The Media Representation of Fires in Sicily and Sardinia: Analysing Data from the Insulander Project

Environmental disasters have become an object of analysis from a communicative point of view, representing a compulsory step in those who wish to deal with disaster management. The aim of this paper is to analyse the media representation of fires in Sardinia and Sicily with a focus on the characteristics of their narration in online newspapers. The paper is part of the Insulander project (Insulander - INvestigating the Strategic role of commUnication for resiLient islAnds copiNg DisastErs Risk management, Prin 2022 PNRR, Next GenerationEU), whose objective is to identify strengths and weaknesses in dealing with risks and disasters, considering management policies, communication of public institutions and media coverage with the aim of developing community guidelines for disaster risk communication that take into account insularity and its variations within each island. The research results are based on the analysis of the media coverage of the fires from 31.12.2022 to 30.04.2024 on national, Sardinian and Sicilian digital newspapers, with a focus on: the descriptive qualities, the intentionality of the narration through the analysis of the textual and visual frames used to convey them to the public, the sentiment attributed, the representation of the social and institutional actors involved in the event and reported in the news. The methodological approach used is quantitative/qualitative and combines two methods: media monitoring and content analysis. The data from the content anlysis show the characteristics of the journalistic representations of fires in the two regions. In Sardinia the narrative of fires concerns a community/regional dimension while in Sicily it is mainly concerned with the national dimension. The frame analysis shows how the majority of the news is told through a human-interest frame that emphasises an emotional perspective with the presence of words representing feelings of helplessness, anger or compassion in the face of the fires.