IAMCR_Full paper_Truemper_060711

Stefanie Trümper, University of Hamburg Disaster Memory in journalism as part of the public discourse on climate change: A transnational comparison of media content, journalistic practices and constructions of meaning Paper presented at the IAMCR conference in the Emerging Scholars Network Section, 13. -­17. July 2011 in Istanbul 1 Introduction & statement of the research interest Gloomy future perspectives mark the recent discourse on climate change. According to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), published in 2007, the earth has become warmer in the last 100 years, especially because of anthropogenic influence (IPCC 2007: 10). Moreover international climate scientists talk about possible outcomes of global warming that may result in a global climate change. The most prominent examples of climate change predictions are melting glaciers, rising sea level and intensifying extreme weather events that may lead to (natural) disasters. In the meantime it has become clear that global climate change may impact on the continents, countries and regions in the world quite differently. Taking this into accounts both natural scientists and social scientists noticeably analyze and discuss the varying regional impacts climate change might have in the future. In this sense the question how vulnerable or resilient different regions around the world are becomes more and more important. This discourse has also entered the agenda of mass media and therefore the system of journalism. Recent research on media representation on climate change has revealed, among others, one typical pattern of reporting climate change: Journalists very often link the topic climate change with extreme weather events and natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes or storm surges (Weingart et al. 2000; Carvalho/Burgess 2005, Boykoff/Boykoff 2007; Shanahan/Good 2000; Mazur 1998; Ungar 1992; Smith 2005). Beyond the coverage in which current natural disasters are linked with future impacts of climate change as well as questions of risk und safety of regions are posed, journalism also makes references to natural disasters which hit a country or a region in the past. To a certain extend journalism then reminds us of the vulnerability of societies and their 1 living spaces. Hence, the imperceptible and invisible phenomena climate change is brought into the public mind in a quite idiosyncratic manner. Against this background the main purpose of this paper is to concentrate on this latter form of disaster reporting. Therefore a theoretical framework will be developed that enables us to focus on the questions (a) how these specific pattern of reporting wherein past disasters and future perspectives intersect can be analyzed and (b) how and why journalism construct these interrelations. Having said this, first of all the character of natural disasters will be discussed with reference to historical perspectives from the field of disaster research and by outlining the concept of regional geohazards. Based on that and for a more feasible investigation of the journalistic reporting regional geohazards, we will concentrate on the term disaster memory. In a second step we will deal with the theoretical framework that combines the two essential but still unconnected objects of investigation: journalism and memory. The major fields of research being addressed here are journalism studies, memory research and sociology of time. Finally we will introduce the empirical design of the study that compares disaster memory in journalism as part of the public discourse on climate change in two different regions located in Germany and The Netherlands. Both underwent similar traumatic storm surge events in the past: Firstly the North Sea storm surge, which hit the Dutch region Zeeland in 1953, and secondly the North Sea storm surge of 1962, which mainly affected the city state of Hamburg.1 Even though these two disasters date back between 50 and 60 years and the regions have not experienced comparable storm surges till then, journalism still updates or rather transform the past disasters into present. Concerning this matter, we assume that the topic climate change, especially the threat of rising sea level and related to that the increasing risk of intensified storm surges in the future, can be regarded as one current frame which activates the transformation process mentioned above. Overall we will analyze disaster memory as a journalistic practice and examine, to what extent it can be regarded as part of the public discourse on climate change. Whether the internal logic of journalism or the wider context factors like the societal way of dealing 1 In the case of the storm surge of 1962, which mainly hit Hamburg, there were 60 dike breaches, 315 people died and more than 20.000 people had to be evacuated. In the case of the storm surge in the region of Zeeland, there were 89 dike breaches, 1836 people died and 100.000 people were evacuated. 2 with climatic risks (e.g. adaptation and mitigation) activate or determine disaster memory is currently an open question which needs to be investigated. 1.1 Research aims and Research Questions The overarching aim of this research project is to address at least three gaps in the field of journalism and memory research. First of all, we will deal with memory from a perspective, which regards it not simply as references to the past or to past events. Agreeing with memory research, remembering in a functional matter, does not have exclusively something to do with past tense. Memory is a process, which takes place in present (Zierold 2006: 46ff.). However, it has become obvious that especially the prospective elements of memory have mainly been unattended and need to be regarded just as well as the retrospective elements. In this sense Harald Welzer considers future as the epistemic point of reference of memory and not past (Welzer 2010b: 9; Welzer 2010a). By combining disaster memory with the future-­‐orientated topic climate change we aim at investigating this circumstance. Secondly the role and function of journalism as memory agents or rather the journalistic memory work has not been fully investigated. According to the journalistic logic of selecting news and topics, the question why journalism updates memory, is still an area to unfold. Especially the specific journalistic practices of memory production and the professional and cultural context of this production process have hardly been analyzed empirically (Zierold 2006: 190 ff.). Thirdly, there are hardly any empirical studies, which focus on questions of memory and memory culture from a transnational perspective. In general, case studies refer to nation states and the nation-­‐specific paradigms of memory (Welzer 2010b; Kirsch 2002). The cross-­‐national character of this study will enable us to look at journalistic patterns and practices of memory beyond the paradigm of nation states. In this sense we can ask for similarities and differences and discuss them more openly. Thus, the following leading research questions will be addressed using disaster memory in journalism as an example: (1) How does journalism remember natural disasters against the background of historical and cultural shaped disasters experience in the country and to what extent does climate change influences this disaster memory? 3 (2) Which characteristics in terms of knowledge and interpretation can be found when journalism reports and remembers natural disasters and in how far are the journalistic actors influenced by and reflect the socio-­‐cultural, historical and geographical context factors in the respective country? 2 From the history and character of natural disasters to regional geohazards If we take a closer look to the character of natural disasters it becomes evident that they are not just single events with a starting point and an end. The repetitive character of natural disasters is most notably discussed in the field of historical disaster research: “[…] ‘repetition’ is likely to become a key term of historical research on disasters. It is the link between the past and the future, or -­‐to be more precise-­‐ between past experiences and models of the future in society“ (Mauelshagen 2007: 134; cp. Dix/Röhrs 2007: 216).2 Based on this, it becomes evident that if we deal with natural disasters, which date back various years, we always have to keep the wide range of sustainable impacts of disasters in mind. Impacts are for instance destructive elements like mortality rates or economic damages. But there are also regulative and constructive elements like processes of re-­‐building and safety measures, development of experience and knowledge. Furthermore, (cultural) practices like disaster management display to a certain degree how future disaster impacts are anticipated (Schenk 2007: 19; Murphy 2010). Considering the question how societies deal with natural disasters, one can say that there is a historical induced, continuous and complex relationship between nature and society or rather culture. Thus, Oliver-­‐Smith (2002: 25f.) speaks of the “multidimensionality of disaster”, especially when it comes to the question how vulnerable or resilient cultures and societies can be considered in terms of disaster impacts. Taking this into account, we need to differentiate between the event-­‐driven logic media and journalism follow while reporting current natural disasters and the genuine character of natural disasters described above. For this reason and with reference to geo-­‐science, we prefer to regard natural disasters not only as single events but also as elements of regional geohazards (Lüthje 2009a; Neverla 2009; Ratter 2009). Regional geohazards pose a permanent threat to societies in specific regions. In this sense they 2 Using the term „natural disasters“ does not imply that we make a distinction between nature and culture or rather social. For a detailed discussion on the terminology of „natural disasters“ and „disasters“ see: Jujena/Maulshagen (2007). 4 shape mental constructs of disasters in these societies because of the implicit knowledge that such a disasters can happen again at any time. According to Lüthje (2009a; 2009b), who developed a heuristic model for analyzing the memory career as well as the societal and mediated discourse on regional geohazard, the following elements characterize regional geohazards: Regional geohazards have a spatial reference in terms of the local effects they have on certain regions and the specific geographical context, which entails these effects. As one example one can regard the risk of storm surges along the costal regions of the North Sea in Germany and The Netherlands over the centuries (Egidius 2003; Mauelshagen 2007; van Baars/van Kempen 2009). The back and forth of destruction, reconstruction and embankment clearly display the non-­‐linear interactions between nature and culture which has been mentioned above. On the one hand, after the two storm surge disasters from 1953 and 1962 in both cases technological solutions were enabled, such as improving dikes and safety measures in Hamburg and building the famous Delta Works in The Netherlands. In both cases people developed a sense of absolute safety and in The Netherlands this way of managing the waterfront has even become part of the country’s national identity (Bollen 2009). On the other hand, the risk of flooding is still present, notably because of climate change and the risk of rising sea level. An interesting development which one can see in both cases -­‐at least in the communicative strategies of politicians and stakeholders -­‐ is a shift from „fighting against water“ to „living together with water“ in the Dutch case (Deltacommissie 2008) and „going with the tide“ in the German case (Lüthje 2009a: 7). This brief description of the two cases leads to the second element of regional geohazards, the socio-­cultural reference. This element describes the way societies deal with regional geohazards in different social systems or fields of society like politics, economy, science, mass media and journalism. Lüthje (2009a) refers here to the theory of practice or rather theory of constructivism by Pierre Bourdieu (1989) who aimed at overcoming the dualism of micro-­‐ and macro-­‐level while analyzing society and assuming an interplay of social structures and socialized subjects. Taking this into account, Lüthje emphasizes the interactive effects of structure and individual action regarding the central elements habitus, field and social capital. Thus the discourse on vulnerability and resilience of cultures and societies to disasters as well as the discourse on adaptation and mitigation can be regarded as an interplay of different ideas and interests either in the fields themselves or between them. Questions 5 about how disasters and hazards can be managed are on the one hand discussed according to the respective and often diverging expertise, competences, interests as well as rules of the different fields. On the other hand there is a constant exchange or rather struggle of power within and across these fields, deriving from the so-­‐called “structural and functional homologies”, which Bourdieu defines as “a resemblance within difference” (Bourdieu/Wacquant 1992: 105f.). While for example questions of how to finance safety measures is mainly discussed in the field of economy, this discourses also enters the field of politics where decisions have to bee made in terms of legislative processes. Journalism in this sense treats and frames the different discourses according to the logics of the journalistic field (Lüthje 2009b). Last but not least, regional geohazards have a time reference or rather imply temporal extensions in terms of past, present and future. This time reference results firstly from a traumatic key event happened in the past, which is recollected. Secondly the traumatic key event stays present in peoples mind because it has entailed to change our practices (e.g. perception of risk, knowledge of security). Thirdly in the process of looking ahead the retrospectives are anticipated in terms of coping with possible future disasters (e.g. by reflecting climatic risks). Based on these premises, in the following we will focus on journalism and its role concerning the perception of and the reporting regional geohazards. 3 From Reporting Regional Geohazards to Disaster Memory in Journalism Concerning the concept of regional geohazards and the question of the role which journalism plays in this context, we argue that at first sight the elements of time reference and socio-­‐cultural reference are most suitable to access the role of journalism. As far as we have discussed, one central aspect of the concept of regional geohazards is the construction of memory in terms of placing the meaning and relevance of past traumatic disaster events in the recent and future socio-­‐cultural developments. We assume that the discussions on climate change and its potential impacts which might lead to an increase of natural disasters, shape the journalistic way of remembering and framing past disasters. Therefore we propose to deal with journalists as agents of memory. In this sense we use the term disaster memory and regard it as an element of disaster reporting. In doing so, the question arises how we can comprise the coherences between journalism and disaster memory theoretically and analytically (fig. 1). 6 Fig 1: Considerations for developing a theoretical model for analyzing disaster memory in journalism (own illustration) 2 System and Culture: Theoretical approaches to journalism While investigating journalism and journalistic practices in general and in terms of disaster memory in particular, it is essential to state the theoretical point of view from which journalism will be regarded. In journalism studies one can roughly distinguish between two theories of a middle range: system theories and integrative social theories. Regarding journalism as a social system mainly derives from Niklas Luhmann’s theory on social systems (Löffelholz 2004). According to this journalism is defined as a social system, which is specialized on topics that are new, factual, and socially relevant (Meier 2007: 13; Scholl/Weischenberg 1998: 78). This perspective suits the structured analysis and description of the interior logic of journalism in terms of topic selection and presentation quite well. According to Bernd Blöbaum (2004) journalism has cultivated a range of structures, which can be described with the terms organizations (e.g. media enterprise, newsrooms, editorial departments), roles (e.g. hierarchical and thematic specialization of editors) and programs. Basically the term programs add up to how journalists practically and normatively select, present and impart topics. Blöbaum distinguishes between five programs: (1) Thematic classification according to editorial departments (2) Research practices and usage of information sources 7 (3) Selection of topics according to news factors and news values such as e.g. negativism, surprise/unexpectedness, predictability, cultural and geographical proximity, and continuity 3 (4) Presentation of topics according to genres (e.g. news, fact-­‐story, feature, interview etc.) (5) Checking and validating information and sources according to their correctness. The journalistic selection and presentation of topics does not happen in a vacuum or simply according to the interior logic of the journalistic system. Rather, during the processes of news selection a wide range of factors influences the journalistic actors, who are being mostly neglected in system-­‐approaches. In this sense there are several so called integrative approaches which look beyond the interior logic of journalism aiming at a comprehensive integration of the journalistic actors (micro-­‐level) into the organizational and external context factors (meso-­‐ & macro-­‐level). One option to analyze the influencing context factors, are so called hierarchy of influence models (Weischenberg 1994; Shoemaker/Reese 1991; Esser 1998). Mainly these models focusing on factors concerning media organization, media systems, society and journalistic actors (e.g. professional attitudes, individual routines) and ask in how far these factors influence the journalistic production of news. Namely the international comparative journalism research emphasizes the need to analyze journalism in an even more integrative way, especially when we want research and explain similarities and differences between journalism and reporting patterns e.g. in different countries. Popular concepts that target an integrative analysis of journalism are “journalism culture” (Hanitzsch 2007; Mancini 2008; Zelizer 2005), “journalistic culture” (Machill 1997; Kopper 2003; Kunelius/Ruusunoksa 2008) or general approaches which combine system theory with cultural approaches to journalism (Grittmann et al. 2008; Lünenborg 2005). These approaches regard journalism not only according to professional routines and practices but also as being embedded in the communication culture of a country. Following John Hartley (1996) journalists produce, either routinely or deliberately, a certain map of meaning. Therefore journalism can be regarded as a sense-­‐making 3 For a detailed overview on the range and development of news values and news factors see for instance: Galtung/Ruge (1965), Schulz (1976), Eisenegger (2008), Ruhrmann/Göbbel (2007). 8 practice within an actual cultural setting. This among others implies, that one needs to reflect to what extend journalists are influenced by ideology or rather “the cultural air we breathe” while they work and especially select topics (Hoggart 1976:x; Hall 1975: 11ff.; Schudson 2005: 186). To put it simply, it is assumed, that in society certain agreements exist in terms of what can be said or written and what is not accepted. There is a range of internal and external factors, which describe the (professional) cultures of journalism. To name a few: characteristics of journalistic actors, attitudes, research behavior, norms like separating news from comments, intentions of reporting (Esser 2010) as well as traditions of narrative traditions (Requate 1995; Requate 1999). Moreover media systems (Hallin/Mancini 2004; Hepp 2006: 100f.) and newsroom cultures (Brüggemann 2011; Trümper 2011) can be considered as influencing factors. All these aspects can be fruitful explanations for similarities and differences between journalistic cultures, journalistic practices as well as reporting patterns. This study will combine elements from both theoretical viewpoints mentioned above. The main argument for this combination is that we are interested in the professional journalistic practice and processes of disaster memory as well as the cultural influencing factors on these practices. We assume that journalists are being aware of the historical and cultural imprints of disasters, as we have outlined earlier. Presumably, the same applies to the specific national or regional ways of dealing with climatic risks and future developments for instance the risk and possible consequences of rising sea levels. Moreover the comparison of journalism in two countries allows us to identify and explain patterns of disaster memory and address the question whether these patterns are mainly nationally bound or rather transnational-­‐shared. 2.1 Journalism and memory: Journalists as agents of memory The significance of media and journalism in the process of social memory constructions becomes evident when we keep in mind that societies get access to most contemporary processes through mass media and public communication (Wilke 1999). According to Reinhard/Jäckel (2005: 96f.) it can be stated that media and mass communication (a) enables social memory [memory through media], (b) that mass media products themselves are memory products [media as memory], (c) that memory itself is a topic of mass media [memory in the media]. We like to stress here that mass media are not just regarded as passive storages of social memory but rather active constructors. 9 According to that, we integrate memory into journalism on the basis of existing assumptions and empirical studies, which have examined the societal role of journalists as “agents of memory work” (Donk 2009: 22; Zelizer 2008) or media as “generators” and “transformers” of memory (Reinhard/Jäckel 2005). In this sense journalists more or less decide what is regarded as being worth to remember as well as how and in which form and lengths (Donk 2009). This perspective is quite similar to the model of “memory-­‐
career” by Martin Zierold (2006), which is related to the logic of media making past events relevant to the present. This model encompasses three types of mediated memory careers, which a past event can make in terms of awareness (continuous relevance), oblivion (missing relevance), discovery (assignment of relevance) and mortuary (no memory career). The question, which arises here, is, according to which logics journalism then transforms past events to the present media agenda. Studies on journalism and memory have identified three major memory occasions or rather patterns, how journalists report the past (Edy 1999; Zelizer 2008): (1) anniversary journalism, (2) historical analogies and (3) historical contextualization. Carolyn Kitch (2002, 2005) for instance, has studied the role of magazine journalism during the last twenty-­‐five years and how narratives or rather memories about the American past are constructed. Journalistic memory from her point of view shares and contributes to the American “imagined community”. Further, in a more theoretical essay, she argues that both, memory and journalism need to be situated within culture. Then, according to Kitch, we will gain a better understanding of the fact that journalists constantly construct memory and “not just with regard to discrete events, but across time and place and types of journalism“ (Kitch 2008: 312). Another scholar who focused on memory in journalism in terms of identity building is e.g. Oren Meyers (2007). He analyzed the role of journalists as collective memory agents in Israel using the radical weekly Haolam Hazeh (1937–1993) as an example. He investigates the changing professional self-­‐perceptions of journalists according to the influence of this newspaper. Halliki Harro-­‐Loit and Ene Kõresaar (2010) studied anniversary journalism in Estonia on the example of three television news stories. They compared the social construction of time in stories that convey a story of the Estonian nation within the framework of national temporality. Concerning the case of disaster memory in journalism, Sue Robinson (2009) analyzed the media coverage of national and local newspapers on the 1st anniversary of Hurricane 10 Katrina and identified among other aspects, that media placed this disaster in the collective memory by making references to the attack of 9/11 (national coverage). In the local newspapers Robinson discovered that (a) references to hurricanes, which happened before Katrina were made and (b) the ability and ritual of rebuilding spaces after destruction were emphasized (Robinson 2009: 248). Not only with a focus on media and journalism, but rather from a long term perspectives on the intertwining discourses in different social fields, Christoph Mauch (2010) has studied disaster memory in the US from the Johnston Flood (1889) to Hurricane Katrina (2005). He found out that disaster memory is manipulated or rather suppressed because of economic or political reasons and that instead a kind of disaster-­‐optimism is communicated according to the myth of “rising like phoenix from the ashes”. Nevertheless, it can be stated that there is a relative understudy of journalists as agents of collective or cultural memory (Zelizer 2008; Zierold 2006). We assume that this is because major parts of the journalistic work are non-­‐commemorative but rather up to date as well as time-­‐ and event-­‐driven in terms of journalistic products and production processes. Moreover, the journalistic practices and routines of how journalists continuously link past and present as well as future are harder to conceptualize theoretically and to track down empirically (Meyers 2007). This aspect has already been emphasized by Lang/Lang (1984) who argue, that this “blurring of the time dimension has probably kept us from dealing more explicitly with memory as a social forth and, particularly, with the influence of the media on what is kept alive or revived” (Lang/Lang 1984: 126). Thus, we suggest that the elements time and temporality can serve as adequate variables connecting journalism and memory. 2.2 Placing (disaster) memory inside journalism: Connecting past, present, future As mentioned earlier, we (a) agree with the remark by Harald Welzer, that future is the epistemic point of reference of memory and not, as usually assumed, past (Welzer 2010: 9) and (b) with the assumption that memory is a present tense phenomenon (Zierold 2006: 150). This present-­‐ and future-­‐orientated view on memory is clearly in line with a number of perspectives on memory deriving from sociology of time. Notably Norbert Elias (1984) emphasizes the social meaning of memory as well as the constructive character of past. According to him, it is a human ability to remember past incidents and combine or rather synthesizes them with incidents that have happened 11 later and those, which are happening now (Elias 1984: 46). Based on this, he defines time as a social symbol and medium of orientation because we can hand over experience and knowledge from one generation to the next. This process leads to a better orientation and enlarges our possibilities of orientation in the present and potentially in the future (Elias 1984: 1f.). Beside Norbert Elias there are other relevant authors who stress the links between past, present and future when it comes to questions of memory. For instance Alfred Schütz (1972, 1971), with the concept of anticipated retrospectives and transmission of knowledge.4 More recent work in this sense has been done for instance by the sociologist Ellżbieta Hałas (2010) who outlines the relationship of time, history and memory from a cultural perspective, using the phenomena trauma as an example. She emphasizes the temporality of memory, which is not limited to the past in the present, but also encompasses the future. From her perspective memory consists in communicative acts transmitting reflexive knowledge about the past from the perspective of the future present. Furthermore and with regard to environmental questions, Barbara Adam (1998, 1999, 2004) has proposed the framework of “timescapes”. This covers, among other aspects, the interrelations of time, memory, human and nature. In this sense Adam concentrates on the relevance of temporal diversity, especially in terms of future sustainable developments. According to this time-­‐related understanding of memory one can address the question in how far memory can be regarded as a journalistic strategy or rather function for enabling e.g. orientation of audiences. This seems to be fruitful especially when it comes to questions of uncertainty concerning the topic climate change and debates on climatic risks and possible impacts climate change might have. A further argument for dealing with the temporality of memory is to find out whether memory in journalism tend to be more retrospective or prospective, a question which has not been answered empirically yet. Here we refer to scholars who has already concentrate more explicitly on the temporal references of media content in terms of the usage of past, present and future references (Bentele 1992; Bell 1998). This approach allows us to theorize analyze the different time horizons or spans in journalistic coverage. Moreover we refer to scholars 4 This is beyond the scope to provide a detail review of the diversified concepts of memory according to temporality knowledge. The author is working on literature of this topic.
12 who deal with the constructive principles and meanings of synchronization in media and with media as social time disposers (Neverla 2010a, 2010b; Beck 1994). In this sense we are able to discuss memory in journalism especially according to the paradigm of topicality. 4 Research design and methodology The empirical investigation of disaster memory in journalism is based on a comparative case study design (Ragin 1987; Jahn 2006; Blatter et al. 2007) using two similar past storm surge disasters in two countries or rather regions in Germany (Hamburg 1962) and The Netherlands (Zeeland 1953) as examples. As stated above we are interested in the journalistic disaster memory how the past storm surge disasters are framed with regard to climate change and climatic risks. We will use a methodological triangulation and combine quantitative and qualitative methods (Flick 2008). The first step of data collection will be a quantitative content analysis of articles appeared German and Dutch newspapers. We decided to sample the newspapers according to the categories regional/national und broadsheet/popular.5 The article-­‐sample will contain all articles wherein the past storm surge events, 1962 for the German case and 1953 for the Dutch case, are mentioned over a period of twelve years (2000-­‐2012).6 The reasons why we decided for this period is that one hand, the mediated discourse on climate change has increased after the year 2000 and especially in the second half of the 2000s (Schäfer et al. 2011). In this sense we are able to reflect events like the United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COPs) or publishing dates of the IPCC-­‐reports. With reference to the three logics of journalistic memory mentioned above, we are also able to include the 50th anniversary of both storm surge events [anniversary journalism], other disasters events like the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005) or the flooding in Pakistan (2010) [historical analogies] and other severe storm surges 5 The newspaper sample contains so far the following newspapers: Germany: Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt (broadsheets from two political stances), Bild-­Zeitung (popular), Hamburger Abendblatt (regional). The Netherlands: De Volkskrant, NRC Handelsblad (broadsheets from two political stances), De Telegraaf (popular) and Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant (regional). 6 This comparably first rough search via electronic databases enables us in a second step to refine our search by using several combination of key words (e.g. storm surge 1962 [1953] AND climate change; strom surge AND climate change). 13 which hit the respective country or region after 1953 and 1962 [historical contextualization]. In the quantitative analysis we will measure formal variables like e.g. number of published articles, lengths of articles, editorial departments, genres etc. With regard to content variables we are interested in measuring among others the ratio of past, present and future references, main-­‐topics and minor-­‐issues in the articles (e.g. past disasters, climatic risks, rising sea level, dike constructions and security measures, risk insurance). Furthermore variables like actors being quoted and connotations concerning the relationship between human/culture and nature will be included. Depending on these first results, the second step will be a qualitative content analyses of selected articles. One option might be to analyze a sub sample of those articles wherein the past disasters are linked to climate change. The third parts of the study are topic-­‐guided qualitative interviews with journalists from both countries. In these interviews we are mainly focusing questions of the journalistic production of disaster memory and the underlying influencing factors. We will for instance discover the significance and role of (disaster) memory according to the daily business and the production practices and processes. Furthermore we will draw questions on perception, knowledge and awareness of the past disasters and climate change. Another aspect, which is going to be addressed, is the question of preparedness in journalism in terms of disaster reporting (e.g. newsroom concepts). 5 Conclusion To summarize the state of the research project described in this paper, it can be said that the access to memory in journalism proposed here, can be regarded as exceptional, especially the aim relating two components like disasters, which happened long time ago to the future orientated topic climate change. Considering this, the paper has not elaborated that detailed yet the coherence between social memory and social oblivion and how this process can be tracked down theoretically. So in this sense we need to think also of the question to what extent journalism is both, an agent of memory as well as an agent of oblivion. Especially when negative memory -­‐like the destructive character of disasters -­‐ is not welcome in terms of political or economical decision making processes. Or, vice versa: How do we have to classify the situation if only the positive connotations -­‐ like having mastered disasters -­‐ are being mentioned? 14 If we take the cultural role and function of journalistic memory seriously especially in the context of environmental communication, we have to think of further questions: How sustainable can journalism report regional geohazards according to its interior logic and external influencing factors? Can disaster memory, as far as we have started to design it in this paper, be regarded as a possibility to keep the public aware of (natural) hazards? In general these questions show that we (a) have to deal with the idea and term sustainable memory more detailed in our research on disaster memory and (b) have to sharpen this idea step by step. Since -­‐ in the epistemological sense -­‐ the future oriented memory concept mentioned earlier is the core of our theoretical approach to disaster memory, we clearly have to emphasize the temporal dimension and function of sustainability within our memory conception in our further conceptual work and research. 5 References Adam, Barbara (1998): Timescapes of Modernity. The environment and invisible hazards. London: Routledge. Adam, Barbara (1999): Naturzeiten, Kulturzeiten und Gender: Zum Konzept "Timescape“. In: Hofmeister, Sabine; Meike, Spitzner (Hrsg.): Zeitlandschaften. Perspektiven öko-­‐sozialer Zeitpolitik. Stuttgart: Hirzel, 35-­‐59. Adam, Barbara (2004): Memory of Futures. In: KronoScope. Vol. 4 (2), 297-­‐315. Brüggemann, Michael (2011): Journalistik als Kulturanalyse: Redaktionskulturen als Schlüsselkonzept zur Erforschung journalistischer Praxis. In: Jandura, Olaf; Quandt, Thorsten; Vogelgesang, Jens (Hrsg.) (2011): Methoden der Journalismusforschung. 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