Informing citizens as a preparedness measure


30.09.2018

Regarding the different ways information may be provided/received, a number of participants referred to the, in their opinion most “simple”, form of awareness improvement measure - paper brochures: “Municipalities should hand out leaflets” (G5-P4); “they could send letter from the Lazio region authority or whatever. Clearly a letter is a bit of an old system, but you are sure it will reach everyone, every house. This is one way to inform” (G2-P11). Others refer to a range of sources: “If would be useful to create awareness, be it through the school, TV, information brochures about ways to save lives […] a lot of people get hurt, they die running down the staircase […] If there could be a way that you have it written down and you post it on the fridge, it would a way to save a lot of lives” (G8-P3). These quotes show that, interestingly, despite their aforementioned enthusiasm for internet and social media use in disasters, participants, here, default to paper-based information. It may be thus concluded that whilst active information-gathering during a disaster is part of an online culture, gathering information for disaster preparedness is not but requires, at least partially, more traditional sources.

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