Abstract

This article explores the state of emergency following Hurrican Katrina or ‘the Katrina Event’ with reference to the role of media first responders. Throughout the ensuing disaster the performance of the media worked as a mechanism for technical remastery in the face of systemic breakdown. This re-mediation of panic and of the state of emergency shifted attention from the local to national reactions. In this way even as voice was given to the failure of the nation to rise to the needs of its most vulnerable citizens, the figure of the nation as carer was re-instantiated in the televised outrage and frustration of talk show hosts, news anchors, and charity fund-raising celebrities.