2021 Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 19-35
The purpose of this study is to explore how community broadcasters are aware of passing on memories of disaster and how they practice this through broadcasting in a society where disasters repeatedly occur. Also, it reconsiders the role of community broadcasting by adding new post-disaster and inter-disaster perspective to way of understanding disaster that focuses on the series of events from the disaster's occurrence to the affected area's recovery. Twenty-four community broadcasters were interviewed in seven major disaster-affected areas over a 23-year period from 1995. The results indicated that the community broadcasters were consciously passing on memories of disasters starting from the time these disasters occurred and have been engaged in this passing-on through their broadcasting activities. On the other hand, the way broadcasters perceive these memories has changed over time. It was concluded that broadcasters communicated with the community who experienced the disaster by constructing and reconstructing memories through their programs and activities. The study also revealed that the practices of community broadcasters pass on the culture of disaster by (1) passing down stories, (2) serving as a way to pass on messages to the next generation, and (3) updating the memories of disasters. From the perspective of the post-disaster and inter-disaster periods, this study makes visible the fact that the broadcasters are transmitting the changing memories of disaster and suggests that, after a disaster occurs, it is important to position community broadcasting as post-disaster broadcasting rather than as normal broadcasting.
