We've been assigned a final project in this class to analyze the crisis communication that went on around ND with the floods. I've chosen to look at the crisis communication in Valley City, since I live here and know the communication here the best. I haven't quite chosen what medium I will analyze, but I have the following in mind: Twitter, The Forum, News Dakota, and Times-Record. One of the things I noticed throughout the communication during the flood is that I got a lot of my information about Valley City from The Forum's website instead of the Times-Record. This was especially true on weekends. But the radio and NewsDakota told me the most, so I'll probably end up choosing that for my medium. One thing for sure is that I am going to choose an online source because then I know that all of the articles and such are saved in archives.
I plan to look at the communication that occured before, during, and after the flooding that happened here. Because all of the articles are saved online in archives, I will better be able to find out specifically when certain articles were released and when announcements were made. I also plan to interview some friends around here to find out which medium they used to find out about the crisis and how effective they found it. This is part 5 of the assignment. Informal interviewing will help me determine how people relyed on information.
A description of events is also part of the assignment. The events range from the very first sandbag filled to cleanup and restoration (which probably won't be part of my assignment). Events like students helping sandbag and the sirens going off will be listed here as well as when we were told to conserve water and when the sewer actually collapsed. Then I will list the building of contigency dikes and porta-potties being brought in. Announcements are also important part of event list.
After analyizing my own and other's opinions and experiences with different media used in crisis communication around the area, I will be able to determine which was the most and least effective and credible. I predict a lot of people relyed on word-of-mouth, which in my opinion is the lease effective. I guess we'll see once I start researching.
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The flood is a good topic, since you experienced it first hand. Also, the radio and television did give good information. I think this is because it was fast and easy to access and also they always had updates. The newspapers had good information too, but like you said you usually had to wait until the weekend to see the big stories. Good start and ideas.
ReplyDeleteI also chose to write about Valley City flooding, and since i am sure we will talk to different people it will be interesting to see how similar ours are. I agree the radio was the source most people probably listened to from talking to people. It was probably the most used is what i have found so far because some of the people i talked to do not have cable, including myself so tv did not give us any information. Good start.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part the television and radio served as the best means of communication to update the people of the town on recent flood developments. On campus the siren also helped a lot to know when urgent help was needed.
ReplyDeleteI think the news paper was the least effective because one had to wait to the next day or weekend to get any sort of information from the news paper, and by that time all the information in the news paper is already old news.
It makes sense that you would stick with what you know best. As we all know Valley City was greatly affected by the flood. The radio was a good source for information, as well as the Valley City Times Record. As you are from Valley City, you would of experienced how each of these channels affected you on a day to day basis.
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