Social memory of Queensland floods: a perspective of 262 newspapers

The role of social memory in building community resilience against flood risk is increasingly recognized. However, the process of constructing social memory remains systemically unexamined. This study developed a structured approach with six core elements (6W) of social memory: participant (“Who”), theme (“What issue”), government initiative (“What strategies”), sentiment (“In what perspective”), time (“When”), and place (“Where”) to understand how social memory on Queensland flood between 2011 and 2022 were (re-)constructed by 262 newspapers. We found that early reporting focus (2011–2018) was on immediate disaster relief and flooding impact reports, then shifted toward proactive flood preparation and recovery after major floods in 2019 and 2022. Government and public-sector stakeholders (62%) dominated. Major flood narratives were flood impacts (19.5%) and long-term recovery (15%), with declining focus on donation campaigns from 15% to 3%. There was a policy reporting focus on financial assistance and less attention on risk communication campaigns and ecological sustainability policy, which also received primarily negative sentiments. There were also increasing positive sentiments on regional community recovery. Brisbane consistently dominated media coverage with narratives emphasizing institutional controversies, while regional areas such as Townsville exhibited more diversified and proactive narratives on community driven recovery. The systemic identification of positive memory and negative baggage can assist in more precisely enhancing community resilience against flood. This paper contributes to the generalization of social memory studies in natural disaster management by providing a structured analytical framework that enables systematic comparison of social memories from different newspapers across temporal and spatial scales.