Visual Representations of Disaster

Nepal was struck by two major earthquakes in April and May 2015 which gave rise to much media attention. Because of photographs' power to influence how people perceive significant events, we investigate how these disasters are represented visually through Twitter-shared images in three ways. First, we compare how geotagged image tweets are distributed vis-à-vis the reported damage, to see if a seemingly "objective" method of representation stands up. Second, with an iteratively developed coding scheme, we examine how images are differently produced and shared within global versus local populations and after each earthquake, with the idea that amplification "collectively instructs" what features of the event are most important. Third, we analyze how images from other locations, disasters, and time periods are appropriated as part of the "story" of the disaster event. We found differences in image popularity, with global twitterers emphasizing recovery and relief efforts in their diffusion of images, and locals emphasizing people suffering and major damage in their sourcing and re-sharing. We also found that globals were more likely to appropriate images, evoking lessons from Sontag about "the pain of others" [39].