LAUSR

Newspaper sentiment and framing has the power to both represent and inform public opinion on a variety of important issues. This study examines local news articles after Hurricane Florence to understand framing efforts undertaken by these news outlets and how they impact news sentiment towards FEMA flood recovery efforts. The study also explores spatial and temporal trends in article publishing within the state after Hurricane Florence. The results indicate that while most articles published after Florence have a neutral sentiment, there are a significant number of both positively and negatively coded articles that illuminate important information both about how the public engaged with and understood the role of FEMA in recovery from Hurricane Florence, and how the media chose to cover this role.