Newspaper coverage of the 2019 early warnings and flood disaster management in Tanzania’s habari leo and mwananchi
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Date
2020
Authors
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Publisher
University of Dar es Salaam
Abstract
News gathered and shared by reporters is useful to warn, control panic and help public recovery from a disaster. This research was about newspaper coverage of the 2019 early warnings and flood disaster management in Tanzania. The study was guided by three objectives: to find out the frequency of Habari Leo and Mwananchi newspaper coverage of the 2019 early warnings and flood disaster management in Dar es Salaam; to investigate the quality of news stories covered in Habari Leo and Mwananchi newspapers about the 2019 early warnings and flood disaster management in Dar es Salaam; and to explore opportunities and the challenges of journalists in covering of the 2019 early warnings and flood disaster management in Dar es Salaam. Agenda-setting Theory and Social Responsibility Theory provided useful insights for guiding the assessment process. Story cuttings about floods were collected from Habari Leo and Mwananchi newspaper and subjected to content analysis and semi-structured interview was also employed to collect supplementary data. For the case of the first objective; to find out the frequency of Habari Leo and Mwananchi newspaper coverage of the 2019 early warnings and flood disaster management in Dar es Salaam, the study found out that there was inadequate coverage of early warnings and flood disaster management stories. About the second objective which investigated the quality of news stories covered in Habari Leo and Mwananchi newspapers about early warnings and flood disaster management information, the findings indicated that Habari Leo and Mwananchi newspaper did not cover stories about the recovery process and most of the covered stories during flood disaster lacked a call for actions and background information about flood disaster. For the third objective which explored the opportunities and challenges of journalists in covering early warnings and flood disaster management in Dar es Salaam, the study found out lack of specialization, lack of cooperation between journalists and organisations dealing with management of flood disaster and lack of funds leading to journalists' failure to hold a critical responsibility of informing and making the public aware about flood disaster, as some of the challenges for the coverage of flood disaster in Dar es Salaam.
Description
Available in print form, EAF collection, Dr. Wilbert Chagula Library, (THS EAF PN4784.D57T34M82)
Keywords
Disasters - press coverage, Flood Control, Warnings, Newspapers, Mwananchi, Habari leo, Tanzania
Citation
Mwalo, Innocent (2020) Newspaper coverage of the 2019 early warnings and flood disaster management in Tanzania’s habari leo and mwananchi, Masters dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam.