The Black Summer Bushfires in the Eurobodalla Shire; the Role of the Local Newspaper in Framing the Event and Experience

This thesis focuses on the Black Summer bushfires that occurred in the Eurobodalla Shire, which is located on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia (NSW). The bushfires experienced in the Eurobodalla were a significant part of the devastating nation-wide bushfire season experienced across Australia, which has since become colloquially named as ‘Black Summer’. The Black Summer bushfires are the most recent of many other severe, ‘black’ bushfire events in Australia’s recorded history.1 Although Australia is familiar with severe bushfires due to its history, climate and ecology, the Black Summer bushfires have been labelled by mainstream media, politicians, and the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements (2021) as ‘unprecedented’, due to the extent and severity of these fires. The bushfires received not only national but international media attention, and countries such as America, New Zealand, Canada and Singapore came to aid Australia in their fight against the fires. The devastation caused by the Black Summer bushfires on communities like the Eurobodalla is immense, and at least momentarily, brought the topic of bushfire disasters in Australia to the forefront of public, media and political debate.