Public discourses and personal narratives of learning from disaster

Super Typhoon Haiyan, also known as Yolanda, made world history as one of the strongest storms to ever make landfall when it struck the central Philippines in November 2013. In the decade since this focusing event, there has been extensive media coverage and scholarly study of the multiple facets of the disaster and the physical reconstruction of the most devastated regions. Whether and how these public discourses percolate to everyday, on-the-ground learning processes and approaches to future typhoons has been much less studied. We address this gap by leveraging a computational approach to analyze the thematic content in >15,000 newspaper articles and 300 academic abstracts along with conducting field interviews and producing a public-facing podcast series to assess lessons learned from Haiyan by institutions and individuals. The project examines mass media and academic framings and personal narratives to shed light on the prolonged recovery and learning processes. Integrating the expertise of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with the lived experiences of Haiyan survivors and responders, the original audio series elucidates diverse understandings of disasters and climate resilience with important implications for science-based risk communication and everyday decision-making.