The Development and Initial Validation of the Citizen Disaster Communication Assessment

Abstract

Current U.S. federal disaster management approaches advocate for citizens to engage in local efforts to cope with the negative consequences of disasters. In line with this approach, this project develops and validates the Citizen Disaster Communication Assessment (CDCA), which is a comprehensive survey instrument measuring individuals' communication across disaster phases. The CDCA development process occurred over three studies. Study 1 consisted of assessment item generation and expert review. Study 2 determined the dimensionality of citizen disaster communication. Study 3 surveyed three communities experiencing different disaster phases in order to confirm the CDCA factor structure. Results (a) demonstrate evidence of an empirically derived citizen disaster communication measure and (b) inform current understanding of how citizens' communication can participate in community disaster management. Future research should use the CDCA in other diverse communities to further validate the measure and to provide additional insight into the structural and sociodemographic factors influencing disaster communication.

Developing a multi-level organization-public dialogic communication framework to assess social media-mediated disaster communication and engagement outcomes

“…Message topics. Adapting the items from Spialek and Houston (2018) , we developed a seven-category typology to capture the scope of topics covered in government-public Facebook messages, including: 1) risk and disaster information forecasting ( N = 325, 23.90 %); 2) clarifying and correcting misinformation ( N = 70, 5.15 %); 3) connecting the public to resources ( N = 659, 48.46 %); 4) confirming organizational actions ( N = 612, 45 %); 5) calling for public participation in disaster reliefs ( N = 255, 18.75 %); 6) growing community ( N = 255, 22.43 %); and 7) storytelling of community members ( N = 23, 1.69 %). The seven categories were not mutually exclusive, and a Facebook post thus can be coded to contain multiple topics.…”

“…In addition to the structural features, the topical content of a message represents the second-level dialogic feature. Disaster communication scholars point out the importance of providing context-specific content for the public ( Spence, Lachlan, Lin, & del Greco, 2015 ), as the public’s information needs vary from disaster to disaster, as well as across different stages of the same disaster ( Spialek & Houston, 2018 ). Therefore, we argue that the topic-level dialogic features are context-dependent.…”

“…In the context of citizen disaster communication, Spialek and Houston (2018) identified a set of stage-specific communication goals that help affected communities to cope with the threat and negative consequences of a disaster. In the pre-disaster stage, the most important function of disaster communication revolves around risk forecasting , which includes both weather forecasts and instruction for damage control.…”

“…Based on Spialek and Houston’s (2018) typology of citizen disaster communication needs, we posit that government social media messages are more likely to generate behavioral and affective responses when fulfilling these disaster communication needs from the public. To explore which topic is more likely to promote public engagement, we propose the following research question: RQ1: Which topics of government social media messages are more likely to promote public engagement on Facebook during a natural disaster?…”

Disaster journalism: fostering citizen and community disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery, and resilience across the disaster cycle

“…The CERC and DCIF models usually consider the primary communicators (that is, the source of the information and messages disseminated) to be agencies, governments, and organisations. In practice, journalists and news organisations are essential components of the disaster communication ecosystem (Spialek and Houston, ). Disaster communication models often conceptualise them as dissemination channels for messages, partners in public engagement, sources of information, and influencers of the public.…”