Disasters & Accidents

Overview A majority of Americans see the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico as a major environmental disaster, but nearly as many voice optimism that efforts to control the spill will succeed. The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted May 6-9 among 994 adults, […]

Americans are critical of the government's response to the environmental disaster in the Gulf, but even more so of BP. Support for offshore oil drilling is down, though Republican opinion is unchanged.

The recovery efforts following the tragic earthquake in Haiti continued to be the main subject of interest in parts of social media last week—particularly on Twitter and YouTube. Blogs also discussed details of the quake’s aftermath, but the blogosphere paid more attention to other topics, including warnings from European countries about security risks involved with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Media focus in China turned away weeks ago from the May 12 earthquake to the Beijing Olympics, which begin in just a few days.

People say the Chinese internet is mostly an entertainment network. But looking at what happened online during the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake reveals a Chinese internet with a depth and soul and much, much more.

People say the Chinese internet is mostly an entertainment network. But looking at what happened online during the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake reveals a Chinese internet with a depth and soul and much, much more.

Senior Research Fellow Deborah Fallows has been living in China for the past two years, sending us whimsical dispatches as well as in-depth reports about the impact of the internet on social life.

Senior Research Fellow Deborah Fallows reports from China on how the earthquake recovery is portrayed on TV and on the internet.

In a second dispatch, our Beijing correspondent reports that Chinese TV is back to being the voice of the government. Meanwhile, the internet has become a more wild-west version of itself, with a virtual explosion of content that runs the gamut from informative to creative, irresponsible, angry, maudlin…

While the internet proved to be a faster and more varied source of news about the disaster, Chinese television reports have shown an unprecedented absence of censorship: "The faces in these productions tell everything. The soldiers are young; the grief is raw; the eyes are desperate."