Mental health and media links based on five essential elements to promote psychosocial support for victims: the case of the earthquake in Chile in 2010.

Publisher: Blackwell Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 7702072 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1467-7717 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 03613666 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Disasters Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: Oxford : Blackwell
Original Publication: Oxford, Elmsford, N. Y., Pergamon Press.

Disasters* ; Earthquakes* ; Mass Media* ; Mental Health*; Disaster Victims/*psychology; Chile ; Humans

This paper reviews the role of news with respect to the mental health of a population exposed to a disaster. It is based on the five essential elements of psychosocial care presented by Stevan E. Hobfoll et al. (2007) that can be introduced after a potentially traumatic event: promoting a sense of safety, calming, self and collective efficacy, connectedness, and hope. This study developed a method to relate these elements to television coverage and applied it to the stories (n=1,169) aired by the main networks in Chile in the 72 hours after an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck on 27 February 2010. Of the five elements, promoting a sense of safety occurred most often (82.72 per cent), whereas the others were barely present (less than 10 per cent). The study argues that these elements can increase the possibility of framing the news, given that the audience watching can also be affected by a disaster.
(© 2019 The Author(s). Disasters © Overseas Development Institute, 2019.)

Keywords: Chile; disaster response; earthquake; journalism; media; mental health; television; tsunami

Date Created: 20190618 Date Completed: 20190919 Latest Revision: 20190919

20240628

10.1111/disa.12377

31206228