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Cltapter 5 Natura' Rlslcs Summary: This chapter argues that the cultural processes which select certain kinds of dangers for attention work through institutional procedures for allocating responsibility. Blaming the victim, blaming the victim's parents, or blaming the outsider are well-known strategies. There is a current misleading assumption about how dangers from nature are perceived. Physical signs of the typhoon or earthquake appear first as small spots on the horizon; interpreting them is full of uncertainty; as they approach, misperceptions pile up and the final disaster comes as a surprise-stochastically foreseen by the expert but not by the victims. Such a physical idea of perception and the passive idea of the public is a carryover from the earlier work in the sociology of disaster where the focus was not on perception at all. Disaster Research In the twenty years from 1942 to 1962 (starting with the NASNR Committee), disaster studies focused upon assessing impact , rescue, and recovery (see Torry 1979a). An exception is Stephen Withey's study (1962) of how fragmentary and ambiguous signs of danger produce different responses. His definition of effective '. Irning as a function of the amount of information to be contradi

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