Disaster Risk Communication

Pandemicity and Severity are Separate Constructs

by Alan Card

Design-led strategies for bushfire preparedness

by Yoko Akama

Co-authored by Yoko Akama, Susan Chaplin, Richard Philips, Keith Toh

Bushfire CRC research team: ‘Effective Communication: Communities and Bushfire’. RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

Paper presented at EARTH: FIRE AND RAIN
Australian & New Zealand Disaster and Emergency Management Conference, Brisbane, 16 – 18, April 2012

To date, both government and fire authorities in Victoria have deployed a variety of communication messages on... more To date, both government and fire authorities in Victoria have deployed a variety of communication messages on bushfire awareness. Yet, distributing information to a wide audience is not enough to increase people’s preparedness for bushfire. These forms of communication sustain a transmission process that reinforces the power-dynamics of control, making audiences passive. It perpetuates the disempowerment felt by communities who are not engaged in a dialogic process, further broadening the gap between ‘expert’ fire authorities and ‘non-expert’ community. This paper presents co-design methods that were used to facilitate a dialogic form of communication on bushfire preparedness with community members in the Southern Otways, Victoria. The research engaged a group of 20 residents to facilitate co-creation and communication of local knowledge of the geographical environment through visualisation. These methods show potential of bridging relationships between neighbours and the importance of social interactions that can lead to better fire preparation.

Risk, Ritual and Health Responsibilisation: Japan’s ‘Safety Blanket’ of Surgical Face Mask Wearing

by Adam Burgess

This article begins to develop understanding of surgical mask wearing in Japan, now a routine practice against a range... more This article begins to develop understanding of surgical mask wearing in Japan, now a routine practice against a range of health threats. Their usage and associated meanings are explored through surveys conducted in Tokyo, with both mask wearers and non mask wearers. It contests commonly held cultural views of the practice as a fixed and distinctively Japanese collective courtesy to others. Historical analysis suggests an originally collective, targeted and science-based response to public health threat has dispersed into a generalised practice lacking clear end or purpose. Developed as part of the biomedical response to the Spanish flu of 1919, the practice resonated with folk assumption as a barrier between ‘purity’ and ‘pollution’. But mask wearing only became socially embedded as a general protective practice from the 1990s through a combination of commercial, corporate and political pressures that responsibilized individual health protection. Developments are usefully understood amidst the uncertainty created by Japan’s ‘second modernity’ and the fracturing of her post war order. Mask wearing is only one form of a wider culture of risk; a self protective ‘risk ritual’ rather than collective, selfless practice.

The Rise of Blame and Recreancy in the United Kingdom: A Cultural, Political and Scientific Autopsy of the North Sea Flood of 1953

by Alex Hall

Published in Environment and History, Volume 17:3, August 2011, pp. 379-408

The North Sea Flood of January 1953 was the largest natural disaster in UK twentieth-century history, accounting... more The North Sea Flood of January 1953 was the largest natural disaster in UK twentieth-century history, accounting directly for 307 deaths on land alone. The event highlighted huge inadequacies in sea defences and disaster policy within the UK and the resultant Waverley Report formed the basis of modern UK disaster policy. Despite the lack of central government involvement in rescue efforts and the apparent non-existence of co-ordinated rescue plans, little blame or accountability was assigned. Due to the relative infancy of the mass media and the post-war time frame the disaster is often overlooked by modern commentators from both academia and wider society.

Through analysis of personal accounts, regional and national press and parliamentary papers it is shown how the devastation on the East coast in January 1953 acted as a trigger event for subsequent large scale policy and social change. By comparing the events of 1953 with subsequent UK flood events it is shown how public expectations of disaster response in the UK have grown.

Making Sense of Hurricanes: Public Discourse and Perceived Risk of Extreme Weather.

by Donna Kain

Smith, Catherine F., Donna J. Kain. 2010. Making Sense of Hurricanes: Public Discourse and Perceived Risk of Extreme Weather. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines 4.2: 180-196.

Information Usability Testing as Audience and Context Analysis for Risk Communication

by Donna Kain

2010. Kain, Donna, Menno deJong, Catherine F. Smith. "Information Usability Testing as Audience and Context Analysis for Risk Communication." In Usability of Complex Information Systems: Evaluation of User Interaction. Michael Albers and Brian Still, Eds. Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Emergency communication: Case study of problematics in public discourse regarding hurricane risks and hazards

by Donna Kain

Enabling the disabled: Media use and communication needs of people with disabilities during and after the Sichuan earthquake in China

by Yuen Ying Chan

King-wa Fu, James White, Yuen-ying Chan, Ling Zhou, Qiang Zhang, Qibin Lu; International Journal of Emergency Management, 2010, v. 7 No1;Inderscience Publishers.

The importance of effective communications in extreme emergency situations, such as earthquakes, is widely recognised... more The importance of effective communications in extreme emergency situations, such as earthquakes, is widely recognised (Lee, 2008), whether the communications relate to disaster preparedness, response or recovery. More problematic is the connection between disaster communications and the situation of people with disabilities in emergency situations. In times of crisis, do the communication needs of people with disabilities differ from those of the wider population? This study aims to understand the use of media and risk communication situation before, during and after the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province in China, with a special focus on the experiences of people with disabilities. The analysis includes recommendations for best practices.

Please Repost: Hijacking Facebook Against Ondoy

by Catherine Candano

Published in Kritika Kultura, an internationally-referred open-access journal on literature, culture and language

Social media utilization for crowd-sourced disaster management. First person account in Philippines flooding disaster... more Social media utilization for crowd-sourced disaster management. First person account in Philippines flooding disaster 2009

http://150.ateneo.edu/kritikakultura/images/pdf/kklit1/candano.pdf

Communicating experiences after a disaster: Saying 'you are traumatized '

by Nelden Djakababa

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sun, 07/09/2006 5:05 PM | Life

Around three weeks after the earthquake in Yogyakarta and parts of Central Java, a colleague of mine at PULIH... more Around three weeks after the earthquake in Yogyakarta and parts of Central Java, a colleague of mine at PULIH Foundation went out to visit a hamlet in Bantul where many of the houses had been reduced to heaps of rubble. As he chatted with the people there, one man said to him that a couple of days earlier they had a visit from a group of psychologists from a certain, well-respected institution.

""They came in a fancy car and wore nice clothes,"" the man said. The group examined the area and talked to some of the survivors there. ""They said to us that we are `traumatized and stressed-out' by the quake. Gosh, I don't even know what those words mean, you know, I am not that well educated. And now I feel there must be something wrong with me because they said that. I feel tense,"" the man said.

He also said that these psychologists did not provide them with further explanations about the meanings of ""trauma"" and ""stress"". ""Instead, they advised us to be strong and accepting. If this is all that psychologists can do, frankly we don't really need them,"" he smiled bitterly.

A Risk Perception Primer: A Narrative Research Review of the Risk Perception Literature In Behavioral Accounting and Behavioral Finance

by Victor Ricciardi

Ricciardi, Victor, A Risk Perception Primer: A Narrative Research Review of the Risk Perception Literature in Behavioral Accounting and Behavioral Finance (July 20, 2004). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=566802

A significant topic within the behavioral finance literature is the notion of perceived risk pertaining to novice... more A significant topic within the behavioral finance literature is the notion of perceived risk pertaining to novice investors (i.e. individuals, finance students) and investment professionals (i.e. financial planners, security analysts). The author provides an overview of the concepts of risk, perception, and risk perception with the financial scholar in mind. There is also a presentation on the behavioral finance concepts and themes that might influence an individual's perception of risk for different types of financial services and investment products. The next section presents a discussion of the significant risk perception research in the social sciences namely from psychology. This research work from psychology (i.e., risk perception studies in risky situations and hazardous activities) is the behavioral foundation for a substantial amount of the current contributions within the behavioral accounting and behavioral finance literature. In particular, the work of the Decision Research scholars including Paul Slovic and his co-authors on risk perception studies that have crossed over from psychology to the disciplines of behavioral accounting and behavioral finance (i.e. behavioral risk characteristics from psychology that are applied within a financial/investment decision making context).

Within the last section of this paper, the author reveals the first of its kind thorough review of the academic research studies on perceived risk/risk perception from the disciplines of behavioral accounting since 1975 and behavioral finance since the late 1960s. This literature review incorporates 12 works from behavioral accounting and 71 endeavors from behavioral finance. In addition, the behavioral finance literature review section also includes approximately 10 narrative research reviews from risk perception studies in behavioral economics. A major facet of this paper was to bring together all the previous studies in the risk perception literature for the purpose of conducting a study based on the academic foundation of the main themes, research approaches, and findings from this collection of studies.

Keywords: risk perception, perceived risk, risk analysis, behavioral risk characteristics, objective risk, subjective risk, behavioral accounting, behavioral economics, standard finance, behavioural finance, psychology, financial psychology, social sciences, risk, standard deviation, beta, Fama, French

Comunicación de riesgo y sistemas de información en la Web: cinco modelos

by Carles Pont

Las administraciones públicas de los países avanzados están llevando a cabo iniciativas para gestionar la información... more Las administraciones públicas de los países avanzados están llevando a cabo iniciativas para gestionar la información y la comunicación de riesgo y emergencias mediante sitios web concebidos y diseñados para ello. Estos sitios están pensados para facilitar información a los ciudadanos en caso de emergencias, pero también contienen información útil para los expertos y las autoridades. En este trabajo, y a la luz de la legislación española sobre emergencias, se comparan los sitios de la administración autonómica catalana y del gobierno de España con los sitios de tres países de referencia: Estados Unidos, Francia y Reino Unido. Al mismo tiempo se propone una metodología simple para llevar a cabo una comparación que permita extraer conclusiones y plantear recomendaciones en un aspecto de la gestión de la información que puede resultar clave para salvar bienes materiales y vidas humanas.

Psychological preparedness for disaster.

by Pearl S. Guterman

Published as a resource of The Centre for Excellence in Emergency Preparedness, 2005

When disaster strikes, individuals and organizations must not be only logistically ready, but psychologically... more When disaster strikes, individuals and organizations must not be only logistically ready, but psychologically prepared. This paper discusses how the public and emergency responders can better prepare for the psychological impact of disaster. Topics that are explored include (1) how and why reactions to terrorism and natural disaster differ, (2) the myths and misperceptions of behaviors during a disaster, (3) the psychological responses to disaster, and (4) disaster intervention strategies. It is suggested how these factors may be implemented in emergency plans. Disaster research studies find that accounting for the misperceptions and the psychological aspect of disaster is vital for an effective response and recovery. Implementing the strategies provided may limit the psychological impact of disaster.