Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima: An analysis of traditional and new media coverage of nuclear accidents and radiation

Abstract

The Internet made an enormous amount of information on Fukushima available, far more than was provided by the media during the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. While journalists contributed much of the news about Fukushima, citizens actively participated in blogs and on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, exchanging views and directing others to important news articles or videos. The Internet also gave the traditional media many opportunities for better coverage, with more space for articles and the ability to publish interactive graphics and videos. Coverage in The New York Times, for example, included an abundance of background and explanatory information about the Fukushima accident and radiation releases in multiple formats and gave readers the opportunity to better understand technical information. Consequently, radiation coverage of the Fukushima accident was better than that of the Three Mile Island or Chernobyl accidents. Television reporting, however, still presented some problems.

Impact of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident on Belief in Rumors: The Role of Risk Perception and Communication

“…Friedman [59] showed that the Internet made an enormous amount of information on Fukushima available, far more than was provided by the media during the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. Moreover, citizens actively participated in blogs and on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, exchanging views and directing others to important news articles or videos.…”

Tweeting disaster: an analysis of online discourse about nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident

“…The event also prompted the U.S. electric industry to implement additional safety enhancements for existing reactors and other facilities. However, public concern about the safety of nuclear power was roused by this accident, as it was by the nuclear disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl [Friedman, 2011]. One major concern held by those opposing nuclear energy is that a foolproof way to safely dispose of nuclear waste has not yet been discovered.…”

“…Twitter became one of the most popular media platforms in which people shared opinions about the incidents at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and deliberated on the perceived risks and implications for nuclear power more generally [Kittle Autry and Kelly, 2012;Binder, 2012;Friedman, 2011;Kinsella, 2012]. However, an analysis of a selected sample of tweets with the keyword "Fukushima Daiichi" or its variants showed that only a small proportion of these tweets contained some mentions of the risks or hazards caused by the accident [Binder, 2012].…”

“…An exploratory content analysis of the New York Times archived articles using the search terms "Fukushima" shows that many articles expressed negative sentiments with focused on widespread concerns for children and workers' exposure to radiation [Friedman, 2011]. Television coverage of the Fukushima accident was also observed to highlight the potential catastrophic consequences of leaking radiation [Friedman, 2011]. Although we could have foreseen negative sentiment dominating the early conversations of this disaster online, it was premature to anticipate how the tone of Twitter discussions would vary over one year after the disaster.…”

La vigencia de los patrones clásicos de cobertura de las catástrofes naturales en la era de Internet

“…Son, en definitiva, destinos frecuentes tanto para reunir datos como para difundir información relevante de última hora (Vieweg, 2010). Internet y las redes sociales, por otro lado, dan más oportunidades a los medios tradicionales en la cobertura de catástrofes puesto que ofrecen más espacio para los artículos y la posibilidad de incluir gráficos interactivos y vídeos, entre otros elementos (Friedman, 2011).…”