ABSTRACT
Corporations and government officials continue to downplay the impact of disasters and at times even deny that a disaster has occurred. One of the most flagrant examples of downplaying a disaster occurred during the early days of the British Petroleum Deepwater spill when a BP official claimed that “the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be modest,” a prediction that was quickly proven to be overly optimistic at best. The most significant breakthrough in disaster news reporting is the convergence of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, which provide the public, the media, and disaster responders with invaluable proximal accounts of disasters as they unfold. The use of social media can not only improve disaster response and provide the media with real-time coverage but also can make it easier for affected populations to challenge pro-establishment, routinized narratives with counternarratives of their own.
