Traces of Fukushima

This book explores the mediated aftermath and remembrance of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster through three crucibles: time, space and emotion. Through an ambitious and innovative combination of theoretical and methodological approaches, the book discusses how meanings, emotions and interpretations of disruptive events such as the Fukushima Daiichi disaster circulate and change over time and space in the global, contemporary hybrid media environment. Through its six multi-method empirical case studies from Japanese local newspapers to commemorative Tweets, the volume addresses questions of memory, trauma, expertise and nuclear politics in relation to the three key concepts of the book. The findings of this book provide new insights on research of disruptive media events in the contemporary hybrid media environment.

• Fukushima as a Media Event
• Media Events and Interdependency of Nations
• hybrid Media Environment and Digitisation
• Global Communication Infrastructure and Digitalization
• Nuclear Energy Politics and Social Media
• Social Media Channels and Global Events
• Disruptive Media Events in Hybrid Media Environment
• Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Disaster
• Emotional Trajectories of Fukushima

“By casting its eye on the Fukushima nuclear disaster this book develops a fresh understanding of global media events in today’s hybrid media environment. Its analyses are a leap forward thanks to a differentiated consideration of the discursive spaces and emotional dynamics that arise when we are confronted with mediatized catastrophes.” (Andreas Hepp, Professor, University of Bremen, ZeMKI, Germany)

“Human beings look for causality everywhere. We understand the word through association, and turn to media to fill in the links between occurrences, events and meaning. The authors offer a convincing explanation for how hybrid media events invite us to link time and space in making affective sense of worlds close and distant. This is an invaluable addition to research on events, media, and cross-cultural meaning making.” (Zizi Pappacharissi, Professor and Head of the Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)

• Tampere University, Tampere, Finland

  Katja Valaskivi, Anna Rantasila, Risto Kunelius

• Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

  Mikihito Tanaka

Katja Valaskivi is Research Director for the Tampere Research Centre for Journalism, Media and Communication (COMET) at Tampere University, Finland.

Anna Rantasila is a doctoral student of media studies at Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, Finland.

Mikihito Tanaka is Associate Professor for the Journalism School, Graduate School of Political Science at Waseda University, Japan.

Risto Kunelius is Professor of Journalism at Tampere University, Finland.

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