Читать книгу Theorizing Crisis Communication - Timothy L. Sellnow - Страница 22

Sociologists exploring the phenomenon of a community’s response to a warning have offered a number of important insights about how warning messages are received and processed. Much of the research on warnings examines the social-psychological response by individuals during the period of hearing a warning until acting or choosing not to act as a consequence (Sorensen, 2000). Theory has sought to explain the warning process and improve practice by structuring messages more strategically and by integrating warning systems. These approaches seek to understand warnings as more than a simple stimulus response phenomenon but as a complex social process that involves interpreting, personalizing, assessing, and confirming the risks and warnings (Mileti, 1995). These processes – both for natural hazard events, such as earthquakes and floods, and technology-based risks, such as nuclear plant accidents – have been described by Mileti and Fitzpatrick (1992), Mileti and Peek (2000), and Sorensen (2000). Warnings, like all human communication, begin with message creation by a sender and message reception by a receiver, who then interprets and responds. Mileti and Sorensen (1990) describe a process of “Hear-Confirm-Understand-Decide-Respond” as fundamental to risk communication in the public response component of public warnings. This framework is consistent with basic models of communication, including reception, interpretation, and response, but has been adapted specifically to the processing of public warning messages.

Mileti and Peek (2000) argue that a public warning system consists of three interrelated subsystems: a detection subsystem, a management subsystem, and a public response subsystem. The detection subsystem consists of the processes of initially identifying a hazard and the potential for severe harm. In many cases, detection occurs through some formalized monitoring system managed by a government agency or organization. In other cases, risks are identified through more informal means. Risk detection is a complex process involving the integration and interpretation of information, often from diverse sources. A number of factors affect the warning system, including the level of noise, failures in foresight, inability to interpret risk cues, breakdowns in vigilance, and various forms of distraction (Seeger et al., 2003). The management subsystem refers to the decision-making processes involved in weighing the risks and determining protective warnings and actions. These processes are most often managed by a response agency or organization and rely heavily on subject matter experts. As described earlier, the implications of issuing warnings are often weighed in a cost-benefit analysis before decisions are made to issue a warning. Public warnings often have significant costs including economic costs associated with social disruption. Risk communication in the detection and management of subsystems typically takes place among officials, often with little direct inclusion of the public. Risk communication in the public response subsystem includes warning the public and takes account of public perceptions, processing of messages, and actions. This final public response system is critical in that public actions, such as evacuations, shelter in place, or boil water, are often the central strategy for mitigating and limiting harm.

Some of the theories that could be employed to understand the public response subsystem include the extended parallel process model (EPPM), fear appeals, the health belief model, and the theory of reasoned action. The health belief model, for example, explains health behaviors as a function of individual perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs (Rosenstock, 1966). Attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions about risk can similarly influence risk mitigation behaviors such as evacuations or shelter in place. The EPPM begins with the assumption that threat is a primary motivator of action. Fear is an emotion while threat is a cognitive response. The EPPM seeks to incorporate the drive for defensive action through behavioral change as well as the ability to take the action (Roberto et al., 2009; Witte, 1992). These and similar approaches seek to explain how information is processed and how messages may influence behavior and thus complement the Hear-Confirm-Understand-Decide-Respond model.