Like wildfire: creating rumor content in the face of disaster

ABSTRACT

Rumors spread during disasters as community members seek information and attempt to make sense of unexpected, anxiety-producing events. While considerable sociological research has examined the transmission and spread of rumors, less attention has been given to the creation of rumor narrative content itself. Drawing on interviews with wildfire survivors in one rural Northern California county, this study shows that rumor narrative creation reflects existing cultural values and power arrangements. In a contested post-disaster landscape, rumors are used to frame new information to maintain coherence with existing cultural beliefs while reinforcing prevailing ideas about safety, deservingness, and class. In this case, rumors are created to reflect cultural schemas such as beliefs about the government and environmental protection, and normative power arrangements instantiated through symbols of spatial stigma. The data presented in this article extends research on stigma, culture, and disaster by arguing existing dominant cultural values shape the content of rumors by dictating which pieces of information are seen as reasonable and reliable, providing residents with opportunities to frame information to explain and justify unequal disaster outcomes. In disaster situations where the transmission of reliable information is especially important, local culture enables and restricts which narratives are produced, shared, and believed.

KEYWORDS:

• Rumors
• disaster
• stigma
• framing
• culture
• qualitative methods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Nearly all participants in this study identify as white (94%).

2. This reflects the county-level data; according to the Census, the median income in Shasta County is $47, 258.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rebecca Ewert

Rebecca Ewert a Social Sciences Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago, is a sociologist studying disasters and inequality. Dr. Ewert’s research interests include gender — especially masculinity — inequality, culture, mental health, disaster, and qualitative methods. Her research has been published in Social Science & Medicine and has received awards from the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, the American Sociological Association Section on Mental Health, and the Environment and Technology Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.