My second contribution to Salon’s The Numerologist is here. It builds on Anthony Downs’s notion of the issue-attention cycle and notes how well that describes coverage of natural disasters, of which the Haiti earthquake is the most recent.
To augment the post, consider these data from the Pew News Interest Index (pdf). In their Jan. 15-18 survey, 60% of respondents said they were following “very closely” news about “a major earthquake in Haiti.” In the Jan. 22-25 survey, 50% were following news of the earthquake very closely. In the Jan. 29-Feb.1 survey, the figure was 45%. In the Feb. 5-8 survey, it was 42%. Then, in a Feb. 12-15 survey, 37% said they were very closely following “the aftermath of a major earthquake and relief efforts in Haiti.” The decline in news attention is mirrored by a decline in the public’s attention.
(I thank Maeve Carey for helping gather the media data for the graph.)
{ 2 comments }
What would your analysis have to say about a disaster that occurs over a period of weeks, not minutes or seconds? I’m thinking the Gulf coast oil rig situation.
Davidwonk: I think you’d still see a cycle. It might take a little longer to reach the peak, but I suspect that the peak would still be short-lived and that attention would turn elsewhere, even as the problem (e.g., polluted coastlines) persists.
Comments on this entry are closed.