The Significance of Communication in Emergency Management: What’s Changed Since 2010?

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, this 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.