Abstract
Efficient risk communication is aimed at improving the supply of risk information to meet the information needs of individuals, thus reducing their vulnerability when facing the risk of emergency. There is little information available in the literature regarding information preference from an individual’s need perspective, and there is a lack of differentiation in evaluation between information need and supply. Under the guidance of the crisis stage analysis theory, using multiple response analysis and weighted analysis methods, this study explores earthquake disaster information content and communication channel preferences, and develops an information deviation index (IDI) to evaluate the efficiency of risk communication before, during, and after an earthquake. A questionnaire-based survey of 918 valid respondents in Songyuan, China, which had been hit by a small earthquake swarm, was conducted to provide practical evidence for this study. The results indicated the following. Firstly, the information needs of individuals are highly differentiated in the different stages of an earthquake. From pre-disaster to post-disaster, individuals show a shift in information need from “preparedness and response knowledge” to “disaster information”, then to “disaster information and disaster relief information” in parallel, to “reconstruction and reflection information”. Based on the above analysis, a composition of the main earthquake disaster information is proposed for different stages. Secondly, by measuring the values of the IDI, we found that most individuals’ information needs were met for the earthquake. Thirdly, the TV and the internet were the two preferred commutation channels for acquiring disaster information from among all the effective channels in all the stages.
Highlights
What is a disaster? “A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts” [1]
In the first period after an earthquake occurrence, it can be seen that the public is eager to acquire basic information related to the earthquake disaster itself and information related to their own interests, which is consistent with the results of previous studies [30,66]
It proposed the main composition of information at the different stages of an earthquake disaster, and clarified which types of earthquake disaster risk information should be given priority at each stage
Summary
What is a disaster? “A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts” [1]. It is important for individuals to acquire sufficient earthquake disaster information so that, when faced with an earthquake, they are able to make the right decisions and take rapid actions with regard to mitigation measures and adjustments [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Research on the public’s disaster information acquisition content and channel preferences may help to improve the efficiency of information supply. If a communication channel is found to be effective in motivating the public to respond proactively to risk information, but is used sparingly, its effectiveness is limited [14,15].
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