A Study Of The Effect Of Organizational Communication Cultures On Interorganizational Collaboration Of Crisis Response

Recent history has indicated that crises are becoming more frequent rather than exceptional events. Dozens of organizations, often with very different missions, methods, technologies and cultures, are called upon to coordinate activities in order to mitigate the crisis and assist in recovery efforts. Although several interorganizational coordination perspectives and strategies have been proposed, they have neglected to examine how different organizational communication cultures of crisis response organizations involved in an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) may affect crisis collaboration efforts. Previous studies have also disregarded the important distinction between crisis coordination and crisis collaboration and the challenges and benefits of each to crisis response efforts of EOCs. This study examined in depth two crisis response organizations that are active in most EOCs, a regional chapter of a disaster response organization (DRO) and a metropolitan police department (MPD) in a large U.S. metropolitan city. Data for this instrumental case study was collected using the qualitative approaches of participant observation, interviews, and document analysis. The findings illustrate that the two different organizational communication cultures of the EMU MPD and the DRO resulted in two different worldviews of how organizations think they should work together and communicate with each other when responding to a crisis. The DRO\u27s humanitarian and service-oriented organizational communication culture defined their crisis response practices as crisis collaboration with all organizations. In contrast, the EMU MPD\u27s bureaucratic and closed organizational communication culture defined their crisis response as crisis collaboration with similar organizational cultures and bureaucratic crisis coordination with others. This suggests that these different worldviews give rise to processes, structures, and procedures of crisis coordination and crisis collaboration that are cultural artifacts of the organizations. Therefore, once cannot assume a crisis coordination or collaboration structure can easily be imposed on an organization as a way to improve interorganizational collaboration, coordination and communication. This investigation suggests that the different crisis coordination and crisis collaboration worldviews need to first be understood by EOCs and the organizations involved in those groups. Then additional planning and management processes need to be developed in order to ensure effective interorganizational communication and collaboration during a crisis response

How did Ebola information spread on twitter : broadcasting or viral spreading?

BACKGROUND: Information and emotions towards public health issues could spread widely through online social networks. Although aggregate metrics on the volume of information diffusion are available, we know little about how information spreads on online social networks. Health information could be transmitted from one to many (i.e. broadcasting) or from a chain of individual to individual (i.e. viral spreading). The aim of this study is to examine the spreading pattern of Ebola information on Twitter and identify influential users regarding Ebola messages. METHODS: Our data was purchased from GNIP. We obtained all Ebola-related tweets posted globally from March 23, 2014 to May 31, 2015. We reconstructed Ebola-related retweeting paths based on Twitter content and the follower-followee relationships. Social network analysis was performed to investigate retweeting patterns. In addition to describing the diffusion structures, we classify users in the network into four categories (i.e., influential user, hidden influential user, disseminator, common user) based on following and retweeting patterns. RESULTS: On average, 91% of the retweets were directly retweeted from the initial message. Moreover, 47.5% of the retweeting paths of the original tweets had a depth of 1 (i.e., from the seed user to its immediate followers). These observations suggested that the broadcasting was more pervasive than viral spreading. We found that influential users and hidden influential users triggered more retweets than disseminators and common users. Disseminators and common users relied more on the viral model for spreading information beyond their immediate followers via influential and hidden influential users. CONCLUSIONS: Broadcasting was the dominant mechanism of information diffusion of a major health event on Twitter. It suggests that public health communicators can work beneficially with influential and hidden influential users to get the message across, because influential and hidden influential users can reach more people that are not following the public health Twitter accounts. Although both influential users and hidden influential users can trigger many retweets, recognizing and using the hidden influential users as the source of information could potentially be a cost-effective communication strategy for public health promotion. However, challenges remain due to uncertain credibility of these hidden influential users

Perceived vulnerability to disease and establishing a relationship during the coronavirus pandemic

Wstręt jest jedną z podstawowych emocji i wyewoluował po to, by motywować nas do unikania kontaktu z licznymi patogenami. Badacze twierdzą, że ludzie charakteryzują się różnym poziomem podatności na choroby zakaźne (PVD), który wpływa na wiele zachowań oraz zjawisk w życiu społecznym. Czas pandemii to okres, w którym ryzyko zarażenia się koronawirusem jest wysokie, w związku z czym postanowiłam sprawdzić, czy chęć wchodzenia w nowe relacje w tym czasie związana jest z poziomem postrzeganej podatności na choroby zakaźne. Ponadto, chciałam się dowiedzieć, czy poziom PVD wiąże się z lękiem przed byciem singlem, orientacją socjoseksualną, samotnością oraz ogólnym zaniepokojeniem sytuacją pandemiczną. Wyniki badania pokazały, że w sytuacji zagrożenia osoby z podwyższonym PVD preferują partnerów, którzy wyglądają na zdrowych, a także charakteryzują się oni wyższym poziomem lęku przed byciem singlem i większym zaniepokojeniem aktualną sytuacją. Niestety, nie udowodniono zależności pomiędzy PVD a orientacją socjoseksualną oraz samotnością.Disgust is one of the basic emotions, and it has evolved to motivate us to avoid concact with pathogens. Researchers say that people have different levels of susceptibility to infectious diseases (PVD), which influence many behaviors in social life. The time of the pandemic is a period when the risk of contracting the coronavirus is high, so I decided to check whether the willingness to enter relationships at this time is related to the level of susceptibility to diseases. I wanted to know if PVD levels are related to anxiety about being single, sociosexual orientation, loneliness, and concern about the pandemic. The results of the study showed that in an emergency, people with elevated PVD prefer partners who appear to be haelthy, and who have more anxiety about being single and about current situation. Unfortunately, the relationship between PVD and sociosexual orientation and loneliness has not been proven

How Did Ebola Information Spread on Twitter?

Theoretical Background and Research Questions/Hypothesis: Social networks are beneficial for the communications of public health information. In the pre-Internet age, large-scale dissemination of health information relied on mass media broadcasts. The importance of interpersonal communication has been celebrated in the age of social media. The interpersonal transmission of online messages could be analogous to the spread of the infectious diseases, and such type of information diffusion is referred as the viral spreading mechanism. The primary purpose of this project is to examine whether the traditional broadcast mechanism or the viral spreading mechanism dominated the Ebola information diffusion on Twitter. Lessons learned can then contribute towards developing more effective communication strategies. Methods: Our data was purchased from GNIP, the official Twitter data provider. We obtained all Ebola-related tweets (including retweets and replies) posted from March 23, 2014 to May 31, 2015. We reconstructed the Ebola retweeting paths based on Twitter contents and the following relationships. Social network analysis was performed to investigate the retweeting patterns. Results:On average, 91% of the retweets were directly retweeted from the initial tweeters. On average, the maximum number of steps of information transmission between retweeters and the initial tweeters was 3, i.e. Initial user -\u3e Follower -\u3e Follower -\u3e Follower. These observations suggested that large viral networks were uncommon and broadcast spreading was more pervasive than viral spreading for Ebola-related tweets. According to the retweeting and following relationships, four types of initial users were identified: broadcasters (38%), common users (60%), influentials (2%), and hidden influentials ( Conclusions: Broadcast spreading was the dominant mechanism (vs. viral spreading) for infectious disease outbreak-related (e.g., Ebola) information on Twitter, and it could lead to large scale dissemination. Implications for Research and/or Practice: Unlike social networks with viral spreading, the initial tweeters (i.e., sources of information) and their messages are much more important than common users if the broadcast spreading mechanism is dominant. Therefore, as far as Ebola health communication was concerned, influential or hidden influential sources (e.g., social media accounts operated by traditional mass media) would be important partners to disseminate Ebola-related health information