避险需求和情感抚慰:灾难报道的核心功能及变迁

Risk Aversion and Emotional Pacification:Core Functions of Disaster Reporting and its Changing Landscape

本文通过考察灾难事件中非亲历者的信息活动,提出灾难报道的基本功能为避险需求和情感抚慰。其中,避险需求包括应对性诉求和预防性诉求,相对情感抚慰功能具有先发性。社交媒体一方面使得官方机构能够绕过大众媒体直接满足公众的避险应对性诉求,另一方面也使得自媒体能够溢出性地满足公众的情感抚慰诉求。同时,我国重特大事故应急响应已经从以往的“条块结合”式响应制度转向以事件为导向的垂直响应制度,这些都对专业媒体的灾难信息报道提出了更高要求。

This article examines the information activities of disaster spectators and proposes the risk aversion and emotional pacification as core functions of disaster reporting.Risk aversion includes both risk coping strategies and preventive appeals,which is relatively prior to the function of emotional pacification.Social media enables official agencies to meet the public’s risk aversion needs without the mediating role of mass media,while we-media accounts satisfy the public’s emotional pacification demands overwhelmingly.In addition,China’s emergency response mechanism experienced significant change from a combination of a horizontal system to an event-oriented vertical response system.The changing media and governance mechanism have posed more demands for disaster report activities of professional media in China.