When bad things happen to good people: The portrayal of accidents in mass print magazines

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of the portrayal of accidents in the mass print media magazines available in Canada and published in Canada or the USA in 1991, 1996 and 2001. Through content, frame and discourse analyses it describes ‘factual’ and narrative stories of accidents. Narrative articles are subdivided into accidents occurring to an individual and those occurring to an aggregate. Stories of individual accidents reflect different discourses than those of group accidents. Individual accidents are described as terrible things that sometimes happen to good people who then overcome the tragedies to become better people. Group accidents underscore the frustration, fear and the powerlessness of individuals who try to deal with corporations and governments who have responsibility for the causation of the accidents. The article ends by theorizing these findings in the context of the indemnification of the individual in the modern risk society.

Keywords:

• Accident
• risk
• media
• portrayal
• individualism

Acknowledgements

We would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for funding this project.