Blame Assignment in a Diffuse Disaster Situation: The Role of an Emergent Citizen Group
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Date
1982-10
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
Description
It has been generally concluded that the amount of disaster research has grown rapidly if not exponentially during the last decade or so (Quarantelli and Dynes, 1977). One area neglected by disaster researchers during this time, even though a number of disaster studies looked at this phenomenon during the 1950’s, is blame and scapegoating (Taylor, 1978:255). This neglect is rather surprising, since it appears that the process of assigning blame occurs after may disasters (however, see Fritz, 1957 or Fritz and Williams, 1957), and all Allport (1966:5) and Klapp (1972:191) observe, this process is an important part of everyday life.
Keywords
citizen group, blame assessment, scapegoating