Essay on Haiti Earthquake

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Abstract

On January 12th, 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Social Media platforms such as Twitter proved to be a real-time source of current information. With over 200 000 lives lost, the Haiti Earthquake received worldwide attention. Within minutes of the earthquake, Twitter reported the event in real-time, and within three days had more than 2.3 million tweets with #Haiti. The public knowledge of the devastating condition the nation of Haiti was suffering from, was further reinforced during the one-hour segment on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The initial show aired on January 20th, 2010, and potentially reached 43-55 million, viewers. On January 22nd, 2010, George Clooney and Wyclef Jean led a two-hour charity telethon, which featured speeches, performances, and a live telecast of the conditions in Haiti. Over 100 celebrities including Rihanna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay-z, Taylor Swift, Brad Pitt, and many more garnered 83 million viewers and raised $63 million in relief funds. On January 27th, 2010, celebrities such as Beyoncé, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, and Jay-z amongst many others released an album “Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief” in support of the catastrophe. Altogether, the events communicated the devastation of Haiti over 150 million times. A key hallmark to gaining sympathy for the nation of Haiti was its portrayal as a corrupt, conflict-driven, poor nation, which was evident in tweets and all the events. Thus, more media and social media coverage resulted in greater knowledge about the situation Haitians were suffering from. More knowledge and the advertised poverty of Haiti resulted in more than $15 billion in relief efforts. Unfortunately, this money was not put to good use, as a retrospective study following the event showed immense poverty and Cholera outbreaks.

Origin of earthquake

On January 12th, 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Port-au-Prince is the densely populated capital of Haiti which sits between the North American and The Caribbean tectonic plates. The earthquake was the result of a fault that lies between these plates, known as The Léogâne fault. The earthquake shook the nation of Haiti. Many aftershocks followed, leaving Haiti’s capital in rubble (Pallardy, 2019). The infrastructure was not designed to be earthquake resistant (Eberhard, 2010) hence the 2010 earthquake took more than 200 000 lives and caused between $8.1 billion to $13.9 billion in infrastructure damages (Cavallo, 2010). The death toll garnered worldwide attention as Haitians pleaded for aid.

Haiti had not seen such a devastating earthquake for more than 200 years. This leads to speculations that the strain in Léogâne’s fault was building up over several years, decades, or centuries. To avoid a high number of casualties, Haiti needs to build earthquake-resistant infrastructure -particularly in areas of high population density.

Introduction

For the second half of the twentieth century, television news was the primary source of global events(Nielsen & Sambrook, 2016). But now, with the rise of social media outlets, there has been a significant decline in television viewership. Although television news has not diminished, it is no longer the only source for global events (Ala-Fossi & Lax, 2016).

Twitter is an example of social media platform individuals is turning to, as opposed to television news. Twitter was less than four years old during the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. A tweet is a 140-character message which can be posted on the platform. By 2010, Twitter had more than 50 million tweets per day, with over 41 million active Users. A topic that was tweeted more frequently became a trend, and 85 percent of the time, it was a topic highly discussed amongst news outlets. Twitter played a more prominent role than other social media platforms in raising funds and communicating information, hence it is reflected in the paper, as opposed to other media platforms (Kwak, Lee, Park, & Moon, 2010).

This paper explores the concept of media and social media coverage that resulted in greater knowledge of the 2010 Haiti earthquake amongst the public. It also explores the portrayal of Haiti as a poor nation to garner sympathy. In turn, the high public exposure, and Haiti’s widespread poverty, provided higher monetary returns in relief aid.

Spread of knowledge

Public knowledge of natural disasters is directly proportional to the amount of media attention the disaster receives. The more informed the public becomes about the disaster, the more they are to sympathize with the victims. Most natural catastrophes are covered by television news. Usually, the larger the death toll, the more media attention the event would get. In the analysis of the number of viewers engaged, I will exclude the reporting on television news mediums as this is not possible to track. Instead, I will analyze the use of Twitter, a celebrity-filled charity telethon, a relief album, and The Oprah Winfrey Show in their role in spreading the devastation of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. This analysis will prove that widespread attention caused by these channels, lead to greater public knowledge of the Haiti 2010 Earthquake.

Twitter

With the emergence of Twitter and Facebook, spreading knowledge about disasters has never been easier. With a reach of more than 126 million users, Twitter proves to be a source of current information, in real-time, faster than any other social media platform ((Oh, Kwon, Raghav Rao, 2010). Twitter re-proved its fast service capabilities during the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. Before television news channels could report on the natural disaster, #Haiti, was already a trend word on Twitter (Oh, Kwon, Raghav Rao, 2010). In fact, CNN used photographs and videos of the event, that were posted by Twitter Users. Within 3 days following the earthquake, over 2.3 million tweets were about the Earthquake (“Haitian Earthquake Dominates Twitter”, 2010). Haiti was number four, in the 2010 list of top-trending words on Twitter (“#Hindsight2010: Top Trends on Twitter”, 2010). Although it is very difficult to conclude the total number of users engaged via Twitter, it can be concluded that Twitter played a major role in transmitting information about the earthquake to the world, particularly, Canada and the USA, where most of the Twitter interactions happened (Wortham, 2010).

Is this information reliable?

This analysis requires an understanding of Rumor Theory. Rumor theory is a principle that states, information ambiguity multiplied by anxiety results in rumors. Rumors can be reduced by having reliable sources spread information about the event. Twitter analysis of the tweets shows that 52.9 percent of the tweets were authenticating information, 12.3 percent of the tweets were about emotions, and the remaining 23.6 percent of the tweets were work statements (Oh, Kwon, Raghav Rao, 2010). There were rumor tweets that did arise following the Haiti earthquake. It was rumored that “UPS will ship any package under 50 pounds to Haiti or several airlines would take medical personnel to Haiti free of charge to help with earthquake relief” (Oh, Kwon, Raghav Rao, 2010). However, these claims turned out to be rumors and reinforced the vulnerability of information communicated over social media. To keep the information valid, NGOs, mainstream media (on Twitter), and celebrities were reinforcing the relevant information over Twitter. Hence, 52.9 percent of the tweets resulted in validating information.

To conclude, Twitter played a major part in spreading information about the 2010 Haiti Earthquake to millions of people.

Hope for Haiti Now, a charity telethon

Following the Haiti earthquake, celebrities and television channels came together to organize a charity telethon to raise funds for the disaster. The telethon took place on January 22nd, 2010, in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Haiti. George Clooney and Wyclef Jean led the two-hour event, which featured speeches, performances, and a live telecast of the conditions in Haiti ((Driessens, Joye, & Biltereyst, 2012). Over 100 celebrities including Rihanna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay-z, Taylor Swift, Brad Pitt, and many more were present at the event (“Hope For Haiti Telecast Reaches 83 Million”, 2010). Given the huge number of stars supporting the telethon it was no surprise that it got over 83 million viewers in its two-hour time span. Hence, given the extensive media coverage and endorsements by celebrities, more than 83 million people were informed about the tragedy in Haiti.

Hope for Haiti Now (album)

In addition to the telethon, singers Rihanna, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, and many more came together to make a 20-record album titled Hope for Haiti Now. The album was released digitally on January 27th, 2010, and debuted at number one on the billboard top 200 list. It sold over 250 000 copies and garnered worldwide attention. Again, the involvement of celebrities helped spread the knowledge about the devastation that the nation of Haiti was going through (Kwak, Lee, Park, & Moon, 2010).

The Oprah Winfrey Show

The then-popular Oprah Winfrey show also dedicated a one-hour segment on January 20th, 2010 to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. Celebrities lined up to show support and mourn the loss of loved ones in Haiti. On average, The Oprah Winfrey show has between 43-55 million viewers (“The Oprah Effect, by the Numbers”, 2011); the Haiti-segment, would also have had a similar amount of exposure. Thus, celebrities once again spread the devastation of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake to more than 43 million viewers (Cloud, 2014).

There could have been overlapped among viewers in each show, and so it is unwise to state the number of users reached. However, it can be concluded that through the use of Twitter, Hope for Haiti Now telethon, Hope for Haiti Now Album, and The Oprah Winfrey Show, the devastation caused by the Haiti 2010 earthquake was communicated over 150 million times.

Donations?

From the Tweets, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and mainstream news coverage, the exposure of the Haiti Earthquake and the devastating conditions were strong. Due to this, more than $15 billion were raised to support Haiti. $63 million of the total $15 billion were raised from the two-hour star stud charity telethon (Attkisson, 2010). $4 billion came from NGOs, a little over $2 billion from US donations, and $8.75 billion from other countries, all amounting to a staggering 15 billion in donations (Attkisson, 2010). Thus, more coverage of Haiti’s 2010 Earthquake via Social Media and Media resulted in more knowledge about the devastation of natural disasters. This garnered sympathy amongst the public and resulted in more monetary donations.

The portrayal of Haiti, as a Poor nation.

Between the years 1990 to 2014, earthquakes were the number one natural disaster in terms of economic impacts and mortality rates in Haiti. However, only one such event occurred: the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. This shows, that the 2010 earthquake had a negative large impact on Haiti. The INFORM risk index attributed Lack of Coping Capacity to be Haiti’s most serious source of risks (ArcGIS Online, n.d.). This means that Haiti has above-average levels of corruption, failed government policies, a low number of physicians, a low number of hospital beds, and little to no insurance. This established poverty in Haiti.

Due to the poverty and the over 200 000 deaths, the 2010 Haiti Earthquake caused an outpour of worldwide relief response. NGOs used positive emotions to engage the public and gave hope that the money will be used towards rebuilding Haiti (Muralidharan, Rasmussen, Patterson, & Shin, 2011). The television news outlet restated Haiti’s tense political environment, as well as the poverty Haiti, was in (Muralidharan, Rasmussen, Patterson, & Shin, 2011). This resulted in Haiti’s devastating conditions being discussed more than 150 million times, raising over $15 billion in donations.

Haiti: Where Did the Money Go?

Haiti received over $15 billion in relief aid from its worldwide attention during the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. But did the money help in rebuilding the nation?

Haiti: Where Did the Money Go? is a 2012 documentary that aired on PBS and describes the repercussion of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. The film shows the immediate relief efforts the NGOs offered and their impacts on the Haitian population. It shows the lack of coordination among NGOs in allocating resources. In October, following a small hurricane, there was a Cholera outbreak due to the lack of access to clean water (Mitchell, 2012).

Cholera outbreak

Cholera is an infection that causes watery diarrhea and is deadly because it can quickly kill the affected individual between 12 hours to 5 days after contraction. The 2010 Haiti Cholera outbreak resulted in 8534 deaths. Poor sanitation, highly populated area, and lack of clean water allowed for the infection to grow to over 600 000 individuals (Orata, Keim, & Boucher, 2014).

The film retreats to 20 months after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake and portrays that conditions still have not improved much (Mitchell, 2012).

Conclusion

2010 Haiti earthquake’s large death doll, and the nation’s history of poverty, garnered worldwide attention. This paper synthesis, that more media coverage of the Haiti 2010 Earthquake resulted in greater public knowledge about the devastating impacts it had on Haitians. More public knowledge resulted in greater monetary returns, a staggering $15 billion for Haiti. But ultimately, the money failed to help the Haitians to the proper goodwill it was meant to. Haiti is still under immense poverty and the results were little to non-existent. The power of social media raised the funds Haiti asked for but failed to generate the results it promised.

References

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Ala-Fossi, M., & Lax, S. (2016). The short future of public broadcasting: Replacing digital terrestrial television with internet protocol? International Communication Gazette,78(4), 365-382. doi:10.1177/1748048516632171
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Haitian Earthquake Dominates Twitter. (2010, January 15). Retrieved April 7, 2019, from https://sysomos.com/2010/01/15/haitian-earthquake-dominates-twitter/
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Attkisson, S. (2010, April 22). Haiti Earthquake Aid: Nearly $15 Billion in Donations. Retrieved April 8, 2019, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/haiti-earthquake-aid-nearly-15-billion-in-donations/
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Cloud, D. L. (2014). Shock Therapy: Oprah Winfrey, Celebrity Philanthropy, and Disaster “Relief” in Haiti. Critical Studies in Media Communication,31(1), 42-56. doi:10.1080/15295036.2013.864047

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