Conversation Analysis on Collective Representations of a Natural Disaster

How collective representations of a natural disaster are intersubjectively created and maintained through everyday communication was examined by the method of conversation analysis. Conversational data in four groups that were assumed to maintain clear representations, i. e., (a) officials responsible for disaster prevention in a local government, (b) two different groups of residents who experienced severe damage of a disaster, and (c) members of a voluntary citizen group that was involved in environmental problem, were collected. Two types of collective representations were identified, namely, representations derived from shared perceptual experience and representations derived from shared conceptual propositions. It was found that exclusive reliance on the former, as observed in group (b), as well as exclusive reliance on the latter, as observed in group (a), was not sufficient for long-term maintenance of the representations. The latter that was frequently renewed and reorganized by the former types of representations concerning various specific disaster was found effective in persisting representations, as observed in group (c).