Media

Warnings and Updates

A specific and well-studied area of disaster media is its use as a warning system and method of providing updated information. One such example in the United States is the Emergency Alert System (EAS), which uses several broadcast mediums to relay information in the event of an emergency. Generally, warnings take the structure of identifying potential hazards and ways to reduce those hazards. Warnings exist around several different disaster scenarios; for example, weather-related warnings are a common occurrence in most nations, whereas warnings for tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and wildfires tend to be geographically specific.

Many types of disasters have a warning period. Some, such as many natural disasters, are more obvious and easier to comprehend. The warning period may vary from minutes to days, making media more relevant to the warning of some disasters over others. In some cases, such as tornadoes or hurricanes, the risk is seasonal and, hence, more predictable. In other instances, a crisis can surface without prior expectations, as in the case of earthquakes and terrorist attacks, making media less useful for a warning. Public response to warnings is primarily the result of the information that people have access to during the warning period, including pre-event public education. Therefore, access to media that provides needed warning information is essential to the success of such messages, which must be specific and targeted.

The Internet has proven an increasingly effective tool to disseminate media, often in real-time. ReliefWeb posts approximately 150 maps and documents daily from over 2,000 sources such as the United Nations, governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academia, and the media, which can be read through RSS feeds. The U.S. Geological Survey Recent Earthquake RSS feed is embedded as news items or within maps using background coordinate fields.

Shortly after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the online search engine Google established a service called People Finder, which operated as a freely accessible, multilingual, online database that could be used to search for and contribute information. While not officially verified, these records allowed relatives to get information when much of the traditional communication infrastructure had been destroyed. Various disaster relief organizations are quickly adopting these types of resources and applications, and many now disseminate information via services such as Twitter and create event-specific podcasts through services like iTunes.

Information Seeking and Comprehension

Another area media serves in disasters is information acquisition. Because disasters are unanticipated, often poorly prepared for, and accompanied by great risk, they usually cause a great deal of fear and uncertainty [Page 409]in the public. When uncertainty exists, which is a common feature of disasters, mediated information-seeking increases. Mass media is usually the dominant source that people turn to for information, possibly because mass media outlets are generally considered valuable and timely sources of information. Individuals use the media for information seeking during a disaster for several reasons, including to attempt to reduce uncertainty, obtain a sense of control, serve remedial processes, facilitate sensemaking, reduce psychological stress, obtain specific actions, and for learning.

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