Emergency agencies expend significant resources on working with communities to dissuade them from undertaking behaviours considered ‘risky’ in natural disasters. For floods, examples include ‘If it’s Flooded, Forget it’ in Australia, ‘Floods Destroy’ from the UK and ‘Turn around, Don’t Drown’ from the USA.

During natural disasters such as floods it is common for the media to show images or video of people undertaking the risky behaviours that emergency agencies are seeking to limit. This is rarely done with any qualification and sometimes presents such behaviours as a ‘fun’ activity (such as children playing in floodwater). The contention of emergency agencies is that such images undermine safety messaging and may normalise such behaviours and lead to potentially dangerous imitative behaviour.

Media in Australia has resisted in the removal or qualification of such images when approached by emergency services, in some cases denying a link. This is at odds with a survey of 430 respondents by the New South Wales State Emergency Service in which 19% of respondents stated that they were either ‘significantly’ or ‘somewhat’ influenced in their decision to enter floodwater by images of people undertaking such actions in the media. Additionally, 76% of respondents stated that media images of people in floodwater could influence people to copy that behaviour.

The paper will draw together research from Australia and overseas from emergency agencies, researchers and psychologists to show that media images of risky behaviours can have a measurable negative influence on the behaviour of people in floods. The paper also suggests that the media need to exercise greater responsibility in the images that they show, and recommends that the Australian Press Council and emergency service agencies develop an advisory for journalists regarding the use of such images.