Finding Milton Wright

Abstract

This research project uses a case study to deconstruct public relations campaigns conducted by disaster relief organizations following the presidentially declared disaster for flooding in Kentucky in the spring of 2003. It is an attempt to show how public relations campaigns are a part of the social construction of disaster. It explores the resulting cultural product of public relations texts and how older populations are directly impacted by institutional values regarding trauma and disasters. It indicates that the origin of trauma for elderly people after disasters does not seem to come from the flood, but from an inability to change the vulnerabilities that come with advanced age, or the sense of social isolation felt from lack of communication on the part of a social support network and disaster relief agencies.

Key Words:

• Crisis Communication
• critical and cultural theory
• disaster
• elderly
• flooding
• public relations text and symbols
• social construction
• trauma