From Broadcast to Biography: How Media Shapes Personal Disaster Narratives

This study examines the influential role of media in shaping personal disaster narratives, focusing on the author’s experience as a New Orleans resident during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Utilizing media framing theory, the study investigates how media coverage became integral to the author’s memory of the disaster, the way they communicate the experience to others, and how they processed the aftermath.

Hurricane Katrina, one of the most significant weather events in modern U.S. history, was not only a catastrophic natural disaster but also a deeply personal experience for the author, profoundly shaped by extensive news coverage. The study explores how specific media frames—such as images of breached levees, the racialized portrayal of affected populations, and scrutiny of the government’s response—became embedded in the author’s recollection of the disaster, intertwining public and personal history.

Further, the study examines how media acted as a conduit through which the author processes and conveys the disaster to others. In the years following Katrina, the media’s portrayal of the event influences the author’s narrative, shaping the language and imagery used to recount their experience. This media narrative bridged personal experience with public memory.

Moreover, the study explores the long-term impact of media coverage on the author's post-disaster processing. The saturation of media narratives intertwined the author’s personal experiences with the broader historical record, affecting their ongoing emotional and psychological response to the disaster.

This study underscores the media's powerful role in shaping both individual and collective memory, identity, and post-disaster processing. Referencing media framing theory, it highlights how media not only records historical events but also becomes an integral part of the personal narratives that emerge from those events.