Watching the Disaster Unfold: The Production and Consumption of Live-Streamed Extreme Weather Footage

An increasing number of extreme events – including wildfires and hurricanes – are now being live-streamed online. These streams often emerge from the repurposing of existing infrastructure (such as smart doorbells), as well as from so-called ‘influencers’ producing social media content. In addition to generating large viewerships, streams have contributed to both fatalities (of streamers) and lives saved (watchers directing emergency services to casualties). They are therefore increasingly connected to the experience and management of extreme events.

Recognising this, the presentation synthesises findings from multiple projects to examine some of the forces shaping production and consumption of these streams. In one strand, I argue that streams can operate as spaces of solidarity where attachments and (dis)connections to affected places are expressed, imagined, and performed. In another, I explore how streams are embedded in cultural economies. These economies require streamers to carve creative niches while adhering to various societal and digital norms – tensions that foster engagement with ideas of ‘risk’, ‘climate change’ and ‘disaster’ in novel ways. Drawing out from these findings, this work (i) complicates narratives of streams as solely spaces of disaster voyeurism and stupidity, and (ii) reflects on how we might engage with digital spaces differently to explore emotional and behavioral geographies during moments of heightened risk.

Speaker: Dr Simon Dickinson, Geography Program Lead, Lecturer in Geohazards & Risk, University of Plymouth, UK.

This event is sponsored by Sanford School of Public Policy, The DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy, and Duke Center on Risk.

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