Odziv javnosti i edukacija javnosti pomoću društvenih mreža nakon potresa u Zagrebu 22. ožujka 2020.

Abstract

Following the 22 March 2020 ML 5.5 earthquake near Zagreb, Croatia, the citizens became increasingly interested in earthquakes and the multitude of simultaneous visitors caused the webpage with Croatian Seismological Survey reports on earthquakes to crash. To remedy the situation, seismologists used social network accounts to provide information, using the opportunity to educate the citizens on basic concepts of seismology, earthquake preparedness and the occurring seismic sequence. Citizens’ feedback was useful to improve the communication, but required extensive moderation. In July 2020, three seismologists from the Department of Geophysics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, one from the Slovenian Environment Agency, and a psychologist from the Croatian Catholic University conducted a poll to find out which sources of information citizens mostly use, their knowledge about earthquakes, and the level of fear they were experiencing due to the earthquakes. Most respondents relied on institutional sources of information and their knowledge on different aspects of earthquake preparedness increased relatively compared to the time before the earthquake. The majority of respondents was extremely worried on the day of the mainshock, predominantly because they were concerned of a possible stronger event, their safety and the safety of their close ones.

A social bot in support of crisis communication: 10-years of @LastQuake experience on Twitter

“…There were lessons similar to the ones learned from the Lombok earthquake. Users sought the reduction of anxiety conferred by answers and rapid information (see Figure 10 in Bossu et al, 2020 for tweets), a well-identified phenomenon in psychology (Saathoff and Everly, 2002), and confirmed by independent studies of the Zagreb earthquake (Mustać et al, 2021). In addition, both cases had individuals claiming to predict future events that required rebuttals with dedicated tweets (Fallou et al, 2022a) (Figure 3).…”

A scoping review of seismic risk communication in Europe

“…Uninformed people can prevent the smooth flow of relief efforts, and jeopardize preparedness and recovery efforts (Chen et al, 2018;Mero, 2019;Peng, 2020;Zhou et al, 2021). In times of crisis, fear is an aggravating factor for the spread of misinformation (Fearn-Banks, 2016;Fallou et al, 2020;Mustać et al, 2021), and can be reduced through communication.…”

“…However, authoritative information and warnings should be consistent across communication channels to achieve the desired public response (Devès et al, 2019;Dallo et al, 2020;Inal Onal et al, 2021). Social media and smartphone apps play an increasingly important role in disasters (Bossu et al, 2018;Amiresmaili et al, 2021;Mustać et al, 2021). They provide timely, actionable information during a crisis and reduce public anxiety (Reuter and Kaufhold, 2018;Fallou et al, 2020).…”