La narrazione di un dramma nella stampa nazionale: il terremoto del centro Italia

How did the Italian national press cover the earthquakes that struck severely the centre of Italy in 2016? How did it cover the tragedy of the people and territories hit by the earthquakes? What were the main practices put in place by journalists? An earthquake is a terrifying, unexpected and destructive event, characteristics that make it highly newsworthy: a perfect kind of news for its widely popular appeal. Journalists have the difficult task of narrating such a tragic event, which requires a dedicated and “dramatic” frame as they must tell stories of death, pain and destruction caused by earthquakes. So, what are the main practices deployed by journalists, who are primarily eyewitnesses, in the narration of the drama? What are the main frames proposed (human interest, attribution of responsibility, economic consequences)? In Italy few studies have been conducted in this field so far. This article aims to identify the kind of storytelling and frames that prevail in the representation of the earthquakes that took place in the centre of Italy. Emphasis is placed on the two earthquakes which registered the highest magnitudes: in Amatrice on 24 August 2016 and in Norcia on 30 October 2016. These two seismic events had different consequences, even though they were of similar magnitudes. This strongly influenced, as will be seen, the kind of coverage newspapers dedicated to them. This study analyses all the articles devoted to the earthquakes that were published between 25 August 2016 (the day after the earthquake in Amatrice) and 9 April 2017 (covering a total of 33 weeks), by five of the most widely read Italian national newspapers (Corriere della Sera, la Repubblica, il Giornale, La Stampa and Il Sole 24 Ore). In total, 5,904 news articles were collected. We then conducted computer-assisted content analysis using T-lab, a linguistic and statistical software for content analysis. The results confirm the increasingly evident emergence, in the chronicles of the earthquake, of human interest framing – namely the narration of strong personal emotional experiences – together with the economic effects of the earthquake (the economic consequences frame), and the debate regarding the institutional actors who were supposed to intervene in the narrated events (the attribution of responsibility frame).