New Media and Natural Disasters: Blogs and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

This article examines the role of blogs during the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Using a blog created by South Asian journalists as a case study, the article argues that new media has the potential to be a democratizing agent in lesser developed countries. The article argues that some tsunami-related blogs give regional, subaltern journalists a medium to transcend exploitative accounts of the tsunami's aftermath. The article is also able to use tsunami-related blogs to help highlight questions surrounding new media and disaster reporting in lesser developed countries in general, including discussions of the digital divide.