Media and Visual Representation of Disaster: Analysis of Merapi Eruption in 2010

Abstract

Mass media increasingly play an important role as the foremost source of information for general society, including in the disaster period. Newspapers typically feature cover-filling headline photos of disasters. It signifies the main discourse strategy and represents the disaster discourse of the newspaper on the whole. This chapter aims to discuss the discourse on disaster in Indonesia based on a study of two newspapers that covered the Mt. Merapi eruption in 2010. This study applies the method of visual discourse analysis, paying special attention to how images construct certain views of the social world. The author argues that such media representation is rooted in the modern scientific discursive formation on Mt. Merapi and its eruptions, which is mainly sponsored by the state, and the discourse formed to promote some truth claims which are based on some binary-opposition views. Five main themes are found, i.e. the eruption of Merapi, evacuation processes, evacuation team, evacuation center, and damaged and ruined houses. The author finds that representations include: Mt. Merapi as a signifier of God, as a powerful-sacred subject, powerless and weak people, and mixed perceptions on the government ability to handle the emergency processes. Concerning the picture of the Mt. Merapi eruption, it is typically portrayed as a powerful natural phenomenon that claimed fundamental assets of local people. The second theme concerning the evacuation processes represent the despair of people who believe they have evacuated too late. The third theme concerns the evacuation center and shows helpless survivors waiting for external aid and suffering a lack of adequate shelter and aid management. The damaged and ruined houses theme also represents that the eruption has claimed the most fundamental assets of local people who have shown an `eccentric' attitude by refusing to be evacuated. Lastly, the theme concerning the representation of the evacuation team shows the state performing strongly in emergency response; depicted as always prepared to evacuate the residents, while community volunteers are largely ignored in the printed media. This study has important contributions for policy, formulating and developing early warning systems, mitigation strategies and emergency plans, as well as post-disaster recovery actions that holistically take into account cultural, social, economic and environmental capitals of affected societies.