TY - GEN
T1 - How to text 911
T2 - 39th ACM International Conference on the Design of Communication: Building Coalitions. Worldwide, SIGDOC 2021
AU - Grace, Rob
AU - Sinor, Sierra
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 ACM.
PY - 2021/10/12
Y1 - 2021/10/12
N2 - Public education programs improve public safety by teaching citizens how to mitigate risks and respond to emergencies. To improve these efforts, studies in the fields of risk communication and emergency management have examined the design and communication of public education information. However, few studies examine the diversity of information officials communicate to the public when state and national-level public education programs are decentralized and administered by local government agencies. This study reports findings from a content analysis of text-To-911 information published on the websites of local 911 service entities across the state of Texas. Overall, these websites communicate sparse, uneven, and sometimes inconsistent information to citizens across the state regarding the availability of text-To-911 service, when and for whom texting 911 is appropriate, and instructions and warnings for texting 911 during an emergency. These findings suggest the need for public education resources that help local governments communicate with local audiences and coordinate communications across jurisdictions working to accomplish state and national public-safety objectives.
AB - Public education programs improve public safety by teaching citizens how to mitigate risks and respond to emergencies. To improve these efforts, studies in the fields of risk communication and emergency management have examined the design and communication of public education information. However, few studies examine the diversity of information officials communicate to the public when state and national-level public education programs are decentralized and administered by local government agencies. This study reports findings from a content analysis of text-To-911 information published on the websites of local 911 service entities across the state of Texas. Overall, these websites communicate sparse, uneven, and sometimes inconsistent information to citizens across the state regarding the availability of text-To-911 service, when and for whom texting 911 is appropriate, and instructions and warnings for texting 911 during an emergency. These findings suggest the need for public education resources that help local governments communicate with local audiences and coordinate communications across jurisdictions working to accomplish state and national public-safety objectives.
KW - Content analysis
KW - Crisis informatics
KW - Emergency management
KW - Public education
KW - Risk communication
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118194733&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3472714.3473633
DO - 10.1145/3472714.3473633
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85118194733
T3 - Proceedings of the 39th ACM International Conference on the Design of Communication: Building Coalitions. Worldwide, SIGDOC 2021
SP - 135
EP - 141
BT - Proceedings of the 39th ACM International Conference on the Design of Communication
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Y2 - 12 October 2021 through 14 October 2021
ER -