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In Steven Biel’s Introduction, Biel begins his work with a critique of media and how disasters are portrayed and marketed.  Analyzing the news anchors during the Titanic Research and Recovery Expedition in 1998 to Steven Spielberg’s Oscar acceptance speech, Biel reasons that the importance of disasters are found in the affects they have on culture and society.  Using the collective works of various scholars, Biel seeks to understand “how we define disasters” and what were the contributing factors that led to these particular events.  Asserting that disasters disrupt the rhythm of everyday life, it is the reactions and responses to the aftermath of the disasters that drive a desire to return to the previous cultural and social aspects of the disrupted “daily life.”  Though these events effect change  socially and culturally within the United States, as stated by Rebekah Benninger, Biel approaches these disasters in a different manner.  Rather than the effect these events had on the United States culturally and socially, Biel’s introductory piece asserts that it is the manner in which each disaster reflected American social and cultural values.  These events allowed for the growth and development in the understanding and management of disaster recovery and the manners in which the American populace encountered each event.