A Media Analysis of Mutual Aid in Extreme Weather Events

Abstract

As extreme weather events increase in frequency and intensity, community resilience to disasters is growing in importance. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, mutual aid, a politically-grounded grassroots effort involving community members who provide resources and support to one another, is increasingly discussed and utilized as a disaster resilience strategy, filling gaps in resources and services when the state fails to meet a community’s needs. Despite the growing emergence of mutual aid as a resilience strategy, an overall assessment of mutual aid groups in the United States (US) has not been completed. Using a media analysis approach, this study provides an overview of the populations served, types of aid utilized, and different phases of the disaster management cycle addressed by mutual aid groups related to extreme weather events in the US since March 2020. Specifically, websites and social media pages of mutual aid groups were coded and analyzed. Findings indicate that mutual aid is utilized to support diverse populations across the US in all four phases of the disaster management cycle, but most often during disaster response. Social or non-material aid was provided most frequently, while unhoused individuals and the general public were the most common populations served. Although some differences were observed in how autonomous and nonprofit groups provided mutual aid, these differences were not statistically significant. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on mutual aid and disaster resilience, which can inform future research on how mutual aid is utilized in disasters and carried out differently by autonomous groups versus nonprofit organizations.