UK Government's Publicly Announced Emergency Response Committee Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms Meetings, 1997-2017

The research study explores a new set of visual conventions which emerged during civil emergency events within the United Kingdom between 1997-2017, sited specially in relation to the UK governments convening of the COBR Committee. The inquiry contends that the advent of new media technologies such as social media and camera phones has enabled a new type of emergency aesthetics with its own visual conventions and qualities which has enabled citizen witnesses to record and disseminate images of emergency prior to the government's public acknowledgement. This new form of bottom-up decision on the exception by citizen witnesses contends that the space of emergency politics is, momentarily, receptive to the definition by citizens themselves not simply by governments or the media. In doing so, this inquiry suggests there are new opportunities within the combination of new media and the civil emergency event when the COBR Committee fails to respond but the images gain wide resonance within the wider public. This data comprises the UK government's publicly announced emergency response Committee COBRA meetings, between 1997-2017.

本研究探讨了1997年至2017年间英国境内民事应急事件中涌现的一套全新视觉惯例，其研究语境特别围绕英国政府召集的COBR委员会（COBR Committee）展开。本研究提出，社交媒体、拍照手机等新媒体技术的出现，催生了具备独特视觉规则与特征的新型应急美学，使得民众目击者能够在政府公开确认应急事件前，记录并传播应急现场影像。这种由民众目击者主导的自下而上的应急事件界定模式表明，应急政治空间会在短暂时段内接纳民众自身对事件的界定，而非仅由政府或媒体单方面定义。据此，本研究指出，当COBR委员会未能及时作出响应，而相关应急影像却在全社会引发广泛共鸣时，新媒体与民事应急事件的结合便催生了全新的机遇空间。本数据集涵盖1997年至2017年间英国政府公开披露的应急响应委员会（COBRA Committee）会议相关记录。