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Sars: Reception and Interpretation in Three Chinese Cities
SARS (Acute Respiratory Syndrome) first presented itself to the global medical community as a case of atypical pneumonia in one small Chinese village in November 2002. Three months later the mysterious illness rapidly spread and appeared in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Toronto and then Singapore. The high fatality rate and sheer speed at which this disease spread prompted the World Health Organization to initiate a medieval practice of quarantine in the absence of any scientific knowledge of the disease. Now three years on from the initital outbreak, SARS poses no major threat and has vanished from the global media.
Written by a team of contributors from a wide variety of disciplines, this book investigates the rise and subsequent decline of SARS in Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan. Multidisciplinary in its approach, SARS explores the epidemic from the perspectives of cultural geography, media studies and popular culture, and raises a number of important issues such as the political fate of the new democracy, spatial governance and spatial security, public health policy making, public culture formation, the role the media play in social crisis, and above all the special relations between the three countries in the context of globalization and crisis. It provides new and profound insights into what is still a highly topical issue in today’s world.
Written by a team of contributors from a wide variety of disciplines, this book investigates the rise and subsequent decline of SARS in Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan. Multidisciplinary in its approach, SARS explores the epidemic from the perspectives of cultural geography, media studies and popular culture, and raises a number of important issues such as the political fate of the new democracy, spatial governance and spatial security, public health policy making, public culture formation, the role the media play in social crisis, and above all the special relations between the three countries in the context of globalization and crisis. It provides new and profound insights into what is still a highly topical issue in today’s world.
193 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 30, 2006
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January 10, 2021
I am going to start off by saying, I am probably the wrong audience for this book, however, I did find this deep dive into SARS fascinating.
This did read like a final year dissertation of a student who studied Sociology and was interested in epidemics in relation to East Asia.
Whilst their was some useful information, I found this didnt cover the human element (individual personal stories) and instead was an indepth look into the role of Media, Art, Humour and Political relationships within the societies of Taiwan, Hong Kong and China and their handling of the crisis.
Overall, whilst I thought this is excellent if you are studying Sociology and are interested in these topics; if you are a more general interest reader, some of the conclusions will probably be too sociological for any interest on the epidemic.
This did read like a final year dissertation of a student who studied Sociology and was interested in epidemics in relation to East Asia.
Whilst their was some useful information, I found this didnt cover the human element (individual personal stories) and instead was an indepth look into the role of Media, Art, Humour and Political relationships within the societies of Taiwan, Hong Kong and China and their handling of the crisis.
Overall, whilst I thought this is excellent if you are studying Sociology and are interested in these topics; if you are a more general interest reader, some of the conclusions will probably be too sociological for any interest on the epidemic.
Displaying 1 of 1 review