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In their study of reactions to the broadcast and ensuing panic of Orson Welles 1938 radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds”, Cantril, Wells, Koch, Gaudet and Herzog (1940) categorized listener reactions into four groups:
- Those who analyzed the internal evidence of the information and decided it could not be true;
- Those who checked the information against other sources and concluded it was not true;
- Those who checked the information against other sources and nevertheless concluded it was true;
- Those who made no attempt to check the authenticity of the information.
Some quotes from their interviews illustrate the third category:
“I looked out the window and everything looked the same as usual so I thought it hadn’t reached our section yet.”
“We looked out of the window and Wyoming Avenue was black with cars. People were rushing away, I figured.”
“No cars came down my street. Traffic is jammed on account of the roads being destroyed, I thought.” (Cantril, Wells, Koch, Gaudet and Herzog, 1940)
Multiple channels increase the effectiveness of emergency warnings by extending their reach and by providing message collaboration. The more channels, the better.
When people receive news of an unexpected event, they seek confirmation from other sources (Auf der Heide, 1989). If they hear an Emergency Siren, they may turn on their radios. If they receive an email, they may be more likely to perform a web search. If they hear of a cyclone warning on the radio, they may look out their windows at the sky.
It is important that people do receive confirmation; if they do not, the chance they will disregard the message is increased. The message must also be consistent across channels. Variations in the message create room for interpretation, increasing the chance that the message will be misinterpreted.
Many people, including those living in remote communities not served by local radio or television broadcasts, will turn to the internet to verify unexpected news. However, it is difficult to predict where on the web people will look for emergency information. Sites run by emergency services, local councils, police services, are among many possibilities. These examples, however, are of a type that, in an emergency event, may not have resources available to keep their website up to date. To facilitate a consistent, timely message across these many sites, a web applet can be built to be incorporated into existing website pages. The applet automatically displays recent headlines with links to message details. Such an applet could be incorporated into the websites of the various organisations people might look to for information during an emergency, including local councils, police, volunteer agencies, etc. The applet might be configured to show only headlines matching specific criteria, for example location or type of emergency event.
Another reason for multiple channels is system redundancy. More channels means less chance the message will be delayed (McLeod, 2003). It is important however that increasing the number of channels does not lead to a “scattergun” approach to message publication; rather, diverse channels should be used to facilitate targeted delivery of messages, using channels to deliver messages to specific groups, such as voicemail messages to the blind, or SMS to the deaf (Working Group on Natural Disaster Information Systems - Subcommittee on Natural Disaster Reduction, 2000).
References1. Auf der Heide, E. (1989) Disaster Response: Principles of Preparation and Coordination, Erik Auf der Heide, Atlanta.
2. Cantril, H., Wells, H. G., Koch, H., Gaudet, H. and Herzog, H. (1940) The invasion from Mars : a study in the psychology of panic : With the complete script of the famous Orson Welles broadcast, Princeton university press, Princeton.
3. McLeod, R. (2003) Inquiry into the Operational Response to the January 2003 Bushfires in the ACT, ACT Government.
4. Working Group on Natural Disaster Information Systems - Subcommittee on Natural Disaster Reduction (2000) Effective Disaster Warnings, National Science and Technology Council Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (USA).
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