commbox Disasters & Humanitarian Crises

CDAC Facilitator’s Guide for Technical Training

London: Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) (2019), 21 pp.

"The core document of CDAC’s technical training is the facilitator’s guide – a document that leads facilitators, agencies and staff through an all-inclusive journey in communication and community engagement best practice. The guide aspires to: Provide information for people affected by disaste ... more

We Need to Talk: Effective Ebola Risk Communication Requires Respect and Transparency and Remains as Vital as Ever. An Assessment of Changing Communication Needs and Preferences in Beni, North Kivu

C. Fricke

Translators Without Borders (2019), 43 pp.

"Interviews with health communicators and residents in September 2019 found that language barriers impede understanding of critical information on Ebola. Information in French and Swahili does not reach everyone. People misunderstand seemingly simple medical words in French. Swahili is best understo ... more

Suffering in Silence: The 10 Most Under-Reported Humanitarian Crises of 2018

Care International (2019), 19 pp.

"Some crises receive less media coverage than others. Displacement in the Democratic Republic of Congo rivals that of Syria but has received far less attention. In the Central African Republic widespread starvation has set in, which has gone largely unnoticed. And while the catastrophic 2010 earthqu ... more

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Humanitarian Journalism

Mel Bunce, Martin Scott, Kate Wright

In: Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Communication

Oxford: Oxford University Press (2019), 22 pp.

"Humanitarian journalism can be defined, very broadly, as the production of factual accounts about crises and issues that affect human welfare. This can be broken down into two broad approaches: “traditional” reporting about humanitarian crises and issues, and advocacy journalism that aims to im ... more

Politics, Factions and Violence: Listening to Local Voices on Ebola

Rachel Sweet

Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform (SSHAP) (2019), 13 pp.

"This brief summarises local media and messages circulating via social media outlets including WhatsApp and local radio and press outlets in the Beni and Butembo areas of North Kivu, DRC between February and April 2019. It also captures the growing number of warning messages and written threats tran ... more

Guidance on Reporting Major Incidents

Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) (2019), 11 pp.

"There is a public interest in the reporting of major incidents, to inform the public of what has happened and over time allow the public to make sense of those events. Legitimate reporting of major incidents will often include approaches to individuals who have witnessed or been otherwise affected ... more

Materiales educativos digitales para periodistas sobre gestión de riesgo de desastres: Avances y limitaciones

Edna Manotas Salcedo, Marta Milena Barrios, Jesús Arroyave, Lina Vega, Josslyn Garcia

Revista Espanõla de Communicación en Salud, issue Suplemento 1 (2019), pp. 30-42

"A partir de un análisis de contenido realizado a 28 materiales educativos digitales para formar periodistas de Latinoamérica sobre el cubrimiento de la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres entre 2012 y 2018, el presente artículo pretende establecer si el enfoque de dichos recursos pedagógicos es co ... more

Communication During Disaster Recovery
Key Guidance

Lisa Roberts et al.

Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) (2019), 28 pp.

"This Guide provides practical guidance for governments regarding how to effectively communicate with communities during the recovery phase following an emergency. It explains how to identify communication needs, and presents “best fit” communication methods and strategies to deploy to support D ... more

Using Radio as a Means of Operational Communication and Community Outreach

Adrien Zerbini

Lausanne: Fondation Hirondelle (2019), 16 pp.

"From 21 to 23 November 2018, eight communication officers working in French-speaking Africa for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) met in Dakar, Senegal, to talk about how they have used radio as a tool for humanitarian communication. They also learned how to evaluate their program ... more

Social Accountability on Durable Solutions: Perception Survey in Bossaso and Baidoa

Nairobi: Africa's Voices Foundation (2019), 65 pp.

"Somalia is facing a protracted displacement crisis. Since the new wave of displacement as a result of the 2016/2017 drought, 2.6 million people - one in six Somalis - have been forced to flee their homes.1 Displaced groups in Somalia are extremely vulnerable - lacking in sustainable livelihoods, pe ... more

Communicating in a Crisis: Risk Communication Guidelines for Public Officials

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) (2019), 46 pp.

"This guide focuses on the following areas: a brief orientation and perspective on the media for public officials, including discussion of how the media thinks and works, and on the public as the end-recipient of information; techniques for responding to and cooperating with the media in conveying i ... more

The Use of Social Media in Natural Hazard Early Warning Systems

Emma Bee, Mirianna Budimir

Science for Humanitarian Emergencies & Resilience (SHEAR) (2019), 5 pp.

Communication-Related Vulnerability to Disasters: A Heuristic Framework

Sten Hansson, Kati Orru, Andra Sübak, Mario Krüger Asta Bäck et al.

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, volume 51, issue 92 (2019), 9 pp.

"The concept of social vulnerability has been increasingly applied in disaster literature, but its communicative drivers have remained understudied. In this article, we put forward a heuristic framework for explaining how communication-related factors may adversely affect people’s capacity to prep ... more

Il faut qu’on parle : La communication efficace sur les risques liés au virus Ebola nécessite à la fois du respect et de la transparence et demeure plus vitale que jamais. Évaluation des besoins et des préférences de communication changeants à Beni, Nord-Kivu

C. Fricke

Translators Without Borders (2019), 44 pp.

"Les entretiens menés en septembre 2019 avec des communicateurs en santé et des résidents ont révélé que les barrières linguistiques empêchent la compréhension d’informations cruciales sur l’Ebola. Les informations diffusées en français et en swahili ne sont pas comprises par tout le ... monde. Les gens ont du mal à interpréter le sens de termes médicaux en français qui paraissent pourtant simples. Le swahili est mieux compris dans la variante locale de Beni, tandis que les femmes et les personnes âgées de la région ont besoin d’informations dans la variante locale du nande. Pour les militaires et leurs familles, c’est en lingala qu’il faut donner les informations. Pour communiquer de façon efficace au sujet d’Ebola, il faut relayer l’information dans ces quatre langues. L’utilisation de la terminologie technique présente sa propre barrière linguistique. Certains termes médicaux clés spécifiques à l’Ebola sont en français et ne sont pas toujours traduits de la même manière. Les personnes chargées de la communication en santé ellesmêmes se trompent sur leur sens. Les participants de cette étude ont expliqué que certains des mots liés à l’épidémie sont inacceptables sur le plan social et culturel. Ces mots sont perçus comme étant violents et offensants, surtout ceux associés à la mort. Par conséquent, beaucoup de gens rechignent à les employer. Les communicateurs en santé les remplacent par leurs propres explications enveloppées d’euphémismes. Ces alternatives peuvent parfois être incohérentes et vagues et causer des malentendus. Les personnes chargées de la communication en santé ont besoin de soutien pour traduire les termes liés à l’Ebola d’une manière harmonisée et acceptable pour la population locale. La teneur des informations communiquées pose, elle aussi, un problème. Les messages actuels sur l’Ebola ne communiquent que des informations et des consignes de base. Ils ne fournissent pas les éléments nécessaires qui pourraient aider les gens à comprendre pourquoi et comment la prévention et le traitement d’Ebola fonctionnent. Aussi, avec l’évolution de l'épidémie et de la stratégie d'intervention, les questions des gens ont changé. Les participants de cette étude ont demandé que des informations complexes et transparentes leur soient communiquées dans une langue et un style qui leur sont familiers. Ils veulent des explications approfondies sur les derniers développements. Or il manque aux communicateurs en santé les outils de communication et la formation adaptés à ces développements, d’où la difficulté qu’ils ont à fournir des réponses à la fois claires et cohérentes. Les malentendus et les contradictions qui en résultent sont source de confusion pour les populations, et le manque d’explications détaillées ne fait qu’exacerber les doutes et les frustrations." (Résumé, page 3-4) more

Journalism on Darfur Between Social Fields: Global and National Forces

Joachim J. Savelsberg

In: Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond

Allan Thompson (ed.)

Waterloo, Ontario: Centre for International Governance Innovation (2019), pp. 237-252

"In presenting some of the findings from an analysis of 3,387 media reports and from interviews with Africa correspondents and other journalists from eight countries, this chapter provides several insights on patterns of media representations of the conflict in Darfur. After initial neglect, peaks i ... more

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Risk Communication and Community Resilience

Bandana Kar, David M. Cochran (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2019), xxiii, 288 pp.

"Risk communication is crucial to building community resilience and reducing risk from extreme events. True community resilience involves accurate and timely dissemination of risk information to stakeholders. This book examines the policy and science of risk communication in the digital era. Themes ... more

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"We Have Failed as a Continent:" Covering an African Atrocity for an African Audience

J. Siguru Wahutu

In: Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond

Allan Thompson (ed.)

Waterloo, Ontario: Centre for International Governance Innovation (2019), pp. 237-252

"This ethnic conflict frame performs three functions when used by African journalists. The first is that it works to domesticate the conflict [in Darfur] by relying on already sedimented knowledge among African audiences about identity formation … The second function of this frame is based on know ... more

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Humanitarianism and Media: 1900 to the Present

Johannes Paulmann (ed.)

New York; Oxford: Berghahn (2019), viii, 305 pp.

"From Christian missionary publications to the media strategies employed by today’s NGOs, this interdisciplinary collection explores the entangled histories of humanitarianism and media. It traces the emergence of humanitarian imagery in the West and investigates how the meanings of suffering and ... more

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Community Radio and Crisis Communication: A Study on the Reach and Effectiveness of Peridar Kaala Vaanoli 107.8 MHz

Mahalakshmi Selvaraj, Sunitha Kuppuswamy

Media Asia, volume 46, issue 3-4 (2019), pp. 102-116

"A community radio (CR) station stands as a lifeline for information and communication to the remote, marginalized and the most vulnerable during natural disasters like the Tamil Nadu Floods in 2015. As a result of this, a license was granted to allow the operation of an emergency community radio st ... more

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