I really like the point Jonathan made further down about death toll and spectacle and how the second rather than the first dictates what we view as catastrophe. Debord calls the spectacle "the existing order’s uninterrupted discourse about itself, its laudatory monologue. It is the self-portrait of power"; so how are the different spectacles, that are derived from either powerful or powerless loci, portrayed? It would be interesting to contrast news footage of the tsunami with that of Hurricane Katrina and see whether the form of spectacular imagery is different when it refers to the land of the newsmakers.