that attachment to place can enhance resilience through commitment to the community (Cheng et al., 2003; Paton et al., 2006), and furthermore, that extreme events can reinforce a sense of place through learning and experience (Measham, 2006). Conversely, a strong sense of place is also considered to undermine resilience when individuals, families and communities persevere in vulnerable situations for complex reasons which cannot be simply characterised as relationships between resilience and place (Lankester, 2013; Lewicka, 2011). Our results suggested that a strong link with specific places could impair resilience when such ties mean individuals and communities persevere in marginal places. For example, while farmers are often described as resilient because they have survived prolonged drought, farming communities can also cross a threshold from coping to catastrophe: ‘farmers and those living in rural areas are more resilient. . .but drought has been linked to an increased risk of suicide’ (journalist, Sydney Morning Herald, 7.05.2009). The devastating 2009 Victorian bushfires were noted—through a change in physical structure—to have ruptured the sense of place and so weaken resilience of these communities. One affected town was described as changing from ‘green oasis’ to ‘blackened moonscape’, which ‘humbled and frightened’ people (c.f. ‘Returning to normal’ theme). Other articles suggest that residents may be more resilient if they have weak ties to the area or can sever their ties and leave. As one journalist said, ‘resilience is probably best left to those who had very little connection to the area’ (Herald Sun, 22.01.2010). Yet relocation is not simple: those forced to relocate through natural disaster often suffer considerable grief and anxiety (Cox and Perry, 2011). Further, the political challenge of relocating communities was reflected in comments such as: ‘it would be a brave government that sets out to persuade people to abandon areas where their families have lived for generations’ (journalist, The Age, 2.08.2010). The resilience literature discusses the concept of rigidity traps (Holling, 2001) and ‘lock-in’, wherein positive feedbacks keep the system in a particular configuration, making exit difficult for individuals and communities (Allison and Hobbs, 2004). Often place is closely tied to the local economy and there may be significant political and social resistance to abandon its current,

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Table 4 Sample text related to ‘structure and function’ attribute and its primary themes of community structure, place, and a return to normal. Theme

Article text and details

Community structure (disruption of community structure; factors which support or undermine the community structure)

‘Driving around now, you wouldn’t know the utter devastation which had occurred. The community has been amazingly resilient. . .More than 1600 homes were damaged in the storm and 34,000 insurance claims were made.’ (Community member, Westside news, 4.09.2009, The Gap storms anniversary) ‘The resilience of the people of Cape York Peninsula is renowned. . .Much of the initial attention has died down but for many people, the effects of the cyclones continue to impact on their day to day lives’ (National politician, Atherton Tablelander, 22.08.2006, cyclones) ‘It’s a sobering journey – the long, winding road up to Kinglake, with the land and trees scarred from the Black Saturday bushfires and the empty house blocks a bleak reminder of the catastrophe that almost destroyed this community. Yet land and people are resilient and there are also strong signs of recovery in the leaves shooting from black trunks’ (Journalist, The Age, 10.04.2010) ‘That so many were killed trying to defend homes they had built their lives around only made the tragedy more awful. In the horrible days that followed, the nation was reminded again and again how the latest technologies and the most up-to-date of defence strategies melted away as the firestorms raged’ (Journalist, 6.02.2010, Victorian Bushfires anniversary) ‘The question again rears its ugly head as to whether we are smart to let our cities sprawl into that flammable and, many say, unsustainable leafy rural-urban mix at the edges. It’s here where many of us are vulnerable’ (Journalist, The Age, 16.02.2009, Victorian Bushfires)

Place (connections to country, bush, regional and rural areas)

‘Larry may have wrecked homes and industries but these far north Queenslanders are a tough bunch and it takes more than ‘a big blow’ to knock them down. ‘The people of Innisfail had never heard of the word ‘resilience’ before Larry. . .They all know what it means now’ (Neil Clarke, former Mayor, The Courier Mail, 17.03.2007, Cyclone Larry anniversary) ‘Australians of the Victorian bushfires have revealed themselves to be magnificent, ordinary heroes. Resilient under it all. They breed them tough in the Australian bush’ (journalist, The Australian, 12.02.2009, Victoria bushfires) ‘Regional and rural Victoria is the backbone of our great state. Our resilient country communities have survived more than a decade of drought and still they are a force that drives future growth, jobs and prosperity’ (journalist, The Weekly Times, 27.10.2010, drought) ‘Resilience is probably best left to those who had very little connection to the areas they were living in. It seems a tall order to expect a long-term resident to bounce back quickly after so many died’ (Journalist, Herald Sun, 22.01.2010, Victoria bushfires anniversary) ‘No one was resilient. The people wandering back to a blackened moonscape that was once their green oasis; the exhausted and defeated fire crews – indeed, all Australians–were humbled and frightened by what had occurred there’ (Journalist, Courier Mail, 6.02.2010, Victoria bushfires anniversary)

Return to normal (rebuilding, bounce back, business-as-usual)

‘We need to focus on getting the community to rebuild, and getting local economies working. We will rebuild the Far North; the resilience and strength of the people here will make it happen’ (State Minister, Atherton Tablelander, 11.04.2006, Cyclone Larry) ‘In the wake of devastating Cyclone Larry, Ian Gerard tracks the progress of resilient north Queensland families fighting their way back to normality. ‘Everything is looking greener than it was a few weeks ago,’ (community member, Weekend Australian, 15.07.2006, Cyclone Larry) ‘This has been one of wettest summers on record and it has presented significant challenges. But as resilient northerners we will bounce back and make the most of living in this great part of our country’ (former Mayor, Townsville Bulletin, 11.03.2009, flood) ‘It’s certain that in some shape or form Marysville, Kinglake, Narbethong and others can come back. They can’t ever be ‘like before’; but they can be a new kind of ‘fantastic,’ and more resilient than they were. (Journalist, The Age, 16 February 2010, Victoria bushfires anniversary) ‘While many people have said things will never be the same we have to believe that the fire-affected communities will return to a ‘new normal’ and thrive once again’ (Chair of Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, Sunbury Leader, 2.03.2010, Victoria bushfires anniversary) ‘In the immediate aftermath of Black Saturday, the Victorian and federal governments responded to the resilience of survivors with promises that ‘‘We shall rebuild’’. The royal commission, with good reason, thinks that the blanket nature of such promises was unwise. The commissioners are alarmed that Marysville is being rebuilt ‘without reference to the mitigation of bushfire risk’’ (Journalist, The Age, 2.08.2010, Victoria bushfires) ‘Murray River Paddle Steamers owner Vern Beasley said while planning had been difficult, he was confident it would be business as usual. ‘There’s a certain resilience out here in the bush. As long as there is no loss of life, that resilience will continue’ (Community member, The Age, 10.09.2010, Victoria floods)

albeit disaster-prone, configuration (described both in the Western Australian wheat belt by Allison and Hobbs, 2004, and MurrayDarling Basin by Walker and Salt, 2006). Implicit in discussions of place attachment and resilience is a question of scale: at what point do individual decisions about place following a disaster (i.e. whether to stay or go) scale up to community wide impacts? And how does this change if the community passes a threshold where it no longer can maintain its structure or function? 5.1.3. Returning to ‘normal’ Returning the community to its pre-disaster structure and function was a theme across disasters in the articles expressed as ‘getting back to normal’, ‘bouncing back’, or returning to ‘business as usual’ and even a ‘new kind of fantastic’. While many people have said things will never be the same we have to believe that the fire-affected communities will return to a new normal’ and ‘thrive once again’ (Journalist, Sunbury Leader, 2.03.2010, Victorian bushfires).

The idea of returning to a ‘new normal’ referenced in the articles resonates with Cox and Perry’s (2011) findings of a ‘discourse of recovery’ which tends to aim to reinstate the status quo. Our results suggested that, in talk of resilience, articles inclined to reinforce notions of incremental change with few references to ‘transformability’ or the capacity to create a fundamentally new system when the existing system is no longer viable (Walker et al., 2004). To some extent, articles observed that resilience depended on the nature, frequency and magnitude of the hazard and the time taken for recovery. Frequent disasters were noted to take a toll and even change a threshold: ‘The resilience of the people of Cape York Peninsula is renowned but this year has been particularly tough as they have copped the brunt of not one but two severe tropical cyclones’ (National politician, Atherton Tablelander, 22.08.2006). Recovery was also discussed in terms of shifting baselines in social memory of previous disaster events, such as: ‘this has not happened in people’s memory, the types of places where the water has gone’ (Local politician, The Australian, 29.03.2006, Cyclone Larry). Adger et al. (2005) suggest that such remnants of a

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Table 5 Sample text related to ‘self-organisation’ attribute and its primary themes of community capacity to support its own response, community spirit and identity, and external support provided to affected communities. Themes of self-organisation

Article text and details

Community capacity to support its own response (resilience is local; individual, group, or community preparedness)

‘We have made ourselves more resilient with the warden system we have in place. They will provide an information conduit which will make the whole recovery process a whole lot easier’ (local councillor, Herbert River Express, 6.02.2010, FNQ floods) ‘Part of that committee’s brief will be to look at how we can provide that emotional support to those residents who require it. . .residents’ resilience in the wake of the floods was to be commended’ (Shire general manager, Canberra Times, 18.10.2010, NSW floods) ‘Community resilience needs to be community-driven: while governments can support and provide leadership, the actual doing, especially the pulling through post-disaster, is something that communities must drive’ (researchers, Weekend Australian, 6.03.2009, Victoria bushfires) ‘Publican Roger Neville and his wife Emma had set up a disaster recovery centre. They were housing those whose homes were ruined. . . generally providing a warm, dry, haven for their community. . .They just saw their neighbours in trouble and went straight to work to do whatever they could. Ordinary people meeting hard times with real heroism’ (State Premier, Newcastle Herald, 7.06.2008, Newcastle storms anniversary) ‘People were fantastic. 80 per cent of our council staff came in within three days and they worked seven days a week at least 12hour days for six weeks straight. . .Some didn’t even have homes to go back to. I never had much of a reason to use the word ‘resilient’ before but that really describes the way the people of Innisfail have been’ (Mayor, Cairns Post, 21.03.2007, Cyclone Larry) ‘Black Friday was one of Newcastle’s darkest days, but through the darkness, the Hunter’s people created their own shafts of light with their deeds, resilience and spirit. For every tale of damage and destruction came a story of heroism’ (Journalist, Newcastle Herald, 5.06.2008, Newcastle storms) ‘In building a more resilient Australia, we should recognise that a lot of our response and recovery effort is reliant on volunteers’ (researcher, The Australian 8.03.2008, preparedness)

Community spirit and sense of identity (which means the community members support each other)

‘After Larry, Ravenshoe once again showcased how a strong and healthy community can bond together in times of adversity, building resilience, fostering community spirit, identifying and meeting areas of need’ (community member, Atherton Tablelander, 13.03.2007, Cyclone Larry anniversary) ‘Close communities are often safer and more resilient communities because there’s a willingness to look out for one another and help each other get back on their feet’ (insurance agency representative, Northern Miner, 8.10.2008, research) ‘Burdekin residents are being encouraged to foster a greater sense of community as they prepare for the 2010/11 storm season. Communities who work together will cope better if storms cause widespread damage’ (State Minister, Ayr Advertiser, 29.09.10, preparedness) ‘Queenslanders rally together in times of adversity, but I encourage all residents to get to know their neighbours and strengthen their community ties before the storm season ramps up. . .Communities who are in touch with each other are more likely to respond appropriately and in a timely way’ (State politician, Sydney Morning Herald, 21.09.2010, preparedness) ‘Honed by the Anzac spirit and courage shown by our Diggers at Gallipoli, Australians are a resilient lot, a hardy breed who look after each other when the chips are down’ (journalist, Townsville Bulletin, 10.02.2009, Victorian bushfires) ‘It’s taught me about resilience. . .A lot of other places in the world, their endeavour and determination and confidence for the future, would have been broken–but not Victorians. . .I’ve seen overwhelmingly great support networks, call it mateship if you like’ (former Premier, Weekly Times, 3.11.2010, Victorian bushfires anniversary)

External support provided when local capacity to cope exceeded (through relief, payments and on ground assistance)

‘A $4 million disaster blueprint for South Australia: The joint Federal-State government plan will fund projects to help build resilience around the state and include initiatives to research and map hazards before they happen and assist local government to carry out their responsibilities’ (journalist, The Advertiser, 8.10.2010, preparedness) ‘Huge wads of insurance money and hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal funding - as well as $18 million donated by everyday Australians - have helped the region’ (former Mayor, Courier Mail, 17.03.2007, Cyclone Larry) ‘Hundreds of relief workers are on the ground, putting tarpaulins on roofs and helping re-establish essential services. Innisfail and surrounding towns have been swamped with army, SES and Queensland Fire and Rescue service workers’ (journalist, Courier Mail 22.03.2006 Cyclone Larry) ‘These people are a resilient bunch but this year’s floods have been extraordinary and their call for help should not go unnoticed’ (Mayor, Tablelands Advertiser 18.02.2009, FNQ floods) ‘Some people had become apathetic after the intensive handouts and help from government after disasters such as Cyclone Larry, with emergency service workers swapping stories of public apathy when faced with disaster. ‘While most people are resilient and are prepared for the worst, we still find a number who would not even sandbag or move their gear upstairs before floods. . . They were hoping to get new furnishings or a handout so they didn’t bother. It does make you wonder if we offer too much’ (Regional Director of Emergency Services, The Cairns Post, 20.10.2010, preparedness) ‘There are financial and psychological limits and pockets of friction in a small community over who is getting what loans, assistance and support’ (journalist, Weekend Australian, 30.01.2010, Victorian bushfire anniversary)

disaster-affected system may provide a focus for renewal and reorganisation of the social–ecological system. 5.2. Self-organisation The human face of the disaster event, through the coordination of response and recovery, has high news value (Vasterman et al., 2005; Littlefield and Quenette, 2007) and we found there was considerable media coverage of the community response to a disaster. In the attribute of ‘self organisation, we identified three main themes: community capacity to support its own response to the natural disaster event; the sense of identity and community spirit which means the community supports each other to respond; and—a corollary of self-organisation—the external support provided to the community (see Table 5).

5.2.1. Community capacity to support its own response In our study the media articles humanised the disaster by emphasising local aspects of self-organisation. The affected community was often praised in articles for its capacity to: prepare to respond to disaster events through knowledge or communication systems; mount a quick local response to cope; or take advantage of strong networks with normative behaviour of reciprocity and altruism that enabled them to respond. Community leaders described in articles how this happened through new or existing formal processes, such as ‘warden systems’ or ‘information conduits’. Also discussed were informal processes such as the ‘phenomenal efforts of volunteers’ whereby individuals—creating local ‘stories of heroism’—responded when they saw a need, for example, by ‘housing those whose homes were ruined’. A related issue was the initiatives and calls to support community cohesion:

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where people would ‘look out for one another and help each other get back on their feet’ which was linked with community capacity to ‘spring into action’. Resilience was described as ‘local’ across all disasters and needed to come from the community: ‘while governments can support and provide leadership, the actual doing, especially the pulling through post-disaster, is something that communities must drive’ (researchers, The Australian, 7.03.09, preparedness). There was also a call to acknowledge the importance of the local scale and volunteers. Communities and police that will be the critical first respondents in providing shelter and food for those stranded. . . we should recognise that a lot of our response and recovery effort is reliant on volunteers’ (researcher, Weekend Australian, 8.03.08). The importance of capacity at the local scale is acknowledged in the resilience literature for fostering place-based knowledge, ownership and agency (Walker and Westley, 2011; Aldrich, 2012). Pre-existing formal and informal community networks and relationships are reported as more likely to produce a prompt response (Longstaff and Yang, 2008) and the importance of these connections is well recognised (Gortner and Pennebaker, 2003; Murphy, 2007). During a disaster these social systems continue to operate through established relationships and networks of trust but also catalyse new networks to distribute information and support (Dufty, 2012; Norris et al., 2008). The longer it takes for the community to recover—or the longer the community remains in a disturbed state—the more difficult it becomes to self-organise (Norris et al., 2008; Walker and Westley, 2011). This needs to be balanced against a ‘quick fix’ or rush to rebuild resulting in pragmatic but maladaptive responses (e.g. Larsen et al., 2011) or reflecting the vision of those in power rather than the aspirations of local residents (Cox and Perry, 2011; Allen, 2013). For instance after the Victorian bushfires, there was discussion in the media articles that one of the most affected towns was ‘being rebuilt without reference to the mitigation of bushfire risk’ (Bushfires Commissioners, The Age, 2.08.2010, Victoria bushfires)—which also links to the attribute of learning and adaptation and the tendency towards incremental, rather than transformative, change. 5.2.2. Community spirit and identity Community spirit is linked with resilience in the media articles through descriptions of communities that were well connected and had a strong sense of community which helped them support each other when disaster struck. The townsfolk were said to have ‘rallied together’ or had a ‘willingness to help each other’ which extended across community sectors: ‘the businesses here, they’ve stuck with us’. Communities were also advised in the articles to connect to become more resilient: reports of preparedness programs urged Burdekin residents to foster a sense of community because: ‘Communities who are in touch with each other are more likely to respond appropriately and in a timely way to residents in need’ (Emergency Service Minister, Ayr Advocate, 29.09.2010). Community cohesion as an important contributor to resilience is well acknowledged (Adger et al., 2005; Paton et al., 2006) however it can also undermine resilience if it reinforces existing discrimination of marginalised groups (Aldrich, 2012). A sense of community spirit was also linked in the articles with the Australian sense of identity as exhibiting ‘mateship’ and the ‘Anzac spirit’ (a reference to Australian military history and tradition) so the community would look after their own through ‘overwhelmingly great support networks, call it mateship if you like’ (state politician, Weekly Times, 3.11.2010, Victorian bushfires anniversary). It was also expressed that ‘Australians are a resilient lot, a hardy breed who look after each other when the chips

are down’ (journalist, Townville Bulletin 10.02.2009, Victorian Bushfires). The historical context of the Australian identity is worth noting as it helped to shape Australian self-consciousness in early colonial days as a response to a harsh climate and sparsely populated landscape, coupled with the egalitarianism of the emerging society (McAllister, 1997). The theme of supporting others in times of adversity features strongly in Australian literature, for example through descriptions of Australia as ‘the Great Lone Land of magnificent distances and bright heat; the land of Self-reliance, and Never-give-in, and Help-your-mate’’ (Lawson, 1974, cited in Page, 2002). However, such cultural doctrine can also undermine resilience by overplaying toughness and emotional repression, particularly pertinent for disasters such as drought which are linked to high rates of suicide (Alston and Kent, 2008; see also discussion on ‘Place’). 5.2.3. External support provided to communities By their nature, natural disasters can overwhelm an affected community’s capacity to cope and thus external help may be required. Media articles described how the extent or scale of a specific disaster challenged the response capacity of the affected community. External help required was through on-ground assistance to cope and recover from the disaster event, or preparedness planning coordinated from higher scales (which overlaps with the attribute of ‘learning and adaptation’). Onground help was articulated as funds from government and community donations; ‘huge wads of insurance money’; and an ‘army’ of ‘hundreds of relief workers’ comprising volunteers, tradesmen or defence personnel. In some instances external help was described as necessary because the disaster event was unexpected or ‘prolonged’: ‘people are tough and people are resilient but they will need some help to get through this one. It’s been quite extraordinary’ (mayor, The Australian, 29.03.06, Cyclone Larry). However, external support can undermine resilience if inequities in support across communities foster resentment rather than cohesion: ‘There are financial and psychological limits and pockets of friction in a small community over who is getting what loans, assistance and support’ (journalist, Weekend Australian, 30.01.2010, Victorian bushfire anniversary). The resilience literature acknowledges the need for both local as well as higher scale (state national, international) institutions for supporting resilience to disasters (Walker and Westley, 2011). However, there is a theoretical and practical tension in how best to build, integrate and execute support that builds resilience. Providing support at one scale, such as the individual or family level, may actually undermine resilience at others scales. Communities are diverse and different groups and individuals will generally require different levels and types of assistance (Fordham, 1999). Yet we found little consideration in the media articles of what mix of external aid and internal resources is needed. Rather, similar to findings by Colten and Giancarlo (2011) there were suggestions that resilience may be decreased by inappropriate or too much help from outside resulting in community apathy about disasters. Some people had become apathetic after the intensive handouts and help from government after disasters with. . . stories of public apathy when faced with disaster. . . we still find a number who would not even sandbag or move their gear upstairs before floods. . . they were hoping to get new furnishings or a handout so they didn’t bother. It does make you wonder if we offer too much (Regional Director of Emergency Services, Cairns Post, 20.10.2010) Norris et al. (2008) argue for a balance in the amount of support: too much support threatens self-efficacy; too little creates stress. Other research suggests that resilience can also be eroded by help, for example, that artificially keeps drought-afflicted enterprises

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Table 6 Sample text relating to the attribute ‘learning and adaptation’ and its primary themes of preparedness programs and learning from experience. Theme

Article text and details

Learning through preparedness

‘The aim is to develop and foster community resilience, particularly with communities that have experienced large-scale disasters. . .Red Cross is determined to adapt and respond as effectively and efficiently as possible.’’ (Journalist, The Herald Sun, 13.03.2007, Cyclone Larry) ‘We have to rely on the Burdekin community to be prepared. . .we have to be resilient and self-sufficient in these situations and the key is preparation’ (Lyn McLaughlin, Mayor, Home Hill Observer, 21.10.2010, preparedness) ‘Speedy recruitment and prolonged retention of volunteers during times of crisis is at the heart of a $4 million disaster blueprint for South Australia. The joint Federal-State government plan will fund projects to help build resilience around the state and include initiatives to research and map hazards before they happen and assist local government to carry out their responsibilities’ (Journalist, The Adelaide Advertiser, 8.10.2010, preparedness)

Experience (own and others’); history; education; storytelling; lack of experience as a barrier to learning

‘The fire ruined lives, but in their aftermath has come a remarkable resilience and a determination to start afresh. What has hurt Victorians is now helping them to avoid another Black Saturday. Following the chaos of that day, we know there is a time to stay and fight and a time to go. But the greatest lesson that has been learned is that a community can overcome its losses by sticking together’ (Journalist, Herald Sun, 6.02.2010, Victoria bushfires anniversary) ‘Flood events had taught the shire a lot. We’ve upgraded roads to make sure if we do get another flood there isn’t as much damage sustained to infrastructure. . . Another positive to come from the disaster was the flood warden system designed to better prepare the community’ (Local politician, Herbert River Express, 6.02.2010 FNQ floods anniversary) ‘Innisfail, hit by a devastating cyclone, is nothing if not resilient. As the residents of Innisfail and surrounding areas begin to cope with the devastation of cyclone Larry, they can take heart from their own history. Innisfail has been struck by disasters before and rebuilt. Built in an area susceptible to severe storms, the town has survived cyclones and floods and emerged if not exactly unscathed, at least more resilient for the experiences of its residents’ (Journalist, Daily Telegraph, 22.03.2006, Cyclone Larry) ‘The students retold stories of previous floods, which Ms Davis said was an effective method to reinforce her message. ‘There’s nothing more powerful than hearing other students’ stories. They were nodding and agreeing because they had experience with that’ (Libby Davis, Emergency Management, Ayr Advocate, 24.02.10, North Queensland floods) ‘To increase our resilience against the flood threat we must convince people not to deny the flood problem or treat it as being trivial. To fail here will mean that communities will continue to lose more than they should to floodwaters’ (Chas Keys, former Emergency Services bureaucrat, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 June 2007, NSW flooding)

going that would be unviable (Stafford Smith et al., 2007) or supports continued development of flood prone land (Bohensky and Leitch, 2014). 5.3. Learning and adaptation The attribute of learning and adaptation was the attribute least represented in the media articles. This may be due to the nature of the media coverage and issue-attention cycles common to news media (Downs, 1972; Bell, 1994; Crawley, 2007) or to the lack of news value in a concept such as learning (c.f. O’Neill and Harcup, 2009). It may also stem from the focus on the term ‘resilience’ by our search method, which may have failed to capture some articles that discuss learning but not in connection to resilience (c.f. Bohensky and Leitch, 2014). Where concepts of learning and adaptation were observed in the media articles there were two main themes identified: learning through formal strategies such as preparedness programs; and experience gained from disasters by communities (see Table 6). 5.3.1. Learning through preparedness programs The media articles described preparedness programs which may enable conditions which support individual and social learning (e.g. facilitated storytelling by community members), practical strategies (e.g. learning programs, preparedness checklists or databases of past events), as well as the potential outcomes of a learning process (e.g. increased knowledge through experience) as identified by Reed et al. (2010). Media articles also espoused the value of being prepared: ‘people who have prepared and planned for an emergency situation often have a resilience that helps them recover faster from disasters, both financially and emotionally’ (Red Cross project officer, Central Coast Advocate, 23.07.2010). Often programs described are directed towards individuals and families or business sectors and are facilitated locally to build a specific resilience around the most likely local risk. Well-executed local scale preparedness programs build relationships and expertise within the community as well as stimulating social memory and learning (Walker and Westley, 2011). Yet it is also important that local scale preparation can be

scaled up through support of wider national and international programs (Walker and Westley, 2011). Such preparedness programs make sense from a state perspective because the community sustains less damage through being resilient thus alleviating some of the burden on the state to provide disaster assistance. However, Allen (2013, p. 12) also suggests that the recent growth in ‘rhetoric of resilience’ is less about building ‘resilient’ communities, and more about transferring costs from states to private individuals’ to reduce state expenditure on disaster relief. 5.3.2. Learning through experience The collective experience of the local community in terms of social memory is important because of the depth and diversity provided by community individuals, organisations and institutions in terms of knowledge, values, and worldviews (Adger et al., 2005; Colten and Sumpter, 2009). Learning through experience with natural disasters was discussed as conferring both general and specific resilience to types of disasters. Specific resilience was considered to occur through experience with a specific disaster: for example, recent ‘flood events had taught the shire a lot. We’ve upgraded roads to make sure if we do get another flood there isn’t as much damage sustained to infrastructure’ (local politician, Herbert River Express, 6.02.2010, FNQ floods anniversary). While experiential learning contributes to resilience there are many other factors involved (Adger et al., 2005; McGee and Russell, 2003; Kapucu et al., 2010). Our results suggest learning from experience may depend on the intensity and frequency of disaster. For example, regular nuisance flooding leads to a different kind of experience and stimulates a different kind of learning compared to more dramatic disasters such as bushfires. Also contributing is the disaster experience and how an affected individual and communities interpret their experience, its causes, and their own efficacy (Spence et al., 2011). Some articles linked lack of experience with disasters with a failure to appreciate potential disaster risk, which is further entrenched by management practices. For example, one journalist suggested that most people ‘believe floods are a nuisance, not a danger. Ironically our floodplain management

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endeavours may have added to the complacency’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 14 June 2007, floods). Despite the use of learning terms in the articles in relation to resilience there is not clear evidence that learning occurs, nor of adaptation in the form of acting on lessons learned. References to ‘a new normal’ or ‘new kind of fantastic’ suggest an acceptance of a new state, but there is little discussion of learning which contributes to transformation to a more desirable state. There is also no evidence of what the resilience literature (e.g. Gunderson, 2010) describes as episodic learning which stimulates creation of new policies or approaches to solve the problems of a disturbance event. That said, stronger indications of learning may emerge with time: other analyses of learning and causal relationships with resilience highlight the challenge of detecting evidence for what is often a diffuse and slow process (Biggs et al., 2012).

6. Conclusion Natural disasters, as crisis events, are an important part of media coverage (Davis and French, 2008). One of the key aspects of disasters is how communities understand and respond to such events to be resilient. This analysis of five years of Australian newspaper discourses of disaster events provides insight into the social construction of resilience in a disaster context, resulting in both theoretical and practical insights. As a result of this analysis we can further enrich the descriptions of the three attributes of resilience theory central to this paper.  Structure and function: A resilient community is able to absorb the shock or recover to a similar structure and function while a less resilient community may result in the community crossing a threshold beyond which it changes permanently. In our study the media portrayal of the disaster impacts on community structure and function—across a range of communities and types of disasters—emphasised disruption to the community portrayed as physical and social impacts such as how much damage was done. Our findings emphasised the importance of place and how place attachment could build resilience through commitment to and experience of a specific place, but could also undermine resilience if individuals and groups persisted because they were ‘locked in’ due to a range of social factors. Returning to some sort of normal is a strong driver for the community although there is some recognition that ‘normal’ may be different to before.  Self-organisation: The resilience literature emphasises the ability of the community to organise and maintain preparatory, response and recovery actions, recognising that external assistance may even be required by self-reliant communities. Our findings showed resilience was connected to local, communitydriven responses to disasters, and was often synonymous with community spirit and cohesiveness. The role of ‘external’ support from outside the affected community was crucial in providing an operating environment in which communities could effectively mount a local response. However, the wrong type of delivery of external support can be a hindrance to a community’s capacity to build resilience.  Learning and adaptation: The resilience literature emphasises learning from past experience and knowledge of disasters, putting such lessons into practice, and avoiding past mistakes. It considers building of individual and community capacity to learn and adapt through formal and informal education and knowledge exchange. It emphasises being able to adapt, for example by accepting, embracing and driving change. Our study shows that media discourse tends to lack reflection on learning beyond formal preparedness programs, but the exchange of experience is valued: both directly through learning about specific disasters as

well as learning about the community which builds relationships within society and through place attachment. The inter-linked, embedded nature of these attributes is implicit in the many articles which discussed concepts related to two or all three attributes of resilience. Drawing on these results and our interpretation in light of the literature, we propose a simple conceptual model of these attributes: resilience resides in a system’s structure and function, while self-organisation and learning and adaptation exhibit a higher-level interdependent relationship: self-organisation is needed to maintain structure and function and to enable learning and adaptation; learning and adaptation allow structure and function to be adjusted if needed, or to abandon it (i.e. transform) where adjustment is insufficient (Walker et al., 2004), and also enable self-organisation. Thus, a community, by self-organising in response to a disaster, is better positioned to learn and adapt. The importance of self-organisation may also emerge from learning by the community. Unpacking theoretical concepts of resilience used in the literature reveals the tension between global disaster metrics which make broad assumptions about adaptive capacity (i.e. Alliance Development Works, 2011) and the richer dynamics of lived experiences. For example, while the resilience literature emphasises the need for communities to be able to maintain structure and function, self-organise, learn and adapt, we find that there are many qualifiers and paradoxes in attempting to apply these attributes, highlighting the importance of context and scale. A community with capacity to withstand disturbance could be denied external support that is re-directed elsewhere: fostering a strong sense of place may mean some actors cannot cope with altered community structure or function but it also make it hard for them to relocate. A label of resilience may prevent individuals from asking or accessing the help they need. These considerations reinforce the need for broad scale analysis of resilience to be interpreted with caution and be supplemented by in-depth study at smaller scales to understand local level dynamics (Rigg et al., 2008; Walker and Westley, 2011). Practically this work highlights the difficulty in communication of broad yet complex concepts, such as resilience, to encourage constructive response to disasters. On one hand, concepts of resilience may become popularised because of their utility but on the other, are prone to superficial use that may undermine the users’ intentions. Despite this, considering discourse of resilience suggests new ways of conceptualising disasters that may resonate with practitioners involved in disaster management as their approaches for dealing with disasters evolve (Crondstedt, 2008). For example, for disaster-afflicted communities to ‘return to a new normal’ characterised by more frequent and intense disaster events evokes the resilience concept of alternative social– ecological system regimes (Scheffer, 2009) and highlights the importance of defining resilience in relation to a particular regime (Carpenter et al., 2001); in other words, what precisely does resilience entail for communities living with extremes? What kind of normalcy can they hope to ‘return’ to? Our analysis was novel in its investigation of news media to interrogate resilience theory. While noting the assumptions and limitations inherent in any type of social data, we suggest that there is much utility in media analysis for disaster management. It provides data that is easily accessible and non-invasive at a time when communities and those managing the disaster response are under pressure and other forms of social science inquiry (such as surveys or interviews) may be less tenable. The scope of our analysis (i.e. nation-wide over five years) provides a foundation for, and complements, other disaster and policy research, such as studies of resilience to disasters in policy contexts (Aldunce et al., 2011). In addition, better understanding of the divergence of

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scientific and media discourse on resilience to disasters can help communicate this concept at the science-policy interface, particularly in ongoing disaster planning and policy processes in Australia and beyond. This analysis has illuminated media discourses around resilience to natural disasters, providing a lens into how communities think about, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters. There is a need for future media research that focuses on natural disaster events in more detail, including, for example, the role of issue-attention and media cycles (Carvalho and Burgess, 2005; Crawley, 2007) and the encoding and decoding of media texts by producers and consumers (Hall, 2006) to provide insight into how audiences interpret media discourse and how it influences their responses. Our analysis also points to a need to better understand how learning is cultivated from disaster experience (Adger et al., 2005; Ullberg, 2010). Furthermore, while this study focused on the term ‘resilience’ there will be synonyms or related concepts that can provide insight into community coping and recovery from disaster. Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.03.006. References Adger, W.N., Hughes, T.P., Folke, C., Carpenter, S.R., Rockstrom, J., 2005. Social– ecological resilience to coastal disasters. Science 309, 1037–1041. Aldrich, D.P., 2012. Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-disaster Recovery. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Aldunce, P., Beilin, R., Howden, M., Handmer, J., 2011. Disaster resilience: how different stakeholders frame resilience and how useful is the concept for policy and practice, Resilience 2011 – Resilience, Innovation and Sustainability: Navigating the Complexities of Global Change. Arizona State University, Tempe. Allen, M., 2013. Deconstructing ‘resilience’ in the aftermath of disasters in Australia. Senshu Soc. Capital Rev. 4, 45–64. Alliance Development Works, 2011. World Risk Report 2011, www.ehs.unu.edu/ article/read/worldriskreport-2011 (accessed 29.03.12). Allison, H., Hobbs, R., 2004. Resilience, adaptive capacity and the ‘lock in trap’ of the Western Australian agricultural region. Ecol. Soc. 9, 3. Alston, M., Kent, J., 2008. The big dry: the link between rural masculinities and poor health outcomes for farming men. J. Sociol. 44, 133–147. Anderies, J.M., Walker, B.H., Kinzig, A.P., 2006. Fifteen weddings and a funeral: case studies and resilience-based management. Ecol. Soc. 11, 21. Barnes, M.D., Hanson, C.L., Novilla, L.M.B., Meacham, A.T., McIntyre, E., Erickson, B., 2008. Analysis of media agenda setting during and after Hurricane Katrina: implications for emergency preparedness, disaster response, and disaster policy. Am. J. Public Health 98, 604–610. Bednarek, M., Caple, H., 2012. ‘Value added’: language, image and news values. Discourse Context Media 1 (2–3) 103–113. Benthall, J., 1993. Disasters: Relief and the Media. IB Tauris, London. Bell, A., 1994. Media (mis)communication on the science of climate change. Public Understand. Sci. 3, 259–275. Biggs, R., Schlu¨ter, M., Biggs, D., Bohensky, E.L., Burnsilver, S., Cundill, G., Dakos, V., Daw, T., Evans, L., Kotschy, K., Leitch, A.M., Meek, C., Quinlan, A., RaudseppHearne, C., Robards, M., Schoon, M.L., Schultz, L., West, P.C., 2012. Proposed principles for enhancing the resilience of ecosystem services. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 37, 421–448. Bohensky, E.L., Leitch, A.M., 2014. Framing the flood: a media analysis of themes of resilience in the 2011 Brisbane flood. Regional Environ. Change 14, 475–488. Bohensky, E.L., Stone-Jovicich, S., Larson, S., Marshall, N., 2010. Adaptive capacity in theory and reality: implications for governance in the Great Barrier Reef region. In: Armitage, D., Plummer, R. (Eds.), Adaptive Capacity and Environmental Governance. Springer, Heidelberg, pp. 23–41. Bolin, R., Stanford, L., 1998. The Northbridge earthquake: community based approaches to unmet recovery needs. Disasters 22 (1) 21–38. Bonanno, G.A., 2012. Uses and abuses of the resilience construct: loss, trauma and health related adversities. Soc. Sci. Med. 74 (5) 753–756. Boykoff, M.T., 2011. Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. Boykoff, M.T., Boykoff, J.M., 2007. Climate change and journalistic norms: a casestudy of US mass-media coverage. Geoforum 38 (6) 1190–1204. Brown, K., 2013. Global environmental change. I: A social turn for resilience? Prog. Hum. Geogr. 37, 1–11. Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Anderies, J.M., Abel, N., 2001. From metaphor to measurement: resilience of what to what? Ecosystems 4, 765–781.

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