Response to Disaster: Fact VS. Fiction and Its Perpetuation "the Sociology of Disaster" - 2nd Edition FROM THE PUBLISHER
This edition of " Response to Disaster" provides an updated and more thorough version of the well-received 1994 first edition. The author adds new research and expands on areas only briefly developed in the first edition which disseminated the original research findings from several disaster research studies completed by the author. He provides the reader with a basic understanding of how people and organizations usually respond to a disaster in contrast to how they are usually perceived to respond, as well as a description of how and why the mass media helps provide both accurate and inaccurate information involving disasters. In addition, the author discusses organizational response to disasters and assesses future needs in research to improve the reaction to them so that mitigation, planning, and disaster response activity are more effective. Here he greatly expands the areas of theory of approaches to disaster.
Author Biography: Henry W. Fischer III is a member of the International Research Committee on Disasters, and is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Millersville University of Pennsylvania.
FROM THE CRITICS
Booknews
A third-generation disaster researcher challenges what he sees as a myth perpetrated since the genesis of the field in the 1950s that faced with an emergency, most people will panic and flee, become helplessly impassive, or loot. He sets out the empirical evidence in statistics and case studies. He agrees with colleagues that the mass media are a primary factor in spreading the myth, but goes beyond them to address what emergency agencies can do despite it. Graduate and undergraduate students interested in social response to disasters, the disaster research community, and people responsible for responding to disaster might find the treatment interesting. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
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