A PDF copy of pages 344-345 of the book Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt IV. The pages document the transitional project 'Canterbury Quakes'. Photos courtesy of Canterbury Museum
The Civil Defense understanding of the role of radio in disaster tends to focus on its value in providing essential information during and after the event. However this role is compromised when a station’s premises are destroyed, or rendered inaccessible by official cordons. The Radio Quake study examines how radio stations in Christchurch managed to resume broadcasting in the aftermath of the earthquake of February 22, 2011. In New Zealand’s heavily networked and commercialised radio environment there is a significant disparity between networked and independent stations’ broadcast commitments and resourcing. All Christchurch radio broadcasters were forced to improvise new locations, complex technical workarounds, and responsive styles of broadcasting after the February 22 earthquake, but the need to restore, or maintain, a full on air presence after the earthquake, rested entirely on often financially tenuous, locally owned and staffed independent radio: student, Iwi, community access, and local commercial stations. This paper will explore the resourcefulness and resilience of broadcasters riding out the aftershocks in hotels, motels, bedrooms, and a horse truck, using digital technologies in new ways to reimagine the practice of radio in Christchurch.
An earthquake simulator designed to help people get over their fear of quakes is being developed at Canterbury University.
A photograph of a young spectator at Canterbury Tales. Canterbury Tales was the main event of FESTA 2013.
A photograph of a FESTA volunteer in costume, before the Canterbury Tales procession.
The University of Canterbury is known internationally for the Origins of New Zealand English (ONZE) corpus (see Gordon et al 2004). ONZE is a large collection of recordings from people born between 1851 and 1984, and it has been widely utilised for linguistic and sociolinguistic research on New Zealand English. The ONZE data is varied. The recordings from the Mobile Unit (MU) are interviews and were collected by members of the NZ Broadcasting service shortly after the Second World War, with the aim of recording stories from New Zealanders outside the main city centres. These were supplemented by interview recordings carried out mainly in the 1990s and now contained in the Intermediate Archive (IA). The final ONZE collection, the Canterbury Corpus, is a set of interviews and word-list recordings carried out by students at the University of Canterbury. Across the ONZE corpora, there are different interviewers, different interview styles and a myriad of different topics discussed. In this paper, we introduce a new corpus – the QuakeBox – where these contexts are much more consistent and comparable across speakers. The QuakeBox is a corpus which consists largely of audio and video recordings of monologues about the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes. As such, it represents Canterbury speakers’ very recent ‘danger of death’ experiences (see Labov 2013). In this paper, we outline the creation and structure of the corpus, including the practical issues involved in storing the data and gaining speakers’ informed consent for their audio and video data to be included.
A photograph of the Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings.
A photograph of the Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings.
A photograph of the Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings.
A photograph of portaloos near Cathedral Square during the Canterbury Tales event. Canterbury Tales was part of FESTA 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 5 February 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 16 April 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 12 March 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 26 February 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 5 March 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 19 February 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 12 February 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 29 January 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 22 January 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 23 April 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 26 March 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 9 April 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 2 April 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 4 June 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 28 May 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 8 January 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 19 March 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 14 May 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 21 May 2013.
A PDF copy of the North Canterbury News community newspaper, published on Tuesday 7 May 2013.