Analysis Of Klinenberg's Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy Of Disaster In Chicago

In the book Heat Wave A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, by Eric Klinenberg expose how a number of social, political, and economical factors created one of the largest and most traumatic events in recent history. The Chicago heat wave in 1995 was a disaster, which led to over 700 heat-related deaths in Chicago over a five days period creating. Most of the victims of the heat wave were poor elderly residents of the city, who didn’t have any relative or were neglected by the public officials and was unable to purchase air-conditioning units for their home. Most of the elderly isolated themselves and refused to open windows or sleep outside in fear of crime. Alot of lives were loss or in destress because of isolation, poverty and media who played a major role by portraying the countless deaths on the natural disaster and highlighting of negative activities especially in the urban area

According to the text “ there were relatively few stories or images focusing on aging, poverty, isolation, crime and fear, and the ethno racial, or gender distribution of mortality, morbidity, and access to care.” They went to the extreme by looking for more information and pictures with people in body bags to put on their front page. People use the media as their information source to guide them on what is going on in their countries and around the world. What is portrayed in the media is often taken as true even if it actually is not completely accurate. Throughout the text it was clear to see that there is pressure when it comes to the media. News reporter often think about what they are going to present to the public because it has to be brain washing and appealing, but they also want to keep their connections to sources such as public officials. This means what they end up reporting is effected by what public officials will approve of, to make them look