The New Ecology of Tornado Warning Information: A Natural Experiment Assessing Threat Intensity and Citizen‐to‐Citizen Information Sharing

Abstract

The complexity of the modern information ecosystem raises many questions for public organizations. In the context of emergency management, information (such as warning messages) is communicated not only from a source of authority to the public but also between members of the public. The authors use a series of storms that affected Oklahoma in the spring of 2016 to test propositions related to how information about tornado warnings reached the public and who received and shared information about the storm, as well as to identify how gender and age mediate the influence that exposure to an extreme weather event has on the sharing of this information. Overall, the authors find that reported exposure to a tornado increases information sharing through a variety of media and technology. The effect of the tornado erases the otherwise present gender gap in sharing information, while it has little effect on the media platforms that are most popular among older respondents. Evidence for Practice• Traditional media platforms remain the most popular channels by which the public receive tornado warnings, although cellular phones have become quite important as well. • Reported exposure to a tornado increases the sharing of information, especially across newer media technologies. • The effect of tornado exposure eliminates the gender gap in information sharing. • The effect of tornado exposure is dwarfed by the effect of age across new media technologies.• An effective warning strategy that seeks to reach all members of the public needs to balance efforts across a range of technologies suited to the demographics of the community.Our results suggest that tornadoes, independent of all other storm characteristics, generally increase communication activities. These effects are least prominent for face-to-face communication or phone conversations. In these circumstances, individuals have limited ability to increase communication during a storm. Generally, they are at home and are limited in their ability to travel by the storm. When looking at which media are preferred for communication of storm information, we find that phone calls are generally the most common, but use does not respond to storm threats. When comparing sending to receiving, we find clear differences between communication methods. During storms, respondents are more likely to report initiating communication compared with receiving communication. This is especially true for "traditional" methods such as face-to-face conversations and phone calls. On the other hand, respondents report similar rates of sending and receiving texts. Finally, we see that increased threat intensity does increase communication efforts, primarily through the use of text messages and Facebook. The Information Ecology of SubpopulationsHaving examined the effects of threat intensity (specifically, reported tornado experience) on communication patterns generally, we now examine how these patterns differ by subpopulation. In particular, we are interested in the effects of age and gender on commun...

Trust in Emergency Management Authorities and Individual Emergency Preparedness for Tornadoes

“…Research in emergency management has documented the important contingent effect of a large variety of demographic variables that are related to individual emergency preparedness. Previous studies have shown that age (Ablah et al, ; Heller, Alexander, Gatz, Knight, & Rose, ; Lindell & Perry, ), gender (Blessman et al, ; Eisenman et al, ; Murphy et al, ; Robinson, Pudlo, & Wehde, ), education (Fothergill & Peek, ; Russell, Goltz, & Bourque, ), income (Ablah et al, ; Edwards, ), location (Wehde, Pudlo, & Robinson, ), and race/ethnicity (Brodie, Weltzien, Altman, Blendon, & Benson, ; Eisenman et al, ; Peacock, Morrow, & Gladwin, ; Redlener et al, ; Torabi & Seo, ) capture important individual differences that structure individual emergency preparedness and response. Additionally, individuals who have children at their residences tend to be more prepared for disasters (Baker & Cormier, ; Edwards, ; Russell et al, ).…”

Citizen-Centric Strategies During Crisis Outbreak: An Overview

“…In emergency management, information (such as warning messages) is communicated not only to the public from a source of authority but also among the public members. Robinson et al (2019) used a series of storms in Oklahoma in 2016 as their case study. The authors analyzed how information on tornado warnings reached the public and who received and exchanged knowledge about the storm and determined the effect of gender and age in the process of sharing knowledge during an emergency.…”

Citizen-Centric Public Service Satisfaction During Pandemic Outbreak: A Measurement Model

“…Concerning crisis management, the study conducted by Marchezini (2020) propose several crucial steps, particularly on social and political aspects such as improving data and knowledge access for different sectors and engage different audiences as an unconventional people-centric approach for disaster risk reduction. Robinson et al (2019) find that reported exposure to an emergency event increases information sharing through a variety of media and technology however, the emergency managers need to carefully disseminate information as certain sources promote the spread of information among citizen but tendency not reaching populations at risk, especially the elderly. Thus, Rå destad and Larsson (2020), suggest a more meaningful way of collaborative governance and respectful participation raise awareness and encourage individuals to prepare for and withstand crises and unburden the public authorities in crisis management.…”