“Is There Anybody Out There?”: Communication of Natural Hazard Warnings at Home and Away

Abstract

Objective. This article examines various determinants of communication behaviors related to natural hazards and how those determinants vary for those at home or those away from home. We use the context of a series of storms that provoked communication to determine differences across media platforms, location during the event, sending versus receiving communication, and certain demographic characteristics. Methods. We use a survey of Oklahoma residents fielded in the Spring of 2016 following a series of storms to examine self-reported communication behaviors. Results. Our findings suggest that individuals are more likely to communicate when away from home, across all media for both sending and receiving behaviors. We find that warning reception methods differ importantly across location; those at home rely on authority-to-citizen communication, while others rely on citizen-to-citizen communication. Demographics and socioeconomic status also influence communication patterns. Conclusion. Concerned individuals and emergency managers should use a diverse set of media to communicate, especially under increased risk or hazard, to reach relevant populations across demographics and place-based locations. These strategies must be sensitive to time of day and the availability of media platforms to affected residents.Advances in technology have opened new avenues for communication for both individuals and institutions. In this vein, governments have encouraged direct communication with citizens to transmit information or receive feedback from the public. Interactive communication, such as authority to citizen or citizen to authority (A2C and C2A), has seen tremendous development in government communication activities. These same technologies also promote citizen-to-citizen communication (C2C) of risk information. Understanding how citizens respond to hazards and associated information is especially important for shortwarned events, such as tornadoes, floods, fires, or human-caused events such as terrorism or industrial accidents. These events are likely to provoke increased communication of both types, creating an environment especially open to examination of these behaviors.Information and communication have important implications for the successful governance of a democratic society. Communication is a key, but complex, ingredient to good governance (World Bank, 2009) especially in the context of blame attribution or credit giving (Canales, Pope, and Maestas, 2019) and trust in government (Darr and Moak, Social Science Quarterly 2019). Increasingly, technology and emerging media platforms play an important role in the democratic processes of communication and governance (Calista and Melitski, 2007). Disasters, in particular natural hazards, provide an interesting realm to examine the implications of communication for governance as most natural hazard information originates with the government. Additionally, much disaster communication occurs online, further solidifying the use of disasters as a tool for understanding the g...

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