Emergency Broadcasting During Climate Events: A Case Study of ABC Canberra

Abstract

Extreme climate events in Australia are increasing. Since 2019, fires and floods have devastated all states and territories in Australia, leading to a reckoning via several government inquiries, including a Royal Commission, on how governments, emergency services, communities, and individuals prepare for, respond to, and recover from such catastrophic events. It also raises the question of how the media reports and reacts to these events; in Australia, the national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), has taken on the role of emergency broadcaster. This paper employs a cross-sectional design to examine how media practitioners from ABC Canberra navigate their role as emergency broadcasters, how they prepare for and respond to emergencies, and how they interact with the community during those events. This examination includes reflections and memories from a series of interviews we conducted with these practitioners about the catastrophic bushfires in 2019/2020 in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) region. Using this design and a Bourdieusian lens, the study examined the practices of media practitioners during a catastrophic emergency and their perceptions of preparedness for future disasters. We examined how training (cultural capital), networks (social capital), online expertise (digital capital), and experience (habitus) contribute to preparedness in emergency broadcasting. The study has both a theoretical and practical contribution: theoretically, it expands Bourdieu’s cultural production model by applying it to a form of broadcasting that has not been examined in this way; practically, it contributes to our understanding of media practitioners and how they practice during emergency broadcasting.

1. Introduction

Natural disasters are becoming increasingly common (Khawaja et al., 2025), and emergency communication plays a crucial role in managing disasters and keeping citizens safe. Research has shown that robust and timely warnings can save lives and improve other outcomes such as property damage (Wang et al., 2023). A 2022 survey found that emergency broadcast systems support critical response tasks by ensuring reliable connectivity, rapid situational awareness and timely distribution of warnings (Debnath et al., 2022). As noted by Ewart (2020, p. 81), ‘access to timely and locally relevant information for those at risk from and living through disaster is vital’. Emergency broadcasting, as a tool to disseminate information, is key to communicating in an emergency; in Australia, the public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), is at the forefront of communicating vital information during emergencies, including climate events such as catastrophic bushfires.

The Black Summer bushfires in Australia in 2019/2020 were unprecedented: 17 million hectares were burnt in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, ACT (Australian Capital Territory), Western Australia and South Australia; 33 people died as a direct result of the fires (including nine firefighters) and others were affected by the smoke coverage that lasted for many months; more than 3000 homes were lost; people became trapped; and Australia’s wildlife was extensively affected, with estimates that around one billion animals were lost (Richards & Brew, 2020). In New South Wales alone, over 37% of the state’s national parks were destroyed. To bring these statistics into the context of this paper, in February 2020, the fires meant that the ACT’s air quality was the worst in the world, and the region had lost more than $22 million in direct tourist revenue (Reiner et al., 2024).

During these events, media practitioners at ABC Canberra, a local bureau of Australia’s public broadcaster in the ACT, played an important role in informing people on what was happening and how to keep safe. In July/August 2023, we conducted 13 interviews with media practitioners at the station, including management, reporters, broadcasters and camera operators. The project employed a cross-sectional design with a qualitative methodology to examine how these ABC practitioners prepare and respond to emergencies, their role as public broadcasters during emergencies, and how they interact with the community and communicate during emergencies, including how they use sources and social media in their practice during emergency broadcasting (EB) (for other work by the authors on this topic, see Park et al., forthcoming).

Ewart and McLean (2019) claim that there is little research from a journalist’s perspective on what constitutes best practice when reporting on disasters. This project’s objective is to address that gap by providing reflections from media practitioners who work at ABC Canberra, as well as how they managed to cover the 2019/2020 bushfires. We aim to address the gap by presenting those reflections within a Bourdieusian framework to explain how media practitioners draw upon their journalism practices that are deeply embedded in their routine of preparing for disasters. With that in mind, the article answers the following research question: What constitutes best practice for reporters’ use of sources and social media in emergency broadcasting from a practitioner’s perspective?

By answering this question, the paper contributes to journalism and media studies in two ways. Firstly, it expands our theoretical understanding of Bourdieu’s cultural production model by demonstrating how it is applicable to emergency broadcasting. Secondly, it has a practical application in that the research uncovers how media practitioners draw on their deep understanding of the field of emergency broadcasting to effectively practice in a catastrophic emergency situation.

The ABC and Emergency Broadcasting

The ABC is one of Australia’s public service media (PSM) that serves television, radio and online content to audiences. It is one of Australia’s most trusted news brands (Park et al., 2025) and, in a similar way to PSM media in the UK (BBC), Canada (CBC/Radio-Canada), Germany (ZDF) and Japan (NHK), plays ‘a critical role in public service messaging during emergencies and crises’ (PMA, 2025, n.p.). Atkinson et al. (2021) cite the ABC as one of the trusted organizations during a bushfire, along with emergency services and rural fire services.1

The ABC is not officially the emergency broadcaster (EB) in Australia (Small, 2021). It is not included in the ABC Charter, nor is it noted in the Parliament’s Act that governs the ABC. In Section 1.a.ii of the ABC Charter, however, the ABC is charged with ‘broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain’ (Parliament of Australia, 1983), and it could be argued that “inform” is the term that enables the ABC to take on the role of emergency broadcaster. Freeman et al. (2018) state that MOUs signed between the ABC and emergency service agencies led to the understanding that the ABC would be noted as the official EB, but that changed in Victoria after the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 when the Royal Commission recommended expanding EB arrangements to commercial and community radio stations. In a Parliamentary inquiry into the 2019/20 bushfire emergency, the committee noted that it was regional commercial and community radio that supported the ABC and played a role in disseminating information, and ‘collectively they provide a broad spectrum of communities with timely and accurate emergency information’ (Parliament of Australia, 2020, p. 148).

Practically, the ABC covers Australia more broadly than any other broadcaster: ‘Almost all Australians can listen to at least one ABC Radio station that broadcasts local and national news, weather, emergency warnings, and a mix of entertainment including sport, music and regional or rural issues’ (DITRDC&A, 2024). In 2021, the ABC Managing Director claimed that ‘[o]ne in two Australians say they have used the ABC as their main source of information during a crisis’ (ABC, 2021). There is, though, some concern because of ‘decreasing local services as well as mobile and radio blackspots in rural and regional Australia’ (Freeman et al., 2018, p. 354), a concern addressed by ABC Regional Division Director Fiona Reynolds: the ABC is ‘an emergency broadcaster—not the emergency broadcaster—and the Corporation is unable to provide a radio service to every Australian’. Reynolds emphasized ‘there are “pockets” to which the ABC cannot broadcast, but commercial operators now also provide emergency broadcasting across the country’ (Freeman et al., 2018, pp. 354–355).

The ABC has formed an EB team that is based around the country. In 2023, the ABC increased the team to its largest ever in anticipation of a difficult summer (ABC, 2023a). The team provides training to ABC staff as well as monitoring emergency situations around the country. They often act as liaisons with emergency services and ensure there is backup for staff relief during an event.

In the 2022/23 annual report, it was noted that the ABC provided emergency broadcasting for 455 events including ‘major floods severe storms, heatwaves, bushfires and a tropical cyclone’ (ABC, 2023b, p. 25) The organization also provides a dedicated website (ABC Emergency) that includes planning and advice, a search function for specific areas, active incidents, news on emergencies and a national, live incident map.2

2. Literature Review

2.1. Emergency Communication

Media practitioners and media organizations are important in how citizens prepare, how they are informed during a crisis and how their community recovers (Houston et al., 2019), and radio has traditionally been the medium that audiences turn to during an emergency (Ewart & Dekker, 2013). Broadcast radio is recognized as a medium that is particularly valuable during disasters due to its reliability in disseminating accurate information quickly, cost-effectively, and with fewer operational issues due to the resilience of radio’s infrastructure (EBU, 2024; ITU, 2023).

However, the public is increasingly seeking information from multiple sources during emergencies. In a review of studies about emergency communication, Hinata et al. (2024) examined how emergency agencies interacted with and perceived the public during emergencies, as well as the modes of communication they used. They identified that agencies viewed the public as in need of authoritative guidance but also recognized the prevalence of two-way communication. Social media, for example, was commonly used for one-way communication to relay information, as well as to directly communicate with members of the public.

Atkinson et al. (2021) emphasizes the life-and-death consequences of ensuring the public uses trusted sources for information during an emergency. Increasingly, part of that menu of trusted sources is social media (Atkinson et al., 2021; Hinata et al., 2024). In a study that examined how organizations used social media to communicate, Atkinson et al. (2021, p. 97) found that platforms such as Facebook were used by emergency services as a ‘one-way (broadcast) communication channel to provide information about bushfires and other emergencies’. The study compared the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS) and the ACT Emergency Services Agency (ESA) and their communication strategies during the 2019/2020 emergency bushfires, focusing on the Orroral Valley bushfire. While both services provided ‘timely, accurate and reliable information and used credible and trusted sources and spokespeople’ (Atkinson et al., 2021, p. 97), there were other opportunities, such as targeted, ongoing and active engagement with affected communities, that would have enhanced their communication effectiveness. Ewart and McLean uncovered a similar finding during interviews with senior emergency personnel: ‘journalists should provide space for those caught up in a disaster to tell their stories’ (Ewart & McLean 2019, p. 1586).

Emergency broadcasting is a testing time for journalists, particularly around practices that include audiences as a source for their reporting. In earlier research, North and Dearman (2010) identified issues such as which talkback callers are selected to participate in radio emergency broadcasting, how they are verified, and how to ensure accuracy in the content being broadcast. In a study that involved focus groups with public, community and commercial radio audiences, Ewart and Dekker (2013) found that those who participate in talkback radio are aware of the social responsibility of taking part in an emergency and, surprisingly, ‘do not take this power lightly’ (Ewart & Dekker, 2013, p. 378). Contrary to popular belief, where talkback radio is criticized as agenda-setting, politically conservative, populist and tightly controlled (for more on talkback radio scholarship, see Ewart & Dekker, 2013), callers are often altruistic: ‘Talkback radio audiences engage with talkback radio during disasters because they are motivated by the need to provide help and information to their communities’ (Ewart & Dekker, 2013, p. 378). Well before social media, citizens were relaying critical information back to media organizations during emergencies for the benefit of other citizens.

In a study examining ‘disaster journalism’ (Houston et al., 2019, p. 592), Houston et al. interviewed 24 US journalists to reveal the functions of journalism during emergencies. Disaster journalism is one facet of disaster communication, which also includes crisis communication and risk communication, and includes warnings, reporting on developments, and ‘examining disaster mitigation and preparedness, facilitating long-term recovery, and fostering resilience among individuals and communities’ (Houston et al., 2019, p. 593). However, a major theme that emerged from the interviews, apart from those listed above, was the role that social media was increasingly playing in disaster journalism, including its challenges (managing multiple platforms, appropriate personnel to manage the sites), benefits (connecting with the community and the ability to share information) and risks (unverified information) (Houston et al., 2019, pp. 600–602).

A somewhat related research area is how climate change is communicated. Since the Black Summer bushfires were directly related to climate change, media practices during this event are also pertinent. Researchers such as Molina and Abadal (2025) conducted an international study on how television meteorologists communicate climate change. They discovered that it is important to leverage media and these types of experts to progress citizens’ understanding of climate change. Other research is examining how catastrophic events are reported with media framing theory, including, for example, in Pakistan (Iftikhar et al., 2026; Khawaja et al., 2025; Raza et al., 2025), Canada (Thistlethwaite et al., 2019), the United States (Ford & King, 2015) and Australia (Daume et al., 2023; Trull, 2023).3

2.2. Best Practice in Emergency Reporting

Ewart and McLean (2019), in a review of literature on how disasters are reported and through analyzing interviews with senior emergency managers, pointed out the importance of preparing a response plan for a newsroom in case of a disaster, including training and other pre-disaster planning, developing relationships with emergency services, and educating audiences. They developed a best-practice framework for journalists reporting on disasters. Their research identified five categories of best practice for newsrooms: pre-disaster planning; interviewing and writing; editing and production; post-disaster follow-up; and self-care for journalists. Parmer et al. (2016) employed a Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) framework to conduct a content analysis of 369 US print and broadcast items that reported on natural disasters and foodborne outbreaks. The CERC framework includes seven categories for best practice:

• Explain what is known at the time about the event’s impact on human health.
• Explain what is not known about the threat to human health.
• Explain how or why the event happened.
• Promote action steps the reader or viewer can take to reduce the personal threat.
• Express empathy about the threat to human health.
• Express accountability.
• Express commitment. (Parmer et al., 2016, p. 1216)

Their analysis found that these practices were rarely all included in each story and ‘risk messages received by the public via mass media do not appear to demonstrate many of the recommended practices’ (Parmer et al., 2016, p. 1221). Nevertheless, international bodies such as UNESCO recognize the increasing need for preparedness and strategies in the face of a disaster and are developing a Model Disaster Preparedness and Response Plan for Media Institutions to assist media on how to best report on disasters, including not only the practice of reporting but also ‘[g]aps in technical capacity, contingency planning, internal editorial policies and programming strategies’ (UNESCO, 2025, n.p.).

2.3. Trusted Sources for Reporters During Emergencies

Trust in sources for reliable, credible information has long played a key role in journalistic practice (Fisher, 2018; Fletcher et al., 2020; Wintterlin, 2020). This is particularly challenging in fast-moving situations, such as emergency broadcasting, and is particularly true when engaging with user-generated content. While first-hand accounts remain important, and citizens can do this with mobile phones and uploads to social media sites, the veracity of these sources must be established to prevent misinformation because ‘false information or “fake news” is still mistakenly published online and can go viral’ (Fisher, 2018, p. 10), with potentially hazardous consequences under crisis conditions.

Verification is considered a key element that differentiates journalism from other forms of content (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2021), and verifying online sources during the journalistic process is difficult (Fletcher et al., 2020), especially during the fast-paced broadcasting that is necessary in a crisis (van der Meer et al., 2017).

Wintterlin (2020) coined the term “distant sources” to describe the relationship between journalists and those they are unable to meet in person, and those sources who are accessed on social media. How are these distant sources trusted? How do journalists assess the trustworthiness of these distant sources? After a series of interviews, Wintterlin developed a ‘model of reflexive trust’ (Wintterlin, 2020, p. 141), which included the reputation, intentions, and characteristics of the content. However, they also found that previous interactions were also a time-saving device as well as, due to a lack of time, ‘their gut instinct or experience as a reporter’ (Wintterlin, 2020, p. 142). There has also been other research that developed tools to assess social media sources for trustworthiness and credibility (Diakopoulos et al., 2012; Fletcher et al., 2020) with the argument that, with social media as a source, ‘the standard difficulties associated with verification are compounded by the sheer volume of potentially newsworthy information that social media makes available’ (Fletcher et al., 2020, p. 20).

2.4. Social Media in Emergency Broadcasting

Social media is a fixture in reporting (Bossio & Bebawi, 2016; Diakopoulos et al., 2012; Fletcher et al., 2020; Heravi & Harrower, 2016; Hermida, 2018; Lewis & Molyneux, 2018; Molyneux, 2019; Watson, 2022) and is used to source and disseminate news as well as to interact with sources and engage with audiences. There is, though, research that has shown that sources are still mostly elite actors (Brandtzaeg et al., 2016; Fletcher et al., 2020; Heravi & Harrower, 2016) or familiar (van der Meer et al., 2017) voices that are used during the production process.

Regardless, Hermida states that social media has enabled citizens to take part in the news process by commenting on social media posts from traditional news organizations or using hashtags but also to ‘craft, circulate and consume their own media messages’ (Hermida, 2018, p. 498), particularly first-hand experiences of major events. Social media has disrupted traditional norms in journalism, in newsroom hierarchies, and in relationships with audiences (Hermida, 2018, p. 499).

Social media is used in emergency broadcasting by multiple actors ranging from the government, news organizations, emergency services and the general public (for a further examination of social media in emergency communication, see (Park et al., forthcoming)). While it is a challenge for audiences to discern credible and trustworthy information on social media platforms (Park et al., forthcoming), it is also a challenge to journalists who need to engage with the public in a rapidly evolving emergency situation. Social media, while it is useful during an emergency, complicates the facilitative role of journalists, that is, to monitor the environment and relay authoritative information (Christians et al., 2009).

2.5. Bourdieu’s Cultural Production Model

The study has applied Bourdieu’s (Bourdieu & Johnson, 1993) cultural production model as it provides a systemic, effective way to demonstrate how these ABC Canberra media workers undertake their practice. Also known as field theory (Broersma & Singer, 2021; Neveu & Benson, 2005; Vos & Singer, 2016), this model is an example of a confluence theory where several elements interact to produce culture, in this case, emergency broadcasting. These elements include a field, a field of works, and an agent with their various forms of capital, including social, cultural and digital, and their habitus.

Habitus has been defined as a ‘feel for the game, a “practical sense” (sens pratique) that inclines agents to act and react in specific situations’ (Johnson, 1993, p. 5). This ‘feel for the game’ is developed in an agent from formal and informal learning, social and cultural background, employment and other life experiences, and informs how an agent will act when they engage with social and cultural structures. Put simply, habitus explains why an individual acts in a certain way in certain contexts and how they have come to act in that way. It governs how an agent acts, but the action also changes an agent’s habitus. This lifetime of learning also contributes to an agent’s capital.

Bourdieu suggested several forms of capital, which agents use to “trade” in their field: social, cultural, symbolic, educational and economic. Social capital is the network of contacts an agent has in a field, cultural capital is the knowledge and skills an agent develops, symbolic capital is the prestige or honors an individual has, educational capital is the level of education, and economic capital is the amount of money and assets accrued by an agent. Park introduced digital capital as a newer form of capital: ‘If someone has digital capital, it means that they are capable of using digital technologies to realize their goals’ (Park, 2017, p. 28). The participants in this research extensively referenced their social and cultural capital but also referenced their digital capital, particularly in the area of social media.

Agents “trade” with this accrued capital in their chosen field. Fields are the social structure of the model, and there are hundreds of fields, including, for the purpose of this paper, emergency broadcasting. An agent increases their social capital by engaging with the field and positioning themselves in the field, and the field bestows symbolic and economic capital. The field ‘includes all those involved in the production and legitimization of a cultural product’ (Fulton & Paton, 2016, p. 37), and agents compete within the field in a power struggle. The ABC is part of the EB field, as are emergency agencies, sources, and, increasingly, social media actors, and jockeys for position and power within this field and the broader culture.

Another element in this system is the field of works, the cultural structure, which is defined as ‘a space for possibles, that is as an ensemble of probable constraints which are the condition and the counterpart of a set of possible uses’ (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 235). The field of works includes past works, rules, conventions and codes. An agent learns and is immersed in the field of works and uses that knowledge, as part of their cultural capital, to practice. In this case, the media practitioners who work in emergency broadcasting learn the conventions of EB and produce their programs accordingly.

This approach to cultural production has been extensively examined in journalism (for a summary, see Maares & Hanusch, 2022). More recent journalism research in Australia that employed a Bourdieusian approach includes digital death knocks (Watson, 2024; Watson & Markidis, 2024), automated news (Danzon-Chambaud & Cornia, 2024), journalism education (Fulton, 2019), the ABC’s role in Australia as a public broadcaster (Small, 2021), and slow journalism in public broadcasting (Fulton & Scott, 2022). There is, however, no research that directly applies a Bourdieusian framework to emergency broadcasting. This research aims to address that gap.

3. Methodology

The research took a cross-sectional design with a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews to elicit viewpoints from the media practitioners. Fulton et al. (2023, p. 109) claim that ‘this approach to research identifies patterns of authentic human activity’, thus providing insight into how these practitioners broadcast during an emergency. While there was a prepared list of interview questions, the nature of semi-structured interviews meant that questions were open-ended, designed to ‘elicit views and opinions from the participants’ (Creswell & Creswell, 2017, p. 263). For this reason, the questions guided the interview process, thus ensuring the interviewers could explore other avenues with the participants.

In July/August 2023, with the support of managers at ABC Canberra, we emailed a supplied list of 17 potential interviewees. Out of those, we conducted 13 interviews with participants from a broad range of occupations in the media team, including the Emergency Broadcast team. It should be noted here that ABC Canberra is a local bureau based in the ACT. Its staff, where we drew the participants from, includes managers (editors and other management positions), broadcasters, producers, camera operators and reporters. The station has extensive experience in emergency broadcasting, including the 2019/2020 fires.

These occupations and other demographic information will not be identified to ensure participants remain anonymous. ABC Canberra is a small bureau, and identifying positions would identify the participant. Each participant was allocated a code starting with ‘A’ to ensure anonymity, and any identifying comments, reflections or information have been carefully removed. Written and/or verbal consent was sought as per the university’s ethics approval.

Four members of the research team conducted the interviews, both face-to-face and via Microsoft Teams, and these interviews included the following themes: how they prepare, what communication strategies and technologies are used, how they interact with the community, what the relationship is with the emergency services, and how all these relationships have evolved. These interviews were then transcribed using Otter.ai or the Microsoft Teams automatic transcription function and checked for errors by the research team before they were input into NVivo for analysis. The interviews typically lasted between 45 min and an hour. Thematic analysis was employed to uncover key themes and identify ideas and patterns within the data. This type of analysis is a ‘straightforward general approach which can be used in a variety of settings’ (Robson & McCartan, 2016, p. 461) where ‘similar phrases, patterns, themes, relationships, sequences, differences between sub-groups, etc.’ (Robson & McCartan, 2016, p. 463) are identified. Initially, a list of probable themes was developed by the team with the expectation that other themes would emerge during the close reading of the interviews.

The following reflections are from the cohort we interviewed, and we do not claim that they would be the same for all media practitioners. The cross-sectional design enables a “snapshot” that focuses on ‘interpretive descriptive accounts of a population under observation’ (Cummings, 2017, n.p.). As with all qualitative research, they are from this particular group at this particular time, within a specific geographic context.

4. Results

While the paper is examining how these participants use sources and social media in their practice during emergency broadcasting, in the first instance, we discuss EB itself by including insights into how these ABC practitioners manage their EB practice, their level of preparedness for an EB event, and how they prepare their audience. A caveat on the following sections: Bourdieu’s cultural production model is iterative, and the following is a linear way to explain a model that is non-linear and interactive with deeply intertwined elements.

4.1. Preparing the Broadcasting Team

At the ABC, EB is part of each employee’s work practice. As noted by A10, ‘wherever you work in the ABC, you do emergency broadcasting, and it’s part of what you do’ (i/v 18.7.23). Regular training is part of the process to ensure the preparedness of staff in case there is an emergency, and this preparedness increases and supplements a practitioner’s cultural capital as well as changing their habitus. The ABC EB team adapts formal training to suit individual needs, depending on role and length of employment (A10). There is also mandatory training from the Emergency Services Agency (ESA) and the Rural Fire Service (RFS), which allows a journalist or camera operator access to a fireground, and requires an annual update (A13). Several also mentioned mentoring or informal training (A10, A15), and others talked about the ongoing resources, such as a staff portal, ‘where we can get all those training resources … if I need to refresh my memory on anything, it’s all online and I can just get in and do it’ (A8, i/v 27.7.23).

A key observation was the importance of ongoing training, including refreshers. A8, for example, recognized the level of expertise in a lot of the practitioners in the station—‘What we need is just to refresh ourselves before bushfire season starts’ (i/v 27.7.23)—but also any new staff who needed training: ‘I think as, just with staff turnover, I have a few [role titles deleted] who probably haven’t done rolling emergency broadcasting before … we need to make sure they’re across their requirements’ (i/v 27.7.23).

Several of the participants also claimed that they were comfortable with their level of preparedness because of the support provided by management both within the station and at a national level; in other words, they have support from members of the field. Here, preparedness means that they are ready to engage in emergency broadcast activities, which include coordinating within the team, liaising with emergency services and ensuring the messages go out to the public effectively. Staff support plays a key role in A7’s level of preparedness: ‘You know, you have people that you trust around you. And as journalists, we all talk to each other … there’ll be conversations about crew saying I’m not comfortable going out with this person … Then I’ve just gone to my manager, I’m not going out with him again, like so there’s a lot of that’ (i/v 28.7.23).

As a further part of this support, there is an EB team, a national group that is on call to act as a conduit if required to liaise and coordinate with emergency services, keep the training portal updated, monitor breaking emergencies, and provide backup for staff relief and support:

We’ve got this new EB team which really jumps into gear should there be any kind of breaking—like any requirements for EB—and they provide the support in the instance, so your very first time you’re never with someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, because the EB team is there.

(A5, i/v 8.8.23)

This EB team is an important part of the field and, in line with the media practitioners they support, engages with the ABC Canberra team with their own habitus and capital in a system of interdependence.

4.2. Preparing the Community

ABC Canberra engages with the community in several ways, similar to Houston et al.’s (2019) claim that one role for journalists and news organizations is to assist with community preparedness. The station interacts with their audience in a series of “preparedness days” as part of an annual emergency services week (A8), run stories on how to prepare with experts providing important information (A13), and conduct a Bushfire Awareness Day where, on the radio, ‘we devoted a whole day to educating the community about how to prepare, what to do’ (A8, i/v 27.7.23).

Further audience preparedness includes coverage on television and online on how to develop an emergency plan, how to prepare your house and who is involved in responding to emergencies. This audience preparedness is also seen as part of ABC’s trust-building for emergency situations:

I think part of our ongoing outreach with the community is really important as well, because part of what we see as our role is building trust with people so that they know if there was an emergency that they can trust us to give them the information they need.

(A13, i/v 1.8.23)

4.3. The Practice of Emergency Broadcasting: Field of Works and Cultural Capital

Understanding the rules and conventions of EB is a crucial part of how these participants practice; as A10 notes, ‘No matter what the disaster is, there are protocols to follow, and you know about it, you do it’ (i/v 18.10.23). This particular line of questioning provided examples of Bourdieu’s field of works where rules and conventions are key to ensuring an audience’s wellbeing and the staff’s professionalism during an emergency. And, as an example of the deeply interconnected nature of Bourdieu’s model, the elements in the field of works becomes part of an agent’s cultural capital, thus ensuring they have knowledge within the field of EB to ensure they practice in an appropriate manner. A10 provided a detailed rundown on how emergency broadcasts are run, demonstrating their high level of cultural capital and deep understanding of the field of works:

We make sure that the teams know when they need to activate EB, so we might go, ‘right, well, there’s a bushfire here’. It’s an “advice” level. We’re just telling the audience about it, this number of times in an hour on local radio, and we’ll do a social media post to let people know that it exists. And we’ll also, if it’s big enough, pop maybe a brief mention into radio news. Then, at the next level, ‘watch and act’, we will mention it a lot more times … Social media will be posted again, we might run a press conference from one of the ESA or talk to the weather bureau, keep people informed, mentioning it more often. When a fire is at an “advice” level, then we mobilize a much bigger activation on local radio. We will go into what’s called “rolling coverage” … We will have people talking from the weather bureau, from the ESA, or run any press conferences that we have. We will ask people who are nearby to call us and talk to us about what they can see, feel and hear. They are not experts. We just want their observations … as a layperson. We’re getting all our advice from an official voice.

(i/v 18.7.23)

While the above quote is an example of this participant’s cultural capital and knowledge of the field of works, there are also examples of the social capital they have in the form of the sources they use, ensuring best practice in choosing credible, reliable sources. Park et al. state that journalists, in an emergency situation, are ‘keenly aware of the responsibilities of reporting on emergencies, with principles such as reputable sources, ethical reporting and fact checking still playing a key role’ (Park et al., forthcoming, n.p.).

During an emergency, there is particular formatting used for emergency broadcasts, and regular programming is suspended: ‘So when you go into rolling coverage, you can’t play music. You focus on the information’ (A16, i/v date). Social media is carefully worded and formatted to ensure the audience knows when a post is updated (A17), and ABC emergency colors are used on any post. A “template hour” (A2, A5, A13) is employed to provide a structure for broadcasters:

This is something you could do in your first hour of rolling coverage, and it’s like, read out the warning, get the RFS on the radio to give you more detail about the RFS, take talkback calls, read the warning again, speak to the Bureau of Meteorology, take more talkback calls, blah blah blah. Replay a bit of the RFS of what they’ve just said. Read out the warning again.

(A2, i/v 27.7.23)

There are also protocols around team broadcasting in these situations, what A2 called ‘triaging’, where team members support the on-air broadcasters by taking phone calls, contacting emergency services, and making decisions about who to include on air. In the 2019/2020 bushfires, a decision was made to have two broadcasters on air to provide the type of support needed in an emergency situation, what A5 called ‘a presenter’s friend’, which ‘means there is time for people [on-air presenters] to stop talking, read, be briefed on things while someone else takes over and kind of fills in the gap’ (i/v 8.8.24). There are ongoing brainstorming sessions between the staff to ensure the information is relevant for the audience: ‘What is the incident? What are the effects? What are people thinking and feeling? What is their most important priority?’ (A10, i/v 18.7.23). This type of collaboration also happens out in the field when decisions need to be made about sources and who to interview (e.g., experts or laypeople), where to interview (in the field or at an evacuation center), which shots to include, and what else needs to be in the package.

For those with experience, switching to an EB mode of practice is ingrained; it has become part of the practitioner’s habitus. A6 said that going into “EB mode” is second nature: ‘It’s funny. You just click into mode when there are emergencies … you just click into the “what do they need to know” and “what’s the most urgent”’ (i/v date). The training, past experiences and understanding of the EB rules have become part of these practitioners’ habitus (Johnson, 1993).

4.4. Emergency Broadcasting and Trusted Sources: The Role of Social Capital

For those participants who spoke about sources, the common theme that emerged was verification, trusted sources and legitimacy. Credibility and reliability are fundamental in a source/journalist relationship (Fisher, 2018), and the sources the participants noted here included audience members, emergency services, other verifiable experts and social media.

During an emergency, there is often little time to spend verifying a source, and practitioners draw on their social networks to provide trustworthy content; these networks play a crucial role in how journalism functions, and the participants in this study draw on this capital to ensure timely, verifiable information. When audience members are used, it is typically known informants on the understanding that these sources are reliable: ‘it’s drawing on people that we already know. And organizations that are the next level down from the official voices at the top’ (A10, i/v 18.7.23). A6 identified the significance of using known contacts in the community as part of a two-way interaction: ‘that’s why knowing those people ahead of time and having good contacts generally in the community means they’ll often approach us too, so they’ll ring in and say hey, you know, you guys are reporting this, but actually blah blah’. A6 is demonstrating that using their social capital in the community, which has been developed over many years, enables effective practice.

However, it is also part of their practice to engage with the listenership: ‘we will do an audience call out and say “if you live in a suburb, what do you know, what can you see?”’ (A10, i/v 18.7.23). A2 noted how important first-person accounts were during the 2019/2020 emergency: ‘I think we were taking calls and then some went to air that weren’t […] first person accounts, you know, “Oh no, my sister told me this has happened”. And so we had to […] stop—no more of those. It has to be a first-person account or nothing’ (i/v 27.7.23). A15 also recalled user-generated content such as images and videos that audiences shared on social media, and, when they were verified, ABC Canberra shared that content. A15’s recollections are an example of the deep connection between Bourdieusian elements: while drawing on audience experiences as part of the field, or social network, it is also an example of how user-generated content has become part of the field of works in broadcasting.

Regardless of these first-person accounts of the disaster, using emergency services as a primary source is still key. Participants mentioned the Rural Fire Service (RFS), based in New South Wales (NSW), and the Emergency Services Agency (ESA), based in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), as the two emergency services they depend on, as well as the police. Experts such as these are higher up the hierarchy in the field of EB and, thus, are more powerful actors. During the 2019/2020 fires, according to A15, the relationship between the ABC Canberra and the ESA was strong although sometimes it was difficult to get timely information: ‘there would only be certain people that were authorized to speak in the ESA and they might be actually on fighting the fire and couldn’t go on the radio … So you they might say, Oh, well, they can’t speak this hour, maybe next hour. And for us, it’s like, what are we gonna do?’ (A8, i/v 27.7.23). Bourdieu’s model explicitly discusses power structures in the field. What can be seen here is an example of the power struggle between emergency services and the ABC to provide timely information but also the hierarchy of power, with the audience as a source lower than official sources such as the emergency services.

Other official sources include organizations such as the RSPCA for looking after pets (A10), Parents & Citizens associations (A10) and the Education Department (A10) to discuss what is happening with a school, Red Cross and setting up emergency evacuation centers (A6), and health authorities about the dangers of, for example, air quality (A10). Several participants noted the Bureau of Meteorology for weather updates (A2, A5, A6, A7) and the live traffic site (A2, A7) was also noted as a trusted source. Again, these members of the field, although they are periphery, demonstrate a level of hierarchy in the system, with trusted sources such as these included as verifiable, credible sources.

Finally, a key source during an emergency is social media, both from official, verified sources such as the emergency services and the general public, although that information is carefully scrutinized for verifiability. Social media will be further explored in the next section as a communication platform and a site for practice but, in this instance, it is a source for these media practitioners. A2, for example, knew and trusted particular people on X (formerly known as Twitter) and used images and information they had tweeted: ‘I reported that because I knew those people and I knew where they were real people. And so I reported that on the air, and I said, “Look, these are not RFS confirmed figures, but we’ve got local people on site who are solid sources. And this is what they’re telling us”’ (i/v 27.7.23).

The importance of source credibility and ensuring the information they provide is accurate and timely is heightened during an emergency (Fisher, 2018). The participants in this research are very aware of the verification of social media sources, and, in part, this is due to their digital capital:

Social media has some disadvantages in that you can’t verify everything that’s been posted. But for the official agencies, and for us, it’s just such an important tool to reach people quickly. Instantly. You know, that just means we have to pay a bit more [attention]. We have to be really careful about using unverified posts, which we wouldn’t anyway; the same journalistic principles apply. We still need to verify the information. Like we wouldn’t put something on the radio that’s not verified either.

(A8, i/v 27.7.24)

In a similar way to Houston et al. (2019), the media practitioners in this project understand the challenges, benefits and risks of social media as a source. It is a challenge because of the difficulty in verifying the information on social media; it is a benefit due to keeping up to date with what is happening on the ground via trusted audience sources and emergency services; and it is a risk because of misinformation that can be easily shared. On that note, the next section discusses how these media practitioners use social media in their EB practice.

4.5. Emergency Broadcasting and Social Media: Cultural and Digital Capital

Before discussing reflections from participants, it is worthwhile to briefly describe the ABC’s approach to social media. While the standard protocol for ABC’s emergency broadcasting is radio, and there are specific reasons for that, social media has become increasingly important in ensuring timely and accurate communication. The ABC has a presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok (ABC, 2023b). While Facebook is the primary platform for driving audiences to the ABC website, this declined in 2022/2023 while platforms such as Instagram and TikTok grew, with TikTok experiencing ‘significant growth’ (ABC, 2023b, p. 63). This social media strategy is key to ensuring a younger demographic engages with the ABC. However, during the 2019/2020 fires, when the electricity network failed, internet connection was non-existent, leaving the radio as the primary means of communication: ‘Obviously you can have battery powered radio when the electricity goes down. It’s the easiest way; people in cars, you know, fleeing all of that stuff. And so that is the ABC’s preferred option’ (A17, i/v 18.8.23).

Nevertheless, social media is important in the ABC’s emergency broadcasting strategy. Understanding this strategy and the conventions around it, as noted earlier, is part of these participants’ cultural capital, but it is also part of their digital capital, that is, their understanding of ‘using digital technologies to realise their goals’ (Park, 2017, p. 27). Several participants (A5, A10, A15, A17) reflected on the changes in social media, with Facebook the primary social media platform in the 2019/2020 bushfires, but, since around 2021, Instagram has been the place of audience growth: ‘Instagram for us is huge … Facebook is also big, but for us, Instagram is enormous. So, we have a huge number of followers. So, we would put up a top post and send it out as quickly as we could. We might then add to that with other pictures and other information and keep it going’ (A10, i/v 18.7.24). While this section is primarily concerned with cultural and digital capital, it is pragmatic to mention again that this model is non-linear, interactive and deeply entwined; these practitioners understand their audience, that is, other members of the field.

Regarding other social media, the ABC has greatly reduced its presence on X (formerly known as Twitter), and it is not in the EB mix. This reduction was partly due to what ABC’s Managing Editor David Anderson called ‘toxic interactions’ (ABC, 2023c), but it is also recognized that most of the ABC’s audience is on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, a point recognized by several of the participants (A10, A17). TikTok is another platform that is not (currently) used for EB:

Currently, TikTok is not part of the ABC strategy for emergency broadcasting for probably two main reasons. One is that they’re not sure that that’s the content that people want there, but two, currently we don’t have local TikTok accounts like we have an ABC News TikTok account … to provide emergency information, by definition you need to be quite local.

(A17 i/v 18.8.23)

The other platform mentioned in the ABC annual report was YouTube, but participants did not mention it in the interviews. An interesting insight into practice came in the form of individual use of Twitter. A2, for example, kept up with information via Twitter, particularly outside of work hours:

Everything was so awful all the time that I couldn’t disengage from it. … and then when I knew I was coming on shift in the afternoon, I needed to know what was happening during the day. I couldn’t just walk in cold and do a shift. You needed to know what fires were risky, so I guess I responded to that by just not switching off for weeks, and the way of doing that was Twitter. So, I was on Twitter.

(i/v 27.7.24)

Furthermore, in a strategy that demonstrates their digital capital, A2 also used trusted contacts on Twitter to track what was going on during work time, even though they may not have used that raw information during a broadcast, in line with protocols around verifiable sources. Participants also used Facebook groups to build contacts in an area, contacts that will be important during an emergency. A7 reflected on how social media has changed their practice when it comes to developing contacts, their social capital:

The initial point of contact used to be face-to-face. Yeah, even a couple of years ago, I remember it. Now you are spending a lot of time on, for example, Facebook groups … you join up and you say, “I’m from the ABC and looking for contacts in this space” … It’s a good way to make and build contacts.

(i/v 28.7.23)

A7’s reflections in this instance demonstrate how the accepted conventions in the field of works have evolved, which has modified their cultural capital, but also how they employ strategies to increase their social capital in the form of trusted contacts. And, in the spirit of Bourdieu, the agent’s habitus has changed: habitus governs how an agent acts, but the action also changes an agent’s habitus.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

The findings demonstrate how ABC Canberra media practitioners operated during the bushfire in 2019/2020 and that this role is supported and enabled by access to preparedness training resources, relationship building with communities and audiences, careful and strategic use of social media as a source of information and a communication platform, and the dynamics around which sources are used in reporting. These practices can be framed with Bourdieu’s cultural production model. As disasters disrupt routine broadcasting and sourcing practices, practitioners act and adapt by drawing on their habitus and digital, social and cultural capital. There are clear examples throughout the analysis of their capital and habitus, as well as a field and a field of works, each part of a system of emergency broadcasting and each crucial to effective broadcasting during an emergency. Furthermore, as we can see in the results, the system is non-linear and deeply interactive and entwined.

In the first instance, digital, social and cultural capital enabled them to work efficiently in an emerging emergency. Experience with social media (digital capital) enabled these practitioners to keep in contact with their sources, access information from emergency services, and liaise and reach their audiences. Using their networks (social capital), they provided timely, verifiable material from emergency services, liaised with other organizations for helpful information, and reached out to audience members for background. Finally, a deep understanding of what they need to know and how to practice (cultural capital) provided the structures for these agents to work efficiently. The rules for emergency broadcasting, in the field and in the studio, became part of their cultural capital, via training and support from other members of the field, including emergency services agencies and the ABC’s national EB team. How and when to use the knowledge around recruiting sources and using social media within their practice is also an example of cultural capital.

And to provide the bridge between these agents and the structures, we could also see instances of habitus—how they used learned but unconscious praxes, again leading to efficiency in a situation that requires rapid decisions and actions that other lives depend on.

Bourdieu’s field of works is also evident. Fulton and Paton (2016, p. 33) define the field of works as ‘the tools of an area of cultural production, including the structure and form of its past work held in all the works completed to that point in time … The rules, conventions, techniques, tools, guides, procedures and previously produced works’. Emergency broadcasting, as the area of cultural production discussed here, has its own rules, procedures and conventions that these practitioners know and implement, sometimes, according to some, almost unconsciously—an example of how an agent’s habitus that ‘inclines agents to act and react in specific situations in a manner that is not always calculated … which becomes a “second sense” or a second nature’ (Johnson, 1993, p. 5). Furthermore, learning these rules, procedures and conventions further enhanced these participants’ cultural capital.

Finally, there are examples of engaging with the field of EB. Emergency services, other organizations, the audience and other social media users emerged as members of the field and, while some of them had more power, particularly as trusted sources, all play an important role in emergency broadcasting and an important role in increasing social capital.

In a state of emergency, media practitioners draw upon their journalism practices that are deeply embedded in their routine of preparedness for disasters—through regular training, a continuous dialogue with the national EB team and the emergency sector, and accumulated knowledge and practices that are a result of working through those events.

This study makes a unique contribution in two ways. Firstly, it makes a theoretical contribution. Applying a Bourdieusian lens to media practitioners and how they work in an emergency broadcasting situation is a unique approach, and, therefore, we have contributed to journalism and media scholarship and confirmed the robustness of this model and the ability to apply it to niche journalism practices such as emergency broadcasting.

Secondly, there is a practical contribution; it examines those who work in broadcasting in Australia and how they employ best practice techniques while they work. In other words, we have answered the call from Ewart and McLean (2019) to further research best practices when reporting on disasters. The study provides a perspective that demonstrates how these practitioners understand how to practice during emergency broadcasting, with a ‘feel for the game’, to ensure their audience is provided with the best possible outcome in a catastrophic situation. They are drawing on their habitus and their different forms of capital, particularly social, cultural and digital, to ascertain how to use their sources and platforms of communication, such as social media, for their audience. The research question asked, ‘What constitutes best practice for reporters’ use of sources and social media in emergency broadcasting from a practitioner’s perspective?’ Ewart and McLean’s (2019) best practice framework that includes pre-disaster planning, interviewing and writing (in this case, broadcasting), editing and production, post-disaster follow-up, and self-care for journalists is evident throughout the data.

This study is not without limitations. ABC Canberra is one local bureau that has historically had experience with extreme bushfires, where the awareness of climate events may be heightened both within the community and amongst the media practitioners. This is a case study of an area prone to imminent emergencies. Therefore, by no means can this be generalized into other areas or other local bureaus. The findings from this research cannot easily be applied to all media practitioners. However, this study attempts to explain how journalists and media professionals, when encountered with emergency situations, can rapidly shift to a routine of emergency reporting, based on their routinised practices, using Bourdieu’s cultural production theory.