Mediated Public Emotion: Collective Grief and Australian Natural Disasters

The Australian summer is framed by a narrative of bushfi re. Southeastern Australia is recognized as one of the most highly bushfi re-prone regions in the world, with fi re very much part of the life cycle of the environment.1 Large bushfi re events, such as those dubbed Black Friday (1939), Ash Wednesday (1984), and the most recent, Black Saturday (2009), generate much media coverage, which records and narrates the stories of those caught by these fi restorms. Depictions of devastation and ruin, as well as of grief, despair, hope, and courage, are very much part of a national iconography,2 and are readily used to galvanize notions of mateship and community as a means to respond to those in need.