The BP Horizon Oil Disaster: Media Accounts and Community Impacts

University Of New Orleans, New Orleans LA

Investigators

Abstract

National and international media have reported the British Petroleum Horizon Oil Disaster (BPHOD). This project explores the impact of the media accounting on the ways that communities come to understand the event, and identifies intervening factors that mitigate community adoption of the media accounting. The environmental problems literature has long posited that problem identification is a construction process and a critical element of that construction is media accounts. The research team tries to make sense of the impact of the media stories by completing a content analysis of the media accounting and by designing and implementing a survey to measure residents' understanding of the event. The survey includes measures of the respondents' vested economic interests, their stakeholder self-identification, the direct impact of the BPHOD on them, and their understanding of the specifics concerning the BPHOD event. The respondents are selected randomly within six communities spread across coastal Louisiana in order to "intercept" communities with different exposures to the BPHOD. The study tests multiple theoretical models describing the likely outcome of the effect of the media accounting on communities' understanding of the event. This project provides new knowledge that will help policy makers design effective plans for disaster mitigation and response.