The Language of Disaster: A Scoping Review of Framing Strategies in News and Social Media Communication

This scoping review maps the existing literature on linguistic framing strategies in disaster communication across traditional news media and digital social platforms from 2005 to 2026. Guided by the Arksey and O’Malley framework, the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology, and PRISMA-ScR guidelines, the review synthesizes 26 peer-reviewed studies identified through systematic searches of Google Scholar and ScienceDirect. The included literature is analyzed to identify recurring linguistic patterns, distribution across disaster types and media formats, and dominant communication platforms, with the aim of highlighting persistent research gaps. Findings indicate that disaster communication is consistently constructed as a strategic form of discourse characterized by urgent, directive, and action-oriented language designed to promote immediate public compliance. Media reporting further demonstrates a strong reliance on an affective framing repertoire, including fear appeals, emotional urgency, human-interest storytelling, and narratives of resilience. However, these dominant framing practices tend to prioritize short-term response and relief while offering limited attention to structural vulnerability, pre-disaster risk conditions, and long-term mitigation strategies. Methodologically, the literature remains largely text-centric, focusing on written news content and platform-based text communication, particularly on legacy media and X (formerly Twitter). Substantial gaps remain in relation to underrepresented disaster types, limited multilingual datasets dominated by English-language sources, and the lack of attention to multimodal communication forms such as visual and video-based messaging.