No abstract

The increasing use of OSM during emergency, or potentially threatening, situations creates conditions in which emergency planners and responders need a high level of investigative skill to weed through a dynamic information landscape to determine the quality of information to contribute to improved situation awareness. This weeding process transforms the big data environment of OSM to focused information retrieval. Inquiry into indicators of quality in OSM (authority, objectivity, currency, coverage, and glyphicality) during severe weather situations informs how OSM impacts the information behavior of the severe weather enterprise of the U. S. Specifically, this paper focuses on investigation into how a particular element of the severe weather enterprise in the Midwest, the integrated warning team (IWT), identifies relevant information in OSM during severe weather events. This paper describes the theoretical framework of an inquiry into information behavior of the IWT during severe weather events through the lens of cognitive authority theory (Wilson, 1983) and Bonnici’s (2016) CAF-QIS for understanding the phenomena of both credibility and trustworthiness in the Twittersphere where author is potentially unknown.

more substantial to Wilson's call to action than an investigation of the crisis communication efforts of government leaders at the time.To the point of the user… "For costly ignorance may be irreparable; even presenting the crucial information in the most palatable possible form may lead to no change of behavior" (Wilson, 1977, p. 66).Emergency communication occurs before an emergency event occurs, during the emergency, and after the emergency event. Pre-event communication focuses on preparedness actions to plan for a potential or impending emergency event. Emergency messages provided during an emergency event focus on actions to take now to respond to the emergency. Post-event messaging focuses on needs or actions to take based on the particular emergency. An underlying theme in the emergency communication described is to take action.The initial moments during and immediately following an emergency have a profound impact on the perceptions of individuals experiencing the event, the response efforts, and recovery from the emergency event. The response provided during the initial communication efforts of leadership have a lasting influence on first responders and the community, often setting the tone for future communication and response activities. The press conference is one of many communication efforts within crisis communications. Throughout my lifetime the press conference signaled a significant situation that required my attention. Although crisis communication continues to evolve, the press conference is likely to remain an appropriate tool to communicate accurate, timely, and needed information to large numbers of people throughout emergency events.The public's awareness of hazards, and businesses' understanding that disasters can disrupt or halt their operations, is vital to understanding the critical importance of emergency communication to reduce the loss of life and property in an emergency (Lindell, Perry, & Prater, 2007). Through open communication and collaboration, asynchronous emergency information created by emergency managers, emergency communication professionals, public information officers, and community leaders is recorded and disseminated to the public as change agents to influence behavior to prepare for and respond to emergencies.