Workshop: Disaster Communication Redesigned

University Of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington KY

Investigators

Abstract

The rapidly changing nature of disasters and the staggering pace of communication technology innovation have an inevitable influence on how practitioners communicate across the life cycle of disasters and how the public seeks information and makes decisions on whether or not to adhere to these risk communication messages. With these changes, disaster communications scholarship must also adapt and progress. This has led to a growing need for cross-disciplinary communication-focused scholars to inform one another's research, the outcomes of which are likely to yield highly applied results that can change the face of disaster, crisis, and risk communications as we now know it. By bringing together scholars and practitioners to discuss emerging theory, breakthrough methods, and vital research questions, we have the potential to transform the future of risk communication scholarship and practice. Such outcomes include developing a public, online research repository on disaster and crisis communication; publishing an invited comment in the Natural Hazards Observer and articles in peer reviewed academic journals; and identifying and developing a research agenda on disaster communications to advance the future of public warnings and crisis communication for the nation. This grant provides funding to hold a workshop, which will bring together the nation's leading scholars and experts in risk, crisis, and disaster communications, to identify gaps and intersections in theoretical orientations, methods and innovations, and prioritize research needs for the future. Over the course of two days, scholars will identify and discuss the cutting edge theoretical questions within their disciplines that contribute to knowledge about social and behavioral responses to disaster warnings and crisis and risk communication; the cutting edge methods used to conduct data collection and analysis; and the primary scientific research questions on warnings, risk, and crisis communications in disaster that are likely to yield practical insights that will reduce losses and increase human security in disaster.