Disaster narratives make for powerful story-telling. This class blog will be an online forum for us to discuss and exchange ideas about representations of disaster in the mass media, including both fictional calamities as well as factual catastrophes in history. By analyzing the choices made by content producers in the way they frame disaster narratives, we will consider how mediated presentations of catastrophe affect us as audiences. Some research questions we can consider include: how do presentations of catastrophe in the mass media differ? How does such diversity of representation affect viewers or readers differently? How has tragedy been marketed (or even exploited) in contemporary culture? and so on.
Writing does not happen only in college papers and assignments, and research does not happen only in university libraries and science laboratories. The Class Blog Project offers you the chance to better understand blogging as a form of public writing as you join this online research community, which can give you invaluable insights when you begin to think about your Commonplace essays in Weeks 6 and 7. Engage in discussion with members of this community--your classmates and your instructor--and use this online forum as an open space where you can write about and think more deeply, critically, and reflectively about our course theme and your own research project.
You are welcome, at any time, to post any related links or information to our course theme on the class blog, or even to share a video link to your favorite disaster movie.
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