"In the context of humanitarian action, Communication with Communities (CwC) refers to activities where the exchange of information is used to save lives and mitigate risks of the disaster affected community. It also enables greater accountability in humanitarian organizations and facilitates the de
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signing of a response according to the needs of the community [...] The overall objective of this toolkit is to guide policy actors and practitioners of national and international humanitarian agencies, donor communities, private sector entities, government ministries and departments to adapt CwC for the development of an appropriate disaster affected community-centered communication strategy throughout the project cycle and integrate it into policies, priorities and practices." (Page 4)
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"What we’ve learnt about communicating effectively with disaster affected communities: 1. To deliver actionable, life-saving information, emergency responders should strive to agree on common messages developed in partnership with communities and tackle the spread of rumours. 2. It is important to
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identify the right channels of communication for the intended audience. 3. Where possible, use local languages to increase the likelihood of messages achieving their desired impact. 4. Inclusion of at-risk groups should be considered carefully when developing any communication strategy [...]" (Summary of learning points, page 7)
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"Best practices for agencies to counter misinformation, rumors and false information are detailed and categorized in this white paper, and challenges and additional considerations are presented for review. This report illustrates methods of countering false information on social media with case stud
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ies: The 2014 South Napa earthquake: Tweets were filtered by geolocation to eliminate posts from trolls; The 2016 Louisiana floods: The Red Cross published and shared a blog to counter rumors and misinformation about food distribution and shelter policies; The 2017 Oroville Dam evacuation: An accidentally misleading tweet suggested the evacuation area included all of Sacramento County. Local agencies used traditional and social media to provide correct information. Examples of best practices include: Establishing partnerships with local traditional media outlets before disasters, so means exist to disseminate accurate information; Using the Joint Information System to coordinate public information efforts of multiple jurisdictions and agencies; and Setting up a central website to debunk bad information." (Executive summary)
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"Este artículo analizó la cobertura de la gestión de riesgo de desastres en tres regiones de América Latina para conocer si el cambio de paradigma, de pensar el riesgo como una construcción social en lugar de enfocarse en el desastre, se veía reflejado en las narrativas periodísticas. Mediant
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e un análisis de contenido de 130 noticias se demostró que la redacción presenta vicios como privilegiar fuentes oficiales y comunicados de prensa o contar los hechos sin análisis ni contexto. Se evidenció que el énfasis permanece en el desastre, lo que representa una oportunidad de ejercer un periodismo de prevención, que presente la GRD como un tema transversal en la agenda mediática, alineada con temas del desarrollo como pobreza, corrupción o salud." (Resumen)
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"Broadcast media has a particular fascination with stories that involve risk and health crisis events-disease outbreaks, terrorist acts, and natural disasters-contexts where risk and health communication play a critical role. An evolving media landscape introduces both challenges and opportunities f
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or using communication to manage extreme events and hazardous contexts. Risk and Health Communication in an Evolving Media Environment addresses issues of risk and health communication with a collection of chapters that reflect state-of-the-art discussion by top scholars in the field. The authors in this volume develop unique and insightful perspectives by employing the best available research on topics such as brand awareness in healthcare communication, occupational safety, climate change communication, local broadcasts of weather emergencies, terrorism, and the Ebola outbreak, among many other areas. It features analysis of new and traditional media that connects disasters, crises, risks, and public policy issues into a coherent fabric." (Publisher description)
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"This chapter focuses on one of the key areas within the field of humanitarian communication, namely the symbolic construction of distant suffering in image, text and sound. In particular, the chapter examines humanitarian communication produced by humanitarian non-government organizations (NGOs) fo
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r raising awareness, mobilizing public and government agendas for humanitarian action, securing support and legitimacy for their operations and raising funds from the public and major donors. The discussion reviews two central approaches to the study of humanitarian communication: the ethical promise of representation, which focuses on analysis of humanitarian messages and humanitarian communication as a practice, looking at NGOs’ production and audiences’ reception of humanitarian communications. It is argued that humanitarian communication can be best understood by combining these approaches and highlighting their tensions as inherent to humanitarianism itself." (Abstract)
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"This book presents a comprehensive framework for disaster communication, with a main focus on earthquake-related communication, building on a previously fragmented, single-case study approach [especially based on experiences in Italy] to analysing the role of social media during natural disasters."
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(Publisher description)
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"Digital technologies and big data are rapidly transforming humanitarian crisis response and changing the traditional roles and powers of its actors. This article looks at a particular aspect of this transformation—the appearance of digital volunteer networks—and explores their potential to act
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as a new source for media coverage, in addition to their already established role as emergency response supporters. I argue that digital humanitarians can offer a unique combination of speed and safe access, while escaping some of the traditional constraints of the aid-media relationship and exceeding the conventional conceptualizations of citizen journalism. Journalists can find both challenges and opportunities in the environment where multiple crisis actors are assuming some of the media roles. The article draws on interviews with humanitarian organizations, journalists, and digital volunteer networks about their understanding of digital humanitarian communication and its significance for media coverage of crises." (Abstract)
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"This manual provides tips for media practitioners on how to help audiences during health emergencies. It can be read in conjunction with BBC Media Action’s Lifeline Production Manual (available online) which provides more general guidance on how to communicate with people affected by humanitarian
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crises in order to help save lives and reduce suffering. Public health emergencies can start quickly or very slowly. This manual will address those that start relatively quickly: rapid onset public health emergencies." (Introduction)
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"The book develops the analytics of grievability as an analytical framework that unpacks the ways in which news about death constructs grievable death and articulates relational ties between spectators and sufferers. The book employs the analytics of grievability in a comparative manner and analyses
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the coverage of three different case studies (terror attack, war and natural disaster) by two transnational news networks (BBC World News and Al-Jazeera English). This comparative analysis showcases the centrality of news media in selectively cultivating a sense of cosmopolitan solidarity in a global age." (Publisher description)
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"Now in its sixth edition, Risk Communication has proven to be a valuable resource for environmental, safety, and health professionals who are tasked with the responsibility of understanding how to apply the most current approaches to communicating risk and debunking misinformation. The sixth editio
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n updates the text with fresh and illustrative examples, lessons learned, and recent research as well as provides advice and guidelines for communicating risk information. The authors include background information to understand the basic theories and practices of risk communication and explain how to plan an effective strategy and put it into action. The book also contains data on evaluating risk communication efforts and explores how to communicate risk during and after a health or environmental emergency." (Publisher description)
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"Closely examining the relationship between foreign correspondents of international news media and humanitarian organisations, Lena von Naso shows how the aid and media sectors cooperate in Africa in a unique way. Based on more than 70 interviews with foreign correspondents and aid workers operating
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across Africa, the book argues that the changing nature of foreign news and of aid is forcing them to form a deep co-dependency that is having a serious and largely unnoticed effect on Western news coverage." (Publisher description)
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"As the number of people affected by humanitarian crises continues to rise and as crises become more prolonged, humanitarian stakeholders (including humanitarian agencies, NGOs, and others) are responding in different ways, by partnering with the private sector, integrating innovative approaches and
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using digital technology to increase accountability, efficiency and impact. These changes, among others, are laying the foundation for a digital ecosystem for humanitarian assistance. Though nascent, this digital ecosystem has the potential to increase the addressable market, leading to more scalable solutions and platforms that will improve or enhance humanitarian outcomes, both for stakeholders and for crises-affected people." (Executive summary)
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"A Framework for Data Sharing in Practice, Part II, is a collective outcome document from two meetings held in 2017, one in New York in May and a follow-up in Copenhagen in December. The meetings were held with support from OCHA’s Centre for Humanitarian Data. The objective of these meetings was t
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o develop a framework for data sharing by which the humanitarian community can facilitate safe, responsible, and purposeful data and information sharing for stronger humanitarian response and protection outcomes. The December meeting brought together practitioners and thinkers from HHI, NRC, Netherlands Red Cross, IRC, IOM, WFP, JIPS, DRC, OCHA, ProCap, ICRC, UNICEF, and UNHCR who worked to further refine key elements of the Framework for Data Sharing in Practice. The first part of this document is a report on the discussions and agreement arising out of the December working meeting as well as the collaborative review of this document. The second part of this document presents the results of this work, offering the Framework for Data Sharing in Practice (hereafter the ‘Framework’). The document concludes with an annex on ‘Shared Definitions and Concepts’ which defines a minimum set of terms required to support a normative discussion on data and information sharing." (Page 1)
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"This article examines the diverse factors shaping the involvement of non-governmental organisation (NGO) with humanitarian photography, paying particular attention to cooperative relationships with photojournalists intended to facilitate the generation of visual coverage of crises otherwise margina
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lised, or ignored altogether, in mainstream news media. The analysis is primarily based on a case study drawing upon 26 semi-structured interviews with NGO personnel (International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, Oxfam and Save the Children) and photojournalists conducted over 2014-2016, securing original insights into the epistemic terms upon which NGOs have sought to produce, frame and distribute imagery from recurrently disregarded crisis zones. In this way, the article pinpoints how the uses of digital imagery being negotiated by NGOs elucidate the changing, stratified geopolitics of visibility demarcating the visual boundaries of newsworthiness." (Abstract)
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"In 2010, Ryan and Matheson (2010) compiled evidence to quantify the importance of communication activities to emergency management. The study involved a comprehensive content analysis of emergency incident and emergency exercise debriefing sessions and reports spanning 2003 to 2008. Six years on, t
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his 2015 study replicates that work to determine the current significance of communication in emergency management. It also identifies trends in issues that occur during emergency events. This study considers recommendations and findings from 22 reviews of recent disaster events and training exercises from around Australia. Using content analysis, 20.4 per cent of the findings relate to issues with communicating with communities. This represents an increase of 1.3 per cent on the 2010 study. Resourcing, skills in social media, and community consultation and engagement feature in the study results". (Abstract)
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