http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/handle/19716/36 Search the Channel search http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/simple-search http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/handle/19716/4055 Title: Solidarity Trumps Catastrophe? An Empirical and Analytical Analysis of Post-Tsunami Media in Two Western Nations <br/> <br/>Authors: Letukas, Lynn; Olofsson, Anna; Barnshaw, John <br/> <br/>Abstract: This paper explores how newspaper accounts in Sweden and the United States, two geographically non-impacted nations, frame the short term response and recovery phase of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Utilizing 594 newspaper articles from four of the largest print media sources in Sweden (n= 370) and the United States (n= 224) we code for social solidarity, donor relief, geographic location as well as emergent themes salient in explaining how social solidarity is fostered and maintained. We find that social solidarity in geographically non-impacted nations was fostered through an intensively narrow and nativist focus and maintained through a collective response of assistance. Findings support Durkheim’s ([1893] 1997) theory of social solidarity but go beyond prior descriptive theoretical accounts by offering a predictive theory of social solidarity. http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/handle/19716/3561 Title: Past, Present and Future: Building an Interdisciplinary Disaster Research Center on a Half-Century of Social Science Disaster Research <br/> <br/>Authors: McNeil, Sue; Quarantelli, E. L. <br/> <br/>Abstract: Systematic social science disaster research began in the 1950s. The Disaster Research Center (DRC), the first social science research center in the world devoted to the study of disasters, was established at Ohio State University in 1963 and moved to the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware in 1985. DRC has played an important role over the last 50 years having conducted over 660 field studies. With this firm foundation in the social sciences, DRC is now evolving into an interdisciplinary research center. This paper reviews some of the field and survey research conducted by DRC on group, organizational and community preparation for, response to, and recovery from natural and technological disasters and other community wide crises, and then explores how this fits with DRC's evolving role in interdisciplinary research and education. http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/handle/19716/3217 Title: The Symbolic Uses of Disaster and the Lessons of Disaster for Individual and Social Potential <br/> <br/>Authors: Dynes, Russell R. <br/> <br/>Abstract: Paper prepared for presentation at a University lecture, Shippensburg University, October 26, 1989. http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/handle/19716/3216 Title: Thorns of Seismic Safety: Risk Mitigation Policy <br/> <br/>Authors: Aguirre, Benigno E.; Sousa e Silva, Delta <br/> <br/>Abstract: This paper's aim is to identify and discuss some societal problems that emerge in risk mitigation policy processes associated with earthquake, using the experience of California with SB 1953, the state building code. The intent is to bring attention to the embeddedness of mitigation efforts in social processes and the often unexpected and unintended effects of such efforts. The California experience with SB1953 is an excellent example of how no mitigation action is possible without formal efforts at "changing the rules" by willing policy leaders and legislators who may not be able to estimate the unwelcome impact of their well intended actions, in this case the mandated retrofitting of hospital buildings. Earthquake mitigation policies imply the involvement of diverse stakeholders, such as owners and tenants, seismic experts, government officials and planners, land speculators and developers. Each of these categories of people has specific interests. Even when they share the values of "life safety" they may react differently to the social and economic rehabilitation costs. To understand these differences in perception of various categories of people involved in mitigation, in this paper we explore the logic of building retrofitting from the perspective of hospital administrators, to show that it is an important albeit only partial determinant of the ability of hospitals to perform their services. There is considerable uncertainty as to what is the most efficacious way for hospitals to invest money to protect against earthquakes, and doubt that structural retrofitting solutions are cost effective. There is also consensus among hospital administrators and managers that the vulnerability of their hospitals is not solely a matter of seismically unsound buildings but also results in part from the specific characteristics of the hazard and their linkages to the social organizations of communities. Hospitals in the sample did non-structural seismic retrofitting of their physical plant to improve the earthquake-related safety of buildings, and complied with seismic code requirements for all new buildings, but for lack of financial resources largely ignored seismic structural retrofitting of existing buildings. Hospitals incorporate seismic retrofitting as part of their programs, but they optimize rather than maximize, doing what they can with the resources they have available. All mandated disaster mitigation efforts should involve a comprehensive and detailed assessment of the multiple effects such laws could produce, with emphasis on the institutions that would be more directly impacted by the laws and regulations, as well as remedies to the collateral damage the mitigation could create.