Preventive Function In Social Media Posts On Safety And Emergency Situations

Abstract

Introduction. In times of martial law, there is a noticeable demand for preventive media texts particularly in social networks informing the community about safety rules and emergency situations. Research relevance. The Media Relations Department at the State Emergency Service of Ukraine or SESoU prevents or mitigates a potential crisis by informing community about safety rules and regulations. While following the general media standards, in the period of martial law the procedure of informing the public of emergency has several specific features. Research Methods. The analytical-synthetic method has been used to explore the research background and define the main terms. The method of synthesis and generalization has optimized the theoretical outline. The interview has been used to survey the State Emergency Service employees. The observation and information products analysis method has been used to evaluate the content. Results. The phenomenon of preventive is substantiated as an interdisciplinary category that serves as an effective mechanism for preventing undesirable consequences and situations. The experience that the regional head departments of State Emergency Service of Ukraine have regarding public preventive information has been studied. The advantages to using social networks to provide prevention and advert risks have been described. The genre-compositional nature used in posts has been studied. The preventive or informational and explanatory types of posts have been identified. Conclusions. In order to objectively inform and preventively alert citizens to safety rules and emergency situations, it is necessary to actively leverage the potential of social media. Posts should be regularly prepared and published, and materials should be accompanied by the author’s photos and videos, which will help keep the feed active. The social media posts have been interpreted according to their genre characteristics as informational, emotional, ritualistic, exploratory, and argumentative. The preventive, or informational, genre is identified, that is aimed at providing unbiased information about a certain event, phenomenon, fact, and explaining the rules of safety compliance. In terms of composition, posts have a title, the main body, and a conclusion.