Despite this case probably just being my own fault, it still made me think about agenda-setting, and how often things don't get reported if they're not catastrophic and will supply the news agencies with days, sometimes overextended weeks, of coverage. I think too that with the earthquake in Chile, which is said to be one of the most powerful earthquakes ever, making it quite literally a bigger deal than the recent one in Haiti, it has received less coverage, even weeks after Haiti.
So why is that? Geologically, this is AMAZING. Any nerd with a geology fetish is going to want to talk about it and what that means in terms of science. But why are people not talking about it? If the agenda-setting theory is right, then it's because the media hasn't told us to think about it.
Therefore, we don't.
So I'm wondering, what other kinds of stories either get downplayed or just don't get reported. But then again I wonder, do people care? How many of us that did something for Haiti (donated clothing, shoes, money, adopted a kid, whatever) actually stopped to consider what we could do for those in Chile? And now, what about those in the Northeast? Sure, people won't be living in shacks and attempting to rebuild them, but more expensive repairs will have to be done to these American homes in order to make them livable again.
To get back onto the topic of the floods though, this is supposedly "round two". How did I not hear about "round one"? Again, I'll admit, it was probably my own blindness. But let's talk about this for a moment. I'm a journalism student, I talk about news with the people in that department at school, but this has never come up. Perhaps I should specifically bring it up and see how many previously knew about it.
Just some thoughts though.
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