Crisis Communication

The third presenter in this session at the AoIR 2025 conference is Shupei Yuan, whose interest is in the way that AI chatbots influence risk perception and decision making during times of crisis. In some such crises, such as natural disasters, people might find out about the current situation via emergency alerts, but are perhaps unsure about the correct course of action to take. This requires a short-term decision-making process that deals with the immediate threat.

AI chatbots may be used in such contexts; the Red Cross had an AI chatbot called Clara during the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, but …

The final speaker in this session at the AoIR 2024 conference is Gregory Asmolov, who begins by discussing the strange experience of reconnecting with old school friends on social media: do we really want to find out about their political, ideological, societal views? Would we rather disconnect from them again? And if we do so, do we publicly announce that disconnection?

Such public discourses of disconnection might even be understood as disconnective violence – and crisis situations (in addition to bringing people together) can also lead to a wave of disconnections between people on different sides of a given crisis …

The next speaker in this session at the AoIR 2024 conference is Yuval Katz. His interest is in the way that the COVID-19 lockdown unfolded in Gaza: even before the current war, Gaza had been under siege for decades, and Gazans have developed many mechanisms for inspirational resilience; this was on display also during the lockdowns.

Here and elsewhere, the pandemic was a cultural experience, too; much as in Israel, the pandemic was perceived through comparisons with the holocaust, and digital tools were mobilised to cope with and find solace in times of crisis, in Gaza the Palestinian population mobilised …

The next speaker in this AoIR 2024 conference session is Kateryna Bystrytska, whose interest is in the use of Telegram channels for constructing knowledge about the war in Ukraine. There are now many such channels that provide information about the current war situation, informing local residents about current air raids, the types of missiles and planes attacking the country, and the likely duration of attacks; this enables local residents to make more informed decisions about whether and when to head to air raid shelters or protect themselves by other means.

Such channels have been widely adopted by the Ukrainian population …

The next speaker in this Social Media & Society 2024 session is Nic DePaula, whose interest is in the association between local and regional risk levels and social media use and engagement in the US in the context of COVID-19. This is in the broader context of public health communication on social media, which is now common if unevenly distributed across agencies, due to various internal and external factors.

As public health threats rise in a given area, does social media activity by and engagement with health agencies follow? Two dynamics could be present here: there may be more activity …

The next speaker in this IAMCR 2024 session is Jintao Zhang, whose interest is in the Chinese government’s social media crisis response to the Zhengzhou rainstorm. This occurred in July 2021, and resulted in substantial damage and loss of life.

How did the Chinese government use social media, and especially Weibo, during this crisis? What communication strategies did it adopt, and why? How were these influenced by the nature of authoritarian governance in China? This study explored these questions by exploring the activities of some 73 accounts that operated at four level of governance, and coded these for their approach …

The final speaker in this IAMCR 2024 session is Constanza Ortega Gunckel, whose interest is in the coverage of the Chilean wildfires in 2024. Chile regularly experiences such fires in February, but the 2024 fires were exceptional in their extent and death toll; this also increased Chileans’ need for information.

Social media – and especially also Instagram – were especially critical here, and Instagram users also posed questions towards the media to better understand what was going on here. The present project examined such news coverage and user comment in Instagram from the perspective of a dramatic curve in the …

The next speaker at ANZCA 2023 is Sky Marsen, whose interest is in health communication during crisis. This involves matters of personal and social identity and high levels of scientific uncertainty that motivate many to look to opposing discourses from religious and other sources. The present project explored culturally diverse contexts in developing nations, and focusses here on a case study of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-16. Here, a combination of mental models and crisis communication approaches might have mitigated risks in health communication during crisis.

The project engaged in some 20 interviews with health professionals from …

The final speaker in this ANZCA 2023 session is Kirsty O’Callaghan, whose interest is in the role of gender in effective climate change communication. The important role of women at the heart of climate action has long been recognised, but climate change communication must also be multi-dimensional and involve a diversity of voices – Greta Thunberg’s success in her climate advocacy demonstrates this.

However, there still is a lack of women visible in such debates, especially also in the context of Australia and Aotearoa. Does climate change communication only work with particular audiences under specific circumstances, and what is the …

The next speaker in this ANZCA 2023 session is Victoria Fielding, whose interest is in reporting roles in climate disasters in Australia. Her focus is on the catastrophic bushfires in 2019/20, and the Lismore floods in 2022, and the way the media did or did not link these to climate change. These natural disasters were extreme, and part of a greater trend towards growing threats from climate change, and as such became part of a highly politicised debate around climate change in Australia.

While there can no longer be any question about the reality of catastrophic climate change, consensus about …