Is a picture worth a thousand words? The effects of maps and warning messages on how publics respond to disaster information

Liu, Brooke Fisher; Wood, Michele M.; Egnoto, Michael J.; Bean, Hamilton; Sutton, Jeannette; Mileti, Dennis S.; Madden, Stephanie

doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.04.004

Cited by 82 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Our finding that longer messages that included more information had better outcomes is consistent with research by Wood et al (2017), who examined the effect of amount of information on outcomes for an improvised nuclear device warning. Our study extends that research by examining a different hazard type and by including fear, an affective precursor to protective action.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Believing the message is to trust that what is being communicated is accurate (Mileti and Peek 2000). Personalization is the process of individuals' recognizing that they are susceptible to the threat (Wood et al 2017;Nigg 1987). Personalization plays a crucial role in warning response as it has been linked to an increased likelihood of taking protective action (Casteel 2016;Mileti and Peek 2000;Perry 1979;Perry et al 1981).…”

Section: B Warning Messagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Milling consists of informal interactions with others to search for additional information (Drabek 1986;Perry 2004, 2012). Finally, message receivers decide what action to take in response to the warning message (Wood et al 2017).…”

Section: B Warning Messagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Existing research on short messages has found that relative to longer 1380-character messages, shorter messages resulted in poorer message outcomes (Bean et al 2014(Bean et al , 2016. A recent study (Wood et al 2017) found that the amount of information contained in a message was positively associated with message understanding and deciding and negatively associated with response delay.…”

Section: New Warning Technologies and Message Lengthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Owing to concerns about response burden, however, we did not assess prior knowledge of the hazard; therefore, we cannot be certain that there were no preexisting group differences in tsunami knowledge. Although experimental designs maximize internal validity by controlling for baseline differences between groups (Babbie 2016) and have been used successfully to investigate warning messages (Frisby et al 2014;Liu et al 2017), future research should investigate the effects of tsunami warning messages during real-world events to strengthen the external validity of our findings. Furthermore, this scenario depicted a distant-source event, which would allow for additional time for both the development of a long form message that can be sent in a single shot or in sequence.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Designing Effective Tsunami Messages: Examining the Role of Short Messages and Fear in Warning Response

Sutton

Vos

Wood

et al. 2017

Weather, Climate, and Society

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Although tsunamis have the potential to be extremely destructive, relatively little research on tsunami messaging has taken place. Discovering whether tsunami warning messages can be written in a way that leads to increased protective response is crucial, particularly given the increased use of mobile message services and the role they play in notifying the public of imminent threats such as tsunami and other hazards. The purpose of this study was to examine the possibility of designing warning messages for tsunamis that improve upon message style and content used by public alerting agencies to date and to gain insight that can be applied to other hazards. This study tested the impact of tsunami messages that varied in length and content on six message outcomes—understanding, believing, personalizing, deciding, milling, and fear. Relative to the short message, revised messages resulted in significantly more understanding and deciding, known precursors to taking protective action under threat. The revised message also resulted in significantly more fear, which is believed to influence behavioral intentions. Findings suggest that shorter messages may not deliver enough content to inform message receivers about the threat they face and the protective actions they should perform. Longer messages delivered with more specific information about the location of impact, threat-associated risks, and recommended protective actions were associated with better message outcomes, including quicker intended response. Recommendations for future tsunami warnings are provided.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: B Warning Messagesmentioning

confidence: 99%