Читать книгу Theorizing Crisis Communication - Timothy L. Sellnow - Страница 19

Both scholars and practitioners have sought to understand the process whereby crisis managers and the public receive information about an immediate and impending threat, how that threat is interpreted and understood, and how it may impact individual decisions and actions. One result is a set of relatively specialized theories and models that address crisis detection, issues of evacuations, efforts to create shelter-in-place responses, and recalls of potentially dangerous products, such as contaminated food. While related to more general theories of risk perception and communication as presented later in Chapter 8, these approaches are distinct in dealing with the specific problem of how to inform the public about an imminent threat and provide motivation to take self-protective action. Warnings are important because they are the principal way, along with promoting preparedness, for reducing harm.

In this chapter we describe the general process of issuing warning messages as well as the contexts of such warnings. Some of the fundamental tensions of warning systems, including the duty to warn, are described, along with variables such as channels, audience characteristics, contextual variables, and timing. Warnings vary widely in terms of channel (e.g., sirens, text alerts), specificity (e.g., a Department of Homeland Security [DHS] color-coded alert of “elevated risk,” a hurricane evacuation order, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention message about social distancing), and the source of the message (e.g., neighbors, media, government agency). A significant body of literature has sought to describe these variables in warnings.

We review several functional theories of communication and crisis warning, including Mileti and Sorensen’s Hear-Confirm-Understand-Decide-Respond model, Lindell and Perry’s protective action decision model (PADM) response framework, and the integrated food recall model. We describe several warning systems, including the Emergency Broadcasting System, the DHS alert system, and the National Hurricane Center’s cone of uncertainty. The development of mobile alert systems such as the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) are also described.