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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Nov 13.
Published in final edited form as: Disaster Prev Manag. 2017;26(4):471–478. doi: 10.1108/DPM-02-2017-0018

Elections, news cycles, and attention to disasters

Candace Forbes Bright 1
PMCID: PMC6233877  NIHMSID: NIHMS994004  PMID: 30443109

Abstract

Purpose

Political elections, especially presidential elections, have a tendency to overshadow other events, including disasters. Response to disasters during elections, such as Hurricane Matthew and the Baton Rouge flooding in 2016, are often dependent on attention given to them from the media, as well as prominent political figures and political candidates candidates. The purpose of this paper is to explore how election cycles affect government response to disasters and ultimately demonstrate the dependency of crisis communication on media agenda-setting for presenting saliency of disaster risk and needs.

Design/methodology/approach

Responses from presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, as well as President Barack Obama, in regards to the Baton Rouge flooding and Hurricane Matthew, were observed using media reports and social media accounts. These results were matched with key events from the presidential election timeline.

Findings

There is a positive relationship between news exposure and attention, and also between attention and civic response. In regards to the 2016 presidential election, news coverage of the release of the Donald Trump-Billy Bush tape distracted national attention from the approach, landfall, and recovery of Hurricane Matthew. Information subsidies provided by the candidates directed the media agenda away from the needs of the communities and individuals impacted by these disasters.

Originality/value

Disasters are often assumed to be value-free because they are “blind to politics.” Here, it is argued that this was not the case in relation to these two disasters. Thus, the authors encouraged more research be conducted to clarify the impact that political elections have on strategic news coverage of disasters and ultimately on disaster response.

Keywords: Disasters, Political science, Coverage of mass media, Media coverage

Single Sentence Summary:

This paper reveals that presidential information subsidies during disasters, such as Hurricane Matthew and the Baton Rouge flooding in 2016, direct the media agenda away from the needs of the communities and individuals impacted by these disasters.

Introduction

Disaster recovery is often dependent on response beyond the impacted community, and as so, affected victims and communities are left at the mercy of news cycles to generate response to disasters. Research has shown that mass media determine which issues are given priority, and act as “agenda-setters,” especially within an election (McCombs, 1972; Golan, 2006; Sweetser et al., 2008). However, this can be problematic in the event of a disaster if other events are placed higher in the agenda. According to McCombs and Shaw’s media agenda-setting theory, “the press may not be successful much in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (Cohen, 1963). Thus, when the media agenda is dominated by political events, crisis communication is thwarted, and the ability to solicit recovery resources is foiled. This paper discusses the effects of inter-media agenda-setting during the 2016 presidential election on the coverage of two disasters: The 2016 Baton Rouge floods and Hurricane Matthew. Specifically, we introduce the media coverage of these disasters as an example of the intersection between political agenda building and media risk communication.

Studies of disasters and elections have traditionally focused on the psychology of responsibility attribution and the impact of disasters on elections (Arceneaux and Stein, 2006; Abney and Hill, 1966; Debbage et al., 2014), but have failed to capture the impact of media agenda-setting on disaster response during presidential elections. According to Abney and Hill (1966), the extent to which the disaster event is considered by both victims and non-impacted audiences to be a political variable is a component of political culture. Thus, the concern is not if the government has the material and political capabilities to react to the disaster, but also if the disaster is pertinent to political culture, given other events and topics in the media agenda immediately following the disaster. Another factor in the inclusion of disasters in political agendas is the psychology of responsibility attribution, which entails that even when the government cannot be blamed for a disaster, they can be held responsible for response to the disaster (Arceneaux and Stein, 2006). This response is often manifested in voter response (Arceneaux and Stein, 2006) and voter turnout (Debbage et al., 2014). This body of literature fails to capture the impact of elections on media coverage of disasters. Furthermore, it rarely focuses on national political effects, as it often focuses on local and state government.

As the salience of the impact of disasters is bi-fold – both depicted by the media and experienced by those impacted – it is important to understand the factors that influence the media risk communication associated with disasters. “Mass media serve as the primary source of information during disasters, especially prior to, during the initial impact, and in the immediate aftermath” (Garfield, 2007, p. 59). Essentially, the media communicate the risk posed by the disaster during these different phases, and communicate if the impacted community is experiencing an emergency – in a state of crisis. According to Situational Crisis Management Theory, disasters have to be communicated to stakeholders in a way that reflects the needs of the impacted community and solicits necessary accommodations (Ulmer et al., 2015). Disasters should be communicated beyond the impacted community in a timely manner, address immediate concerns and needs of those impacted, and be consistent (Ulmer et al., 2015). Thus, without the communication of the disaster to broader stakeholders, including to national audiences, impacted populations may not receive important resources for recovery (Spence et al., 2007). In this sense, the media lay the foundation for recovery from disasters as they communicate the needs of the community to the public; however, this risk communication is complicated when the coverage of news cycles becomes lost to overpowering media events and becomes at odds with media agenda-setting.

Media coverage of the 2016 Baton Rouge floods and Hurricane Matthew are presented herein as an example of how media agenda-setting can interfere with crisis communication, and thus diminish response to disasters. Reviewing the case of the 2016 Baton Rouge floods, The Times-Picayune, a newspaper of the greater New Orleans area, commented that “the national media, by and large, rendered the flood a secondary story at best,” citing Craig Fugate, FEMA Administrator, who stated, “You have the Olympics. You got the election. If you look at the national news, [the flood is] probably on the third or fourth page” (Scott, 2016). However, the Baton Rouge flood, if only for a brief moment, was in fact part of the 2016 presidential election news cycle. While some cite the press coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games and coverage of the presidential election as the cause of the perceived lack of coverage of the Baton Rouge flooding, this does not put into context the differences when comparing coverage of the flooding with coverage of Hurricane Matthew.

This paper finds that coverage is not simply limited when a disaster falls in the cycle of a presidential election, but instead, coverage is limited by the value a disaster adds to the candidates’ political strategy. If response to a disaster can benefit a candidate, he or she might attempt to increase awareness to the disaster, and his or her response to it. However, if a candidate does not conclude that bringing attention to a disaster will benefit his or her candidacy, then proper attention likely will not be given to the disaster from the candidate. In the case of the 2016 presidential election, attention to Hurricane Matthew simply did not have the strategic value for the candidates that the Baton Rouge flooding did, given the greater political strategy of other events, more specifically, exposing or responding to the Trump-Billy Bush Access Hollywood tapes. These tapes were perceived as more important to the election than Hurricane Matthew and its victims. Thus, the media agenda prioritized the presidential election over the need to communicate these crises, which is supported by the literature on the dynamics of issue agendas within media (c.f. Neuman et al., 2014).

Approach

To develop the viewpoint taken herein, we reviewed the national response to the Baton Rouge flooding and to Hurricane Matthew, as well as the influence of concurrent political events, including the Access Hollywood Trump-Billy Bush tapes. The timeline of these events are assessed, as well as how they affected one another.

Baton Rouge flooding

In August 2016, Baton Rouge, Louisiana experienced unprecedented, prolonged flooding, submerging thousands of homes and businesses. More than 146,000 homes were damaged in the flood (Baton Rouge Area Chamber, 2016), 30,000 residents evacuated (Yan, 2016), there were 13 fatalities (Farber, 2016), and 109,398 individuals and/or households have since registered to receive a portion of the $132 million in FEMA assistance (Broach, 2016). The flooding was the result of a “no-name storm” that produced three times as much rain in Louisiana as Hurricane Katrina (Samenow, 2016). The flooding took place about three months before Election Day, and over a month prior to the first presidential debate. The timing of the event, during the election season, but not too close to Election Day or the debates, allowed for it to be used by the candidates strategically. The disaster also provided the media content to associate with the election.

Hurricane Matthew

As one of the most destructive storms on record, Hurricane Matthew killed more than 1,000 people in the Caribbean (Drye, 2016), and then continued to make landfall in Florida on October 7, 2016. The economic cost of the hurricane was more than $10 billion before accounting for flood losses and business interruption (Rice, 2016; Drye, 2016), with FEMA disaster declarations being made in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (FEMA, 2016). The tropical storm developed into a hurricane on September 29, just three days after the first presidential debate between Trump and Clinton (Rice, 2016). The hurricane continued to tear through the Caribbean up until October 9 when it finally dissipated (Criss et al., 2016). The Hurricane reached its apex at an important point in the election, with the second debate taking place on October 9, just two days after controversial tapes about Donald Trump were released to the public.

The Trump-Billy Bush tapes

On October 7, 2016 as Hurricane Matthew was making landfall, Access Hollywood released leaked tapes in which Trump “talks about women in vulgar terms” (NY Times, 2016c). Following sharp criticism by Republican leaders, Trump issued a short video statement saying, “I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize” (Farenthold, 2016). Two days after the release of the tapes, the second presidential debate was held. The tapes were a major talking point during the debate (Moraes, 2016), overshadowing Hurricane Matthew. As Nichole Bauer (2016, p. 1) argues, “the views that Trump expressed about women more definitively placed substantive women’s issues at the top of the agenda in the presidential election.”

The Baton Rouge flooding response

Despite the US presidential candidates ultimately using the Baton Rouge flooding for political strategy, attacks were coming from both sides of the media on the lack of intervention by these political figures, as well as President Obama. In an article in The Atlantic, Russell Berman (2016) stated, “President Obama, other than signing a disaster declaration, hasn’t bothered to interrupt his Martha’s Vineyard vacation of golf and fund-raisers to address the suffering residents of the Gulf. Hillary Clinton has mentioned the flooding only in a single tweet, and Donald Trump has said nothing about them at all.” Clinton’s Tweet, two days prior to Berman’s article simply stated, “Closely monitoring the flooding in Louisiana and Mississippi. The @Red Cross is helping displaced families in need (link to Red Cross) – H.” Some also claimed the media was overlooking the flooding. Kathleen Herzog of the Daily News Journal stated, “After the flooding, the nation’s attention did not turn to the disaster,” instead, the media was focused on the election and Olympics (Herzog, 2016).

The Baton Rouge flooding, while criticized for the lack of media response, was actually highly politicized. President Barack Obama visited the city on August 23, 2016. Fox News (2016) reported the trip as “long overdue” and criticized that he was not there sooner. In response, then republican presidential nominee Donald Trump tweeted, “President Obama should have gone to Louisiana days ago, instead of golfing. Too little, too late.”

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, who was also forced to evacuate by the flooding, commented that the lack of attention given by the American people to the City of Baton Rouge and surrounding impacted areas was possibly attributed to the fact that the flooding was not named in the way that other disasters are, saying, “When you have a storm that is unnamed – it wasn’t a tropical storm, it wasn’t a hurricane – a lot of times people underestimate the impact that it would have” (Hersher, 2016). Edwards also spoke in defense of President Obama, explaining that the two had been in contact daily, and that his presence was not needed. In fact, Edwards added that President Obama’s presence would likely take first responder resources away from the people of Baton Rouge.

Returning to the presidential nominees, both Trump and Clinton were criticized for the lack of attention they initially paid to the flood victims. However, on August 19, 2016, Trump and his running mate, then republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, took a tour of the flooded community, which included pictures and video of the two republican candidates unloading supplies from an 18-wheeler, prominently in the media. In the video footage of Trump’s visit to Baton Rouge, he stated, “somebody is playing golf that shouldn’t be.” The then Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, opted not to visit the community, citing the governor’s concerns that the campaign and security needed would cause distraction and take away resources.

The media seemed to focus more on the presidential candidate’s response to the flooding than on the flood victims themselves, leaving recovery secondary to how the candidates responded. In essence, the political response to the disaster was more salient than the needs of those impacted by the disaster. This is a similar practice to coverage of disasters in the past. For example, researchers found that the media “framed most Hurricane Katrina stories by emphasizing government response and less often addressing individuals’ and communities’ level of preparedness or responsibility” (Barnes et al., 2008, p. 604).

In reference to the flooding, the Trump campaign implied that President Obama only visited the area because Trump had already done so, despite acknowledging that the criticism was not directed at the federal response, but directly at the president’s lack of presence (Wright, 2016). Essentially, many Republican-leaning news sources focused on the presidential response of Trump by being present in the community, and on the lack of presence by both Obama and Clinton. Meanwhile, many Democratic-leaning news sources focused on distraction that either figure would cause within the community, as supported by Governor Edward’s statements, and even suggested that Trump was using the victims for political advantage (or that the “essential relief supplies” he was unloading from the truck were playdough).

The first presidential debate was held a month after the Baton Rouge flooding, but the flooding was not once mentioned. Second debate, still no mention of the flooding. The only time the word “disaster” was used in the second debate was by Trump regarding education in inner cities, Obamacare, Iraq, taxes, Clinton’s tenure as Senator, Aleppo, NAFTA, and education for minorities. In all, Trump used the term “disaster” 16 times, but not in reference to a disaster (NY Times, 2016a).

Hurricane Matthew response

Despite more damage, more deaths, and a much larger population impacted, Hurricane Matthew was barely discussed in the presidential election, with the candidates’ only mention of the disaster happening on Twitter. Donald Trump said in a tweet on October 6, 2016, “Thoughts & prayers with the millions of people in the path of Hurricane Matthew. Look out for neighbors, and listen to your local officials.” Attached to the tweet was a one minute and 53 second video, with a statement from the candidate. Hillary Clinton tweeted a series of five tweets from October 4 to 11. One of the tweets included a formal statement from her campaign. However, the third presidential debate took place on October 19, just days after Hurricane Matthew made landfall, and the storm was not mentioned. Again, “disaster” was mentioned 11 times during this debate, including ten times by Trump referring to NAFTA, open borders, Clinton’s tax plan, Aleppo, Obamacare, and inner cities, and once by Clinton in reference to the economic situation that President Obama inherited (NY Times, 2016b). Haiti was mentioned in the debate in reference to the work of the Clinton Foundation, but there was no mention of Hurricane Matthew and the destruction it left in Haiti, including the death toll of over 1,000 Haitians.

There were no visits to affected areas and the candidates were not questioning the failure to respond by their opponents like in the Baton Rouge flooding. A major contributing factor to this lack of politicizing was the timing of the release of the Trump-Billy Bush tapes. The benefit Clinton gained from highlighting the tapes, and the necessity for Trump to defend himself, made the tapes the top priority for both candidates.

Results, discussions and conclusion

This information is provided to demonstrate the differences in coverage and politicization between two disasters: the Baton Rouge flooding and Hurricane Matthew. The major difference, as argued herein, was political strategy and news cycles. In the context of disasters, news coverage is important for response, provision of supplies, and recovery efforts. Despite having a considerably larger impact, Hurricane Matthew was not politicized in the presidential election to the extent of the Baton Rouge flooding. This observation aligns with media agenda-setting and the ability of the highly publicized presidential election between Trump and Clinton to dominate the news cycle, despite the effect of this agenda-setting on crisis communication (c.f. Cohen, 1963; c.f. Garfield, 2007). While it is widely established that elections play a role in both first- and second-degree agenda-setting, the comparison of the Baton Rouge flooding and Hurricane Matthew demonstrates different paths this can take.

While the extant literature on political elections and disasters focuses on blaming the government (Arceneaux and Stein, 2006), the impact of disasters on elections (Abney and Hill, 1966), and voter turnout following disasters (Debbage et al., 2014), there has been a lack of attention to media agenda-setting relating to disasters during campaigning. Wu (2000) argues that the media over represents news that is disruptive or that features powerful, well-known individuals. We find this to be true. Political leaders, including candidates for office, have distinct agendas and incentives for affecting media coverage and guiding the public gaze to their own benefit (Parmelee, 2013). We can almost conceptualize the impact of media agenda-setting that is influenced on political leaders as reverse first-level agenda building. According to Parmelee (2013), “first-level agenda building happens when journalists are persuaded to cover issues and other objects they otherwise might have ignored” (p. 2). In the cases presented in this paper, the media are ignoring events they may otherwise have covered in favor of political coverage influenced by the candidates. Through information subsidies provided by Trump and Clinton, the media agenda turned away from that which was favorable to crisis communication and toward that which focused on the presidential election. These information subsidies, although strategic and possibly beneficial to the candidates’ own campaigns and political bids, did not benefit victims of the disasters that were overshadowed by this media agenda.

Media agenda-setting influences what issues are covered, as well as how they are covered (Parmelee, 2013). While both disasters were wholly ignored in the presidential debates, the Baton Rouge flooding received a strong political backlash that Hurricane Matthew did not, even though the former did not have anywhere near the impact as the latter. Yet, the flooding still became part of the election narrative. The difference was where in the news cycle the two events fell. As a result of the Access Hollywood tapes, political attention and strategy was subsumed by the tapes at the cost of attention to the victims of Hurricane Matthew. Thus, we argue that while the Baton Rouge floods were covered, this was only because it fit well into campaign strategy – it was covered, but not as a form of crisis communication; it was covered to note the roles of the two candidates, as well as President Obama, relative to the disaster. Crisis communication, however, is dependent on the presentation of risk and needs to stakeholders. When coverage was dominated by the role of the presidential hopefuls and associated information subsidies, it was not meeting the needs of the impacted communities, as the emphasis was not on the much-needed recovery resources (Ulmer et al., 2015).

Given the proposed impact of the Trump tapes on the election, this paper presents that the news coverage of the tape’s release distracted national attention from the approach, landfall, and recovery of Hurricane Matthew. Simply put, there is a strong relationship between news exposure and attention, but also a strong relationship between attention and civic response (Martin, 2013). These relationships warrant further investigation and analysis. This also further supports previous research that the news cycle agenda is based on the inter-media agenda-setting process, instead of event value. While “compared to other types of global issues, disasters are usually assumed to be value-free because the causes of most disasters are ‘blind to politics’” (Yan and Bissell, 2015, p. 4), here it is argued that this is not the case in relation to the Baton Rouge flooding and Hurricane Matthew. Disasters can be used by politicians to strengthen their own image and to deter support of their components. From here, more research is encouraged to clarify what impact political elections have on strategic news coverage, the impact on disaster coverage, and ultimately disaster response.

Acknowledgments:

Research supported by NIH-NIMHD Grant No. U54MD008602 at Gulf States Health Policy Center, BayouClinic, Inc.

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