Risk and Crisis Communication for Disaster Prevention and Management

This book presents results from a workshop on risk and crisis communication for disaster prevention and management held at Jade University of Applied Sciences in April 2017.

Communication is a decisive factor to protect citizens from disasters. In order to discuss different aspects of risk and crisis communication and their role in disaster prevention and management, a workshop on this topic was held at Jade University of Applied Sciences on April 27th, 2017 in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. The papers presented here summarize the contributions of this workshop. Tomas Odén writes about the public's views on media reporting in crisis situations, and discusses how changes in media markets may impact the ability of local news media to fulfil their task to provide the public with adequate information on crises. Frank Fuchs-Kittowski discusses how mobile augmented reality can be used to improve risk and crisis communication in disaster management. His analyses cover possible use cases, as well as technological requirements. Christian Reuter, Marc-André Kaufhold, Inken Leopold, and Hannah Knipp analyse the potential of mobile warning apps, and how three already existing warning apps (only partially) exploit this potential. Marina Ghersetti analyses generational aspects of media use, and compares media usage patterns in everyday life with media use in crisis situations. Kerstin Dressel and Patricia Pfeil focus on socio-cultural factors of risk and crisis communication. In their first contribution, the authors analyse why people react differently to disasters. In their second contribution, they discuss how this affects civil protection agencies and their communication with the public. Finally, Klafft and Meissen look into the issue of risk communication via navigation systems, and outline three different concepts how to present route changes to the driver that are based on potentially inaccurate severe weather forecasts.

Autorentext
Michael Klafft is a full professor for business computing at Jade University of Applied Sciences. His research focuses on risks and crisis communication via digital media, especially smartphone applications. Effectiveness and the user's acceptance are important questions in the center of his studies. Before joining Jade University, Michael Klafft worked for the Fraunhofer society, Germany's largest institution for applied research. At Fraunhofer's, Michael Klafft served as a member of the society's scientific-technical council, and was deputy head of department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering (ISST).