Firing the imagination? A visual analysis of bushfire preparedness videos from Australian fire agencies, 2015–2022

Abstract

Australian fire agencies use videos to inform and advise the public about strategies and actions they can take to prepare for bushfire danger. This study examines videos about bushfire preparedness published on YouTube by Australian state and territory fire services over the period 2015–2022. Through visual analysis, we investigate the explicit and implicit messages of videos by fire agencies about public bushfire risk in Australia. Quantitative content analysis of actors, settings, actions, and messages present in videos reveals a lack of representation of diversity in Australian society, and an overwhelming focus on risks faced by nuclear, home-owning families of European ancestry in low-density residential landscapes. Analysis is informed by the concept of social imaginaries – socially-embedded structures of perception that integrate expectations, aspirations, and images in shaping communication in cultural settings. Videos reproduce an imaginary in which women are positioned as guardians of families, and responsible for children's safety, while men are identified with the role of the firefighter. Fire itself is imagined as an external enemy within settler-colonial histories, and the nuclear family home is embedded in an imaginary of private economic responsibility and stability. These colonial, national, and neoliberal imaginaries about fire shape contemporary bushfire communication, despite the profound material changes to Australian populations and cultures over recent decades. We conclude that identifying, understanding and questioning culturally embedded imaginaries in fire agency communication can improve public communication about bushfire preparedness.