SDSU Communications Strategy Principles in Disaster Management Essay

Week 5 ? Lesson:
Disaster Communication Audiences
The audience
?
Hello all!
?
Building from our last
week?s lesson regarding
the appropriateness or
perhaps timing if you
will, of the messages to
be delivered in terms of
the phases of emergency
management, we extend
our discussion this week
to the actual intended
receivers of those
messages — the
audience.
The key to the communication
puzzle
?
In total then, we should begin to
see that although message content
is important, it is but only a piece
of the larger communication
puzzle.
?
Content is actually largely affected
by both the nature of message
delivery or timing in terms of the
phases of emergency
management; and perhaps the
sense and tone of the
communication itself.
?
Recall that the ultimate purpose of
communications in this sense is to
elicit an outcome.
?
In this week?s exploration we see
then that the audience is a key
element in the disaster
? is knowing the audience!
Disaster Communications
Audiences
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So who comprises an audience when it comes to the
transmission and receipt of a crisis communication?
Quite frankly — everyone. Think about that — an
audience are those that you intend to hear your
message and do, it is those you intend to hear your
message and don?t ? and it is those you do not intend
to hear your message yet do!
?
Or course there are specific stakeholders and
constituents within each of these groups but taken in
the whole —-that which is heard correctly by those
intended to hear it vies in each case with that thought
to have been heard by others that missed the
message or that react to a message that has no
relevance to them –
Target audiences
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It is important to know one?s audiences and to
understand them for the sometimes shifting entities
them can be. Some examples are:
?
?
?
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The public writ large
Elected officials and community leaders
Partners and stakeholders; and the
Media
Disaster Communications
Capabilities
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Understanding that ultimately the audience is king ? And that
in this heightened technological age that the audience is
comprised, in near-real-time, of the message transmitter and
the message receiver — our challenge as emergency managers
and crisis communicators becomes even greater; if not in
controlling the message perhaps, than in forging expanded
partnerships that go beyond the traditional media ? emergency
management professional interactions:
? Citizen journalists
? Contributions of the public at large
? Online news outlets
References
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?Communication Key To Emergency Management?. (2013).
Accessed from Utube website: https://
youtu.be/p0vZHcMidOs
?Crisis Communication?. (2008). Accessed from Utube
website: https://youtu.be/QbC2clUC0ss
?FEMA administrator on amateur radio use in an
emergency?. (2012). Accessed from Utube website:

Haddow, G. D., & Haddow, K. S. (2014). Disaster
Communications in a Changing Media World (2d ed.).
?What are target audiences and how to identify them?.
(2012). Accessed from Utube website: https://
youtu.be/ouoojwl9r6Y
CHAPTER SEVEN
Disaster Communications Audiences
Copyright ? 2014. Elsevier Science & Technology. All rights reserved.
One of the principal purposes of disaster communications is to get individuals and
communities to take action. Hazard mitigation and preparedness communications focus
on promoting actions that individuals and communities can take to reduce the impacts
of future disasters and to be ready when the next disaster strikes. Communications during disaster response provide critical information that individuals and communities can
use to take action to survive the disaster and access relief assistance. In the recovery
phase of a disaster, communications focus on informing individuals and communities
of the types of recovery assistance available from a variety of governmental, nongovernmental, and private sector sources to help rebuild their lives and infrastructure.
There are several audiences that must be reached in order to be successful in
communicating across the four phases of emergency management?mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery (see the text box below for more details). First and
foremost, there is the public audience which is comprised of a wide array of subsets
including functional-needs populations, residents in disadvantaged neighborhoods,
tourists and visitors, homeowners, families without cars, etc. The bulk of the disaster
communications is focused on reaching the public and helping the public take the safest action during all four emergency management phases. It should be noted that with
the advent of social media this critical audience is collecting and exchanging their own
information and acting on that information often without government involvement.
Basic Emergency Management Audiences
Basic emergency management audiences include the following:
General public: The largest audience of which there are many subgroups, such as
the elderly, the disabled, minority, low income, youth, and so on, and all are potential
customers.
Disaster victims: Those individuals affected by a specific disaster event.
Business community: Often ignored by emergency managers but critical to disaster
recovery, preparedness, and mitigation activities.
Media: An audience and a partner critical to effectively communicating with the public.
Elected officials: Governors, mayors, county executives, state legislators, and members of
Congress.
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Disaster Communications in a Changing Media World.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-407868-0.00007-0
Haddow, G., Haddow, K., Haddow, G., & Haddow, K. (2014). Disaster communications in a changing media world. Elsevier Science & Technology.
Created from apus on 2022-01-30 21:49:30.
? 2014 Elsevier Inc.
All rights reserved.
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Disaster Communications in a Changing Media World
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Community officials: City/county managers, public works, and department heads.
First responders: Police, fire, and emergency medical services.
Volunteer groups: American Red Cross, Salvation Army, the National Volunteer
Organizations Active in Disasters (NVOAD), and so on that are critical to the first response
to an event.
Copyright ? 2014. Elsevier Science & Technology. All rights reserved.
Source: Haddow, J., J. Bullock, and D. P. Coppola. (2007). Introduction to Emergency Management, 3rd ed. Boston: Elsevier.
There are three other primary audiences for disaster communications?elected
officials and community leaders, partners and stakeholders, and the media. Elected
officials and community leaders serve both as a critical audience for disaster information and also as communicators of disaster-related information to their constituencies.
They are positioned to both provide information to emergency officials concerning
their constituents and are leaders in their communities whom the public trusts and will
turn to in a disaster. Partners include first responders, voluntary agencies, community
groups, nongovernmental organizations, the business community, and others. These
groups can also be a valuable source of information and a distributor of information
to their customers and the community. Historically, the media has told the disaster
story using a variety of sources including from the government emergency management agencies. The emergence of social media has created a cadre of citizens ready to
provide first-hand accounts of conditions where they live in real-time. Social media
has become an excellent mechanism for getting information back out from emergency
officials to local populations through their networks and contacts.
Communicating with these four primary audiences is no longer a one-way street
for emergency officials. It is now a cooperative venture that will require new skills,
protocols, and technologies to be employed to design, build, and maintain effective
disaster communications.
This chapter examines what it takes for emergency officials to communicate and
work together with these four primary audiences.
THE PUBLIC
Historically, communications with the public was done almost exclusively
through the media?television, radio, and newspapers. During the disaster-response
and recovery phases these media outlets relied primarily on the emergency officials
for information, access to the disaster site, and progress reports on government and
nongovernment programs. These same media outlets were used by emergency officials
to communicate preparedness and hazard mitigation messages and to urge the public
to act on warning and alert notices. These traditional media outlets were the principal
dispensers of government disaster-related information because they reached the largest
Haddow, G., Haddow, K., Haddow, G., & Haddow, K. (2014). Disaster communications in a changing media world. Elsevier Science & Technology.
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Disaster Communications Audiences
percentage of the population and could be trusted to get the information right if they
worked in partnership with emergency officials.
In the 1990s, the Internet arrived and was quickly adapted to provide both timely
and detailed information. Recent disasters?beginning with the 2004 Asian Tsunami,
2005 Hurricane Katrina, the 2007 London bombings, the 2008 Cyclone Nargis in
Myanmar (Burma), the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China, the earthquake in Haiti
in 2011, Hurricane Sandy, the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2012, and the Boston
Marathon Bombings in 2013?have seen social media come to the front and in many
ways surpass the traditional media outlets in terms of timely reporting of conditions
that provided the public and government agencies with valuable information concerning response operations. The traditional media has taken notice of social media and in
many cases has adopted it as part of their regular reporting, especially during disasters
(see the text box on CNN?s site below).
CNN iReports
CNN provides a space on its website (www.cnn.com) for everyday citizens to post written
stories, video, audio, and photographs concerning events that they witness (see Figure 7.1).
Many of the postings concern natural disasters. The Frequently Asked Questions posted on the
CNN website provide a picture of how iReports works. To view the FAQ section, go to http://
ireport.cnn.com/faq.jspa.
Copyright ? 2014. Elsevier Science & Technology. All rights reserved.
Source: CNN. (2013). http://ireport.cnn.com/faq.jspa.
Figure 7.1 CNN iReport Web page. Source: http://www.ireport.com/index.jspa.
Haddow, G., Haddow, K., Haddow, G., & Haddow, K. (2014). Disaster communications in a changing media world. Elsevier Science & Technology.
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On average, CNN receives about 500 iReports submissions per day. The CNN
iReports site includes links to the latest submissions, highest-rated submissions, mostviewed submissions, most-commented and most-shared submissions, and those submissions that are broadcast on CNN.
CNN also provides a toolkit for iReporters with tips concerning the ingredients of
a good story (see the text box below), taking great photos, shooting better video, and
recording the sound of your story. There is an Assignment Desk function on the website that identifies current topics in the news that CNN would like their iReporters to
report on.
CNN iReports: StoryTelling Toolkit
The Ingredients of a Good Story
We asked a slew of CNN reporters, producers, and editors what they thought made a good
news story and how to craft one, and came up with a few words of advice:
First things first?Your story needs to include the basics; that is, who, what, where, when,
why, and how. It needs to be true and it needs to be fair.
It connects?Someone has to care about the story and the people in it, or it is not really
worth telling. It is your job as a storyteller to explain why anyone should.
It?s told in words we all use and understand?If you were going to call your best friend
and tell him or her the story, what would you start with? And how would you describe it?
That is probably the best part, and the simplest way to get it across. Start there and see
where it takes you.
It?s got pace?You want your audience to need to know what happens next. Build pace
with narrative, quotes, natural sound, or, if you are working with video, creative shot
editing.
It feels real?Emotion is a powerful connector and can go a long way toward helping
us understand one another. Think about how you can use images, sound, and words to
express the emotional range of a story and its characters.
Map it out?If you are planning to edit a video, put together a photo gallery or write a text
story. It usually helps to put together a plan-of-action. What are the crucial details? What is
the most important part? How are the pieces connected? Draft an outline or sketch a storyboard before you get started with the hard work of writing and editing. You will be glad
you did.
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Copyright ? 2014. Elsevier Science & Technology. All rights reserved.
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Excerpt from: CNN.http://ireport.cnn.com/toolkit.jspa.
In effect, the audience comprising the public and individual disaster victims have
become key players in the collection and distribution of disaster information. Emergency
officials are adopting information-collection programs and protocols that are equipped
to accept this valuable information before, during, and after a disaster strikes from
Haddow, G., Haddow, K., Haddow, G., & Haddow, K. (2014). Disaster communications in a changing media world. Elsevier Science & Technology.
Created from apus on 2022-01-30 21:49:30.
Disaster Communications Audiences
Copyright ? 2014. Elsevier Science & Technology. All rights reserved.
individuals posting information on social media sites. In addition, emergency officials
must be ready to share disaster information with the public so that they can distribute
this information to their networks via cell phone, email, text messages, Internet bulletin
boards, and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. In working with
the public and individual disaster victims, emergency officials must now create and sustain a two-way communications system that maximizes the information collection and
distribution capabilities of the social media these audiences employ.
Such a two-way communication system must also be established working with
community-based groups that operate primarily in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods and with disadvantaged populations. These populations may have trust issues
with government officials including first responders such as police and fire officials.
Before, during, and after a disaster strikes, these populations may be more inclined
to listen to and act on the advice of trusted community leaders. Emergency officials
must work with community-based groups to establish neighborhood communications
networks that facilitate communications from emergency officials to neighborhood
residents via trusted community leaders. These neighborhood communication networks would be designed to collect and transmit real-time information from trusted
community leaders to emergency officials. This two-way communications system will
not only be used in the response and recovery phases of a disaster, but also to spread
hazard mitigation and preparedness messages among community members and to
prompt action by residents and community groups, take actions designed to reduce the
impacts of future disasters, and to be ready when the next disaster strikes.
A significant percentage of the public and individual disaster victims will be members of functional needs populations as designated by Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) in the National Response Framework (FEMA, 2008) (see the text
box for more information on the functional needs populations).

Functional Needs Populations as Defined in FEMA?s National Response
Framework
1. Functional needs population: Populations whose members may have additional needs
before, during, and after an incident in functional areas, including but not limited to: maintaining independence, communication, transportation, supervision, and medical care.
Individuals in need of additional response assistance may include those who have disabilities; who live in institutionalized settings; who are elderly; who are children; who are from
diverse cultures; who have limited English proficiency or are non-English speaking; or who
are transportation disadvantaged.
Source: National Response Framework (NRF) Resource Center. http://www.fema.gov/national-response-framework.
Haddow, G., Haddow, K., Haddow, G., & Haddow, K. (2014). Disaster communications in a changing media world. Elsevier Science & Technology.
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Communicating with individuals in these functional needs populations offers many
challenges for emergency officials. Recognizing this challenge and taking steps to meet
it are the first steps in designing and implementing a communications strategy that
effectively communicates messages to members of these groups before, during, and
after a disaster strikes. Attention must be placed on how disaster messages are crafted
and delivered to these groups in consideration of the existing communications barriers. Some of these populations are comfortable with the new media (i.e., children) and
some have a limited, if growing experience, with the Internet, etc. (i.e., elderly, nonEnglish speaking, or members of diverse cultures). Emergency officials must appreciate
how best to craft their disaster messages to these groups including the use of translators and translated materials. Emergency officials must determine the best mechanisms
for communicating with these special needs populations using a combination of traditional and new media and neighborhood-based communications networks.
Copyright ? 2014. Elsevier Science & Technology. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Social Media: A Tool to Reach the Access and Functional
Needs Community
Posted by: Kim Stephens, June 15, 2012
As a part of a current project I have found some great content that references the use of social
media as a tool to reach vulnerable populations. There are four reports I?d like to highlight
that address this concept?some from the point of view of the citizen, others from the point
of view of the first responder. All of the reports remind us that a one-size-fits-all approach for
communicating is not a successful strategy in this day-and-age where people get to pick how
they find information. If you are reluctant to use social media because (as I?ve heard stated)
you don?t think your community uses the tools?think again!
1. ?Social Media: A Tool For Inclusion? was written by Anne Taylor with funding from Human
Resources and Skills Development Canada, Horizontal Policy Integration Division (HPID).
2. A report entitled ?Emergency Notification Strategies for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing Planning
Project,? developed for the Western Massachusetts Homeland Security Advisory Council,
also lists social media as an option for communicating, specifically with the deaf population during emergencies.
3. ?Emergent Use of Social Media: A New Age of Opportunity for Disaster Resilience.? (2011).
This is an article by M.E. Keim and E. Noji for the National Center for Environmental Health
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, CDC.
4. ?Communicating with Vulnerable Populations: A Transportation and Emergency
Management Toolkit.? What I like most about this toolkit, even though the main focus is
not social media, is that their suggestions emphasize relationship building?something
that social media can help accomplish.
Excerpt from: iDisaster 2.0. June 15, 2012. http://idisaster.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/social-media-a-tool-to-reach-the
-access-and-functional-needs-community/.
Haddow, G., Haddow, K., Haddow, G., & Haddow, K. (2014). Disaster communications in a changing media world. Elsevier Science & Technology.
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Disaster Communications Audiences
Since Hurricane Katrina there has been a growing interest in serving functional
needs populations, and professionals working in government, the nonprofit, voluntary,
and private sectors have begun to work together to address the basic needs of these
populations in disasters (see Jane Bullock?s ?Another Voice? on communicating with
children about disasters and safety below).
Another Voice
Talking to Children About Hazards: The Sesame Street Get Ready and Fire Safety Projects
Jane Bullock
Copyright ? 2014. Elsevier Science & Technology. All rights reserved.
Jane Bullock is the former chief-of-staff to FEMA Director James L. Witt and a principal in Bullock & Haddow LLC,
a Washington, D.C.-based disaster management consulting firm.
In 1969, a new experiment in children?s television debuted called Sesame Street. Sesame Street
was the product of the Children?s Television Workshop (CTW), a group of visionary individuals
led by Joan Ganz Cooney who recognized the need for a new approach to children?s television. The goal of the program was to focus on the underserved population of children aged
2 to 5 living in low-income to poverty-level households. These children needed help to learn
cognitive and social skills before entering school and it was felt that education, which is accessible to rich and poor alike, could play a major role in reducing the gap between low-income
children and their counterparts in the middle class. To make this program effective, Sesame
Street created one of the most rigorous research, message development, product testing, artistic, and evaluative processes to reach their audience. By all accounts, it has been extremely
effective.
Which was why, in 1979, the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) reached out to CTW and
Sesame Street in reaction to statistics that indicated a significant increase in fire-related children death and injury rates. The Sesame Street audience was extremely vulnerable to fire
threats in their homes; children were prone to play with matches and lighters and often would
hide from firefighters entering the home because they looked so foreign in their fire suits. CTW
began an aggressive project to identify what messages would work best for the preschool age
and primary school-aged children and which medium worked best to communicate to them.
One classic example of the CTW treatment is ?Drop, Stop, and Roll,? teaching children what to
do if their clothes are on fire. Through songs, skits, and puppet acting, children learned a critical principle of personal fire safety that is now practiced in daycare and schools throughout
the world. A hallmark of all CTW materials are creative songs, coloring books, simple games,
and excellent teacher and caregiver aids to help deliver the materials in a nonthreatening and
educational way.
Building on the success of the Fire Safety Project in the 1980s, FEMA, which the USFA
became part of in 1979, was extremely interested in reaching out to children to help them
understand other natural disasters and how they could be impacted by them, and what they
could do to be prepared for hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods. A collateral interest was
to see if children could bring the messages home to their parents to influence the adults to
take part in an action, such as to make a family plan or an emergency kit, or tie down their
Haddow, G., Haddow, K., Haddow, G., & Haddow, K. (2014). Disaster communications in a changing media world. Elsevier Science & Technology.
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Copyright ? 2014. Elsevier Science & Technology. All rights reserved.
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Disaster Communications in a Changing Media World
water heaters to achieve a greater level of preparedness and mitigation in their homes and
communities.
Working with the CTW staff and research process, it became clear that the word ?preparedness? wasn?t going to work and we needed to find something simpler and more understandable. Out of their exhaustive process came the Big Bird Get Ready Series, which built upon the
common childhood idea of ?Get Ready, Get Set, and Go.?
Starting with hurricanes, a Big Bird Get Ready Kit and supporting materials were
researched, designed, and extensively pilot tested. These kits were geared toward a slightly
older audience of 5 to 12 years of age and could include concepts such as weather and science, watch and warning, etc., as part of the education. Each kit included an informational brochure of three parts:
1. Get Ready examples included what does the hazard mean, and how to Get Ready by knowing where to go, knowing what to do in an earthquake, identifying high ground near a
house in a flood, and having an evacuation route and a Family Safety Kit.
2. Get Set examples included know what is watch and warning, stay tuned to local radio and
television, pick inside and outside safety spots near your home.
3. Go to Safety examples included locating the nearest shelter, dealing with earthquake aftershocks, and staying away from swollen streams.
The brochure was specifically designed to be like a small book with one side being in
English and the other in Spanish. It took CTW almost 6 months to research the most widely
accepted Spanish dialect to be used for the translation. The other two main components of
the kit were a board game and a cassette of songs and stories. At this age level, CTW found
that more complex activities such as board games and card games were most effective and an
excellent way to reinforce messages and deliver information. A key to these kits was still the
cassettes which included stories and creative songs that were written for each hazard.
?Hurricane Blues,? ?Beat the Quake,? and ?Get Out of the Water? were original songs designed
in different musical styles popular in the 1980s and designed to be played in classrooms, caregivers operations, daycare and after care centers, churches, businesses, and even in family cars.
While Big Bird was an anchor to the series, other Sesame Street characters such as Bert and
Ernie, Oscar the Grouch, the Cookie Monster, and the Count played starring rolls. In the last kit
produced, Get Ready for Floods, a special section was added on how to best talk to children
about dealing with a disaster. After the devastation caused by Hurricane Andrew, CTW staff and
characters went to the shelters around Homestead and worked with the children using the Get
Ready for Hurricanes materials and the songs and stories on the ?Hurricane Blues? cassettes.
A special outgrowth of the Get Ready project was a Sesame Street episode that dealt with
Bert and Ernie going through a hurricane disaster. Originally developed and shown in the early
1990s, a newer version of the story was developed as recently as 2004 after the series of four
hurricanes swept through Florida.
The kits were a huge success and demand outstripped FEMA?s ability to produce them in
color and some private-sector funding was made available; but FEMA was never able to keep
up with the demand. While the program was never officially evaluated, it was recognized
by professional teaching organizations, child welfare groups, and the Congress. The key to
the success was the CTW process of intensive research and intensive product testing on the
Haddow, G., Haddow, K., Haddow, G., & Haddow, K. (2014). Disaster communications in a changing media world. Elsevier Science & Technology.
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Disaster Communications Audiences
audience. The songs ?Hurricane Blues? and ?Beat the Quake? were tested with over 15 different
children audiences, as were the board and card games.
The other key was CTW?s knowledge of their audience. Disasters disproportionately impact
low-income families because of where they must live and the type of housing they live in, and
CTW knew how best to reach them. They produced well-researched and credible messages,
delivered by figures in Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Oscar, et al., that children, parents, and caregivers trusted, and made those messages educational, practical, and fun?and they saved lives. In
the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, finding safety spots included in the Get
Ready for Earthquake Kit became a standard school practice.
Copyright ? 2014. Elsevier Science & Technology. All rights reserved.
ELECTED OFFICIALS AND COMMUNITY LEADERS
Elected officials and community leaders play significant roles in all phases of
emergency management and in both receiving and delivering disaster messages. It is
vitally important that emergency officials keep those elected officials in their jurisdiction informed before, during, and after a disaster strikes. Elected officials and community leaders can serve as credible spokespeople in communicating with the public,
with partners and stakeholders, and with the media. Often, these officials maintain
social media accounts that can serve as force multipliers in getting emergency messages
to the public. This is true with communications efforts in the response and recovery
phases and in promoting hazard mitigation and preparedness programs and activities.
Local elected officials and community leaders should receive regular briefings and
updates during disaster response on conditions in the disaster site, the status of evacuees, number of dead and injured, and impact of the disaster on community infrastructure and environmental resources. They also need to keep abreast of all response actions
by governmental, nongovernmental, voluntary, and private sector responders. A specific
level of detail will be required in these briefings as these leaders will make decisions on
the use of community resources and if necessary, appealing for state and federal disaster
assistance.
State officials, particularly the governor, also require detailed information about
disaster-impact and response conditions. Only the governor can request a presidential
disaster declaration that results in the provision of federal disaster assistance to individuals and communities. Members of Congress are an important group to keep informed
as they will work with their colleagues to secure federal assistance once a presidential declaration has been made, especially in catastrophic disasters such as Hurricane
Katrina and the Northridge earthquake.
At some point in time, any number of local, state, and federal officials will want to
visit the disaster area. This is a valuable communications mechanism as these political
Haddow, G., Haddow, K., Haddow, G., & Haddow, K. (2014)