"This manual provides tips for media practitioners on how to help audiences during health emergencies. It can be read in conjunction with BBC Media Action’s Lifeline Production Manual (available online) which provides more general guidance on how to communicate with people affected by humanitarian
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crises in order to help save lives and reduce suffering. Public health emergencies can start quickly or very slowly. This manual will address those that start relatively quickly: rapid onset public health emergencies." (Introduction)
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"This book presents a comprehensive framework for disaster communication, with a main focus on earthquake-related communication, building on a previously fragmented, single-case study approach [especially based on experiences in Italy] to analysing the role of social media during natural disasters."
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(Publisher description)
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"Closely examining the relationship between foreign correspondents of international news media and humanitarian organisations, Lena von Naso shows how the aid and media sectors cooperate in Africa in a unique way. Based on more than 70 interviews with foreign correspondents and aid workers operating
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across Africa, the book argues that the changing nature of foreign news and of aid is forcing them to form a deep co-dependency that is having a serious and largely unnoticed effect on Western news coverage." (Publisher description)
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"The purpose of this document is to provide guidance for anyone involved in humanitarian assistance who produces communications on behalf of an organisation (e.g. press releases, social media, fund raising appeals) or engages with the media (e.g. interviews). It aims to support communications expert
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s to provide accurate information that protects and supports infants and young children and their caregivers and reduces harmful interventions." (Page 1)
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"The SSDM Report 2018 provides a number of concrete steps to further and strengthen the implementation of the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Smart Sustainable Development Model (SSDM) Initiative. The ITU Development Telecommunication Bureau (BDT) developed the SSDM Initiative in 201
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2, bringing together ICT for development (ICT4D) and ICT for disaster management (ICT4DM) to benefit both sectors through enhanced efficiency, cost-effectiveness and sustainability. This dual-use approach has become increasingly timely in light of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, many of which rely upon information and communication technologies for their fulfillment.
[...] Part I considers how to broaden the funding base of emergency ICT response through a Global Emergency Fund; Part II provides a model to establish a network of volunteers to facilitate cooperative action; and Part III provides a number of recommended best practices as well as a checklist to facilitate the smooth trans-border movement of telecommunications equipment. Taken together, these steps can make inroads towards more secure and coordinated funding of emergency ICT responses, strengthened coordination between the actors involved in these efforts and making maximum use of their skills, and helping to lay the regulatory groundwork to ensuring that ICT equipment is made available and is optimized, not only during emergency situations, but even outside of these situations for development purposes." (Executive summary)
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"Scholars from various research disciplines have focused on ways of helping a civilian population withstand mass natural or human-instigated disasters. The present study examines the theoretical principles suggested by Hobfoll et al. (safety, calming, efficacy, connectedness and hope) by an analysis
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of the spontaneous discourse of educational radio presenters during emergency broadcasts when the region’s residents live under the constant danger of rocket fire. This study analysed 198 broadcasting hours sampled from three different periods of military conflict (2008-14). The radio presenters’ spontaneous discourse was analysed by content, drawing a distinction between resilience-promoting (function) and resilience-impairing (dysfunction) messages. The findings show that despite the presenters’ intention to help the community contend with the difficult situation, numerous resilience-impairing messages also appeared in their spontaneous discourse. The present study contributes by providing an additional layer of theoretical research on interventions in community stress situations and looks at utilizing the potential inherent in educational radio as a tool to aid development of community resilience." (Abstract)
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"Now in its sixth edition, Risk Communication has proven to be a valuable resource for environmental, safety, and health professionals who are tasked with the responsibility of understanding how to apply the most current approaches to communicating risk and debunking misinformation. The sixth editio
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n updates the text with fresh and illustrative examples, lessons learned, and recent research as well as provides advice and guidelines for communicating risk information. The authors include background information to understand the basic theories and practices of risk communication and explain how to plan an effective strategy and put it into action. The book also contains data on evaluating risk communication efforts and explores how to communicate risk during and after a health or environmental emergency." (Publisher description)
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"This chapter focuses on one of the key areas within the field of humanitarian communication, namely the symbolic construction of distant suffering in image, text and sound. In particular, the chapter examines humanitarian communication produced by humanitarian non-government organizations (NGOs) fo
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r raising awareness, mobilizing public and government agendas for humanitarian action, securing support and legitimacy for their operations and raising funds from the public and major donors. The discussion reviews two central approaches to the study of humanitarian communication: the ethical promise of representation, which focuses on analysis of humanitarian messages and humanitarian communication as a practice, looking at NGOs’ production and audiences’ reception of humanitarian communications. It is argued that humanitarian communication can be best understood by combining these approaches and highlighting their tensions as inherent to humanitarianism itself." (Abstract)
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"Radyo Bakdaw was set up by Internews in Guiuan, Eastern Samar after the typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan hit the Philippines on November 8th 2013. The typhoon passed through 9 provinces, an estimated 14 million people were affected by it, 4 million people were displaced and killing at least 6268 people. In t
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he 4,5 months that followed, Internews trained local radio makers to become humanitarian reporters, and gave a wider audience the chance to speak up, be listened to, and be part of the whole humanitarian response, as a 'Humanitarian Information Service'." (https://internews.org)
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"Today's global refugee crisis has mobilized humanitarian efforts to help those fleeing persecution and armed conflict at all stages of their journey. Aid organizations are increasingly employing new information technologies in their mission, taking advantage of proliferating mobile phones, remote s
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ensors, wireless networks, and biometric identification systems. Digital Lifeline? examines the use of these technological innovations by the humanitarian community, exploring operations and systems that range from forecasting refugee flows to providing cellular and Internet connectivity to displaced persons. The contributors, from disciplines as diverse as international law and computer science, offer a variety of perspectives on forced migration, technical development, and user behavior, drawing on field work in countries including Jordan, Lebanon, Rwanda, Germany, Greece, the United States, and Canada. The chapters consider such topics as the use of information technology in refugee status determination; ethical and legal issues surrounding biometric technologies; information technology within organizational hierarchies; the use of technology by refugees; access issues in refugee camps; the scalability and sustainability of information technology innovations in humanitarian work; geographic information systems and spatial thinking; and the use of “big data” analytic techniques. Finally, the book identifies policy research directions, develops a unified research agenda, and offers practical suggestions for conducting displacement research." (Publisher description)
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"¿Cómo contar el desastre y mostrarlo, sin horrorizar a la comunidad ni ocultarle información? ¿Cómo conservar la objetividad, cuando la cronista o el movilero deben convivir con la desgracia? ¿Qué criterios se deberían seguir para hacer un buen uso de las redes sociales y no dejarse llevar
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por mitos y rumores? Esta publicación sistematiza paso a paso cómo llevar a cabo una de las coberturas más complejas en el periodismo, a partir de los conocimientos de una profesional y docente con treinta años de experiencia en informar desde el lugar del desastre." (www.eudeba.com.ar)
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"In this moment of unprecedented humanitarian crises, the representations of global disasters are increasingly common media themes around the world. The Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action explores the interconnections between media, old and new, and the humanitarian challenges that
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have come to define the twenty-first century. Contributors, including media professionals and experts in humanitarian affairs, grapple with what kinds of media language, discourse, terms, and campaigns can offer enough context and background knowledge to nurture informed global citizens. Case studies of media practices, content analysis and evaluation of media coverage, and representations of humanitarian emergencies and affairs offer further insight into the ways in which strategic communications are designed and implemented in field of humanitarian action." (Publisher description)
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"The book develops the analytics of grievability as an analytical framework that unpacks the ways in which news about death constructs grievable death and articulates relational ties between spectators and sufferers. The book employs the analytics of grievability in a comparative manner and analyses
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the coverage of three different case studies (terror attack, war and natural disaster) by two transnational news networks (BBC World News and Al-Jazeera English). This comparative analysis showcases the centrality of news media in selectively cultivating a sense of cosmopolitan solidarity in a global age." (Publisher description)
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"Drawing on more than 100 in-depth interviews with journalists and aid agency press officers, participant observations at the Guardian, BBC and Save the Children UK, as well as the ordinary people who created the words and pictures that framed these disasters, this book reveals how humanitarian disa
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sters are covered in the 21st century – and the potential consequences for those who posted a tweet, a video or photo, without ever realising how far it would go." (Publisher description)
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"This chapter examined compassion as a news value in the humanitarian coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza by French and UK broadcasters to show the extent to which victims of foreign conflict can be portrayed with greater and lesser degrees of compassion … The study demonstrates that compassion as a
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news value is highly contextual, and in some cases was found to be insufficient as a dominant news characteristic. Coverage displayed other dominant news values such as negativity, violence and graphic imagery of the dead and wounded, and the elite value of world leaders. It confirmed that a hierarchy of victims can be identified in coverage of humanitarian suffering. For example, coverage by 20 Heures of related protests in Paris revealed that domestic victims may quickly displace remote others because of their cultural and geographical proximity. News at Ten provided a predominantly humanitarian coverage with direct interaction with victims while 20 Heures preferred less emotive and more one-dimensional coverage supported throughout with analytical, factual information. The findings not only provided insight into compassion as a news value but also shed light on it as an emotion among the warring parties, demonstrating the difficulty, if not impossibility, of displaying compassion for the enemy, regardless of their state of suffering." (Conclusion)
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"Suzanne Franks discusses how the visually dominated storytelling of famines in Africa distorted the causes of famine and therefore obscured the most effective solutions. As journalists struggled to document the depths of human suffering, humanitarian communication in these early stages raised compa
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ssion, concern, and actions of all sorts, but also helped to extend the conflicts and misled global publics by offering simple explanations for complex circumstances. In addition, it left in its wake a legacy, and a visual convention of stereotypic imagery, of The Starving African; anonymous, vulnerable, powerless, and forever waiting for food from the West." (Introduction to part 4, page 186)
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"Internews’ Humanitarian Information Service in Haiti, which ran from October 2016 to February 2017, was a DFID funded humanitarian project with the goal to improve the quality of timely and actionable information exchanges with Haitian communities affected by Hurricane Matthew. Internews’ two-w
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ay communication model relied on gathering feedback from affected populations in order to directly address the issues that concern them the most, and to help humanitarian partners integrate their concerns into their programming and interventions. Through partner coordination and training, on-the-ground teams conducted data gathering and rumor tracking for feedback-based publications targeted to the affected population and for a humanitarian audience." (www.internews.org)
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