Reference:
Heath, R. L., Lee, J., & Ni, L. (2009). Crisis and Risk Approaches to Emergency Management Planning and Communication: The Role of Similarity and Sensitivity. Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol. 21 Issue 2, Pg. 123-141.
Theme: This article examines whether multiple voices are best to supply crisis information, evaluation, and advice to make communities more fully functioning.
Summary:
· Emergency management is a key to preventing and responding to risks, and managing related issues to make society more fully functioning.
· An infrastructural approach to crisis and risk reasons that individual, expert, and community efficacy are focal points for determining whether a community is properly organized to plan and communicate about various risks.
· Community theory postulates that planning and response compliance increase as multiple voices join to provide requisite diversity in planning and response.
· The centerpiece of emergency management communication is the persuasiveness of the experts' advice: Willingness of people to receive and yield to advice - use it for personal response.
· Diversity in public relations adds value to society's discourse because it increases the likelihood that concerns will be heard and given regard.
· Emergency management planning and communication is less likely to experience crisis if diversity of opinions is brought into planning and communication that are sensitive to residents' perception of the world.
Application to the Lesson Topic: This week’s lesson topic is risk and crisis communication. This article shows that people are more likely to follow advice if information is communicated by multiple sources.
Application to Emergency Services: Risk and crisis communication is vital to emergency services. If information is communicated to the public there is going to be a lot more damage and fatalities. It is important for multiple sources to get information out in order to help mitigate losses.
I completely understand the idea that multiple voices and sources can increase believability of listeners. Hearing the same message over and over again increases reliability. My only thought about how this could hinder the process is that if multiple sources are relaying information without verifying it, we decrease reliability. There is generally one voice for a department, the public information officer. This person is responsible for relaying accurate and timely information to many different sources, who in turn, relay the information to the public. This only works if all sources are efficient in receiving accurate information.
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