THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN CRISES AND NATURAL DISASTERS: A CASE STUDY OF THE LIBYAN AL-MASAR TV COVERING THE DERNA DISASTER
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17501/24246778.2025.9201Keywords:
Role, disaster, crisis, Al-Masar TV, Derna disaster, media coverageAbstract
This study sought to shed light on the role played by Al-Masar Libyan TV in covering the events of the Derna disaster. The study used the descriptive analytical approach, analyzing the content of the continuous live coverage carried out by Al-Masar TV for the full month, and then analyzing the content of the correspondence after the disaster to monitor the success story of the reconstruction operations. The study sample was determined using the comprehensive inventory method for a month from 9/10/2023 to 10/10/2023. The study concluded that Al-Masar TV relied on several sources of information, most notably correspondents at a rate of 33.4% and that Al-Masar TV used several technical formats to present information, the most important of which was the news format at a rate of 20%, followed by Correspondents' reports at a rate of 16.7%. The most prominent topics of coverage before the disaster were explaining the weather conditions and their severity, and during the disaster, explaining the causes and severity of the effects. Al-Masar TV faced several challenges during the coverage, the most important of which was the element of surprise and bad weather conditions, so it relied on integrating television broadcasting with social media and communications technology. Al-Masar TV continued broadcasting news related to reconstruction after the disaster. The study recommended the need to develop plans and strategies for television coverage to confront such crises.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Alia Ali Mahmoud
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
