Tsunami and Money: Humanitarian Aid in Media Coverage of the Asian Catastrophe

The chapter discusses and analyses media reactions to the catastrophic tsunami of December 2004. It relates these reactions to historically-based accounts of the emergence of the "compassionate self" in the eighteenth century. It stresses, however, how media coverage of the 2004 tsunami also appears to be affected by compassion fatigue, i.e. a superficial and short-time interest in the plight of fellow human beings perceivable in compulsive media consumers. It concludes that The Asian catastrophe was reported according to conventional news templates reflecting Western values and beliefs.