Alert4All, a step towards a pan European effective alert communications' system

Europe is a reality made of 27 countries and a common emergency number (112), where you can communicate any emergency situation everywhere within the European territory, despite the fact that 23 different official languages are spoken. Each country has its own emergency system and, up to day, there isn’t an harmonised approach to alert the population in Europe.

“The Alert4All goal is to improve the effectiveness of public alert and communication during crisis situations in European member States. This implies that Alert4All intends to reduce the impact of disasters (in terms of losses to health and life, as well as economic impact), by informing efficiently and on time the population at risk”, explains Cristina Párraga, Alert4All project manager.

“On the one side, this means that Alert4All is directed to the civil protection officials that shall inform the population, but also, and more importantly, to the European citizens that shall benefit ultimately from improvements in public alert systems”, adds Párraga.

You can also watch an interview in Spnish with Cristina Párraga here.

Relevant improvements in public alert using different technologies

Alert4All “improves communication features, cooperation between authorities and situation awareness. On the communication features’ side, Alert4All allows disseminating alert messages over many communication technologies directly to the citizens own devices, such as digital and smart TV, mobile phone and navigation device, but also over in-building security systems, such as the LED screens in railway stations, voice evacuation systems in malls, or schools and mass notification systems, such as public screens.

 Messages are received in the recipients’ selected language

The recipients’ will received the alerting message in their own language and in text or speech and in a harmonised way, “so that the alert message would look the same way regardless from the official, civil protection office or country from which the alert message is issued. This shall improve the familiarity of citizens with the public alert system and their trust on and understanding of the message.”

Alert4all fosters cooperation among several protection agencies

 “Alert4All provides means for rapid and efficient information exchange when several civil protection agencies are involved in the same crisis situation, which in turn improves coordination and cooperation”, explains Párraga.

Based on Social Media to improve the decision making process

“Alert4All has developed a screening of new media tool that observes how the population understand the situation and, based on this knowledge, to improve the decision making process. The impact that the crisis situation has on the population is inferred from the information that people generates on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and collaborative web sites).”

Sentiment analysis to enhance situational awareness  

“The information is analyzed to extract that are presented to the civil protection officials as sentiment trends over time, namely how people feel about the crisis and the communicated alert messages. This implements and indirect feedback channel in public alert communications, which have been unidirectional up to now. “

Estimating the message’s impact

It is also possible estimating  “if alert messages have been transmitted to, understood and believed by the relevant people and not only to technical devices, taking into account not only technical aspects but also social behaviour of the individuals and crowds“ using an alert impact simulation tool.

“This alerting effect simulation is considered by the involved crisis managers to be very useful both in preparedness planning and for investment decisions about additional channels for public alert purposes.”

Welcome to this new platform, as an important step needed to unify the emergency system in Europe. Don’t you find it necessary?

Do social networks make citizens equal when a disaster strikes? What do you think?

It is a fact that nowadays, trough social media, we can have last minute information of almost any natural or man-made disaster, providing there is someone broadcasting and also taking into consideration whether the disaster has been predicted and announced (Hurricanes normally are) or not (terrorist attack). Even in the second case, we would always count on some bystanders eager to share the explosion. It is also a fact that the use of social media in disasters is increasing, as we have recently seen in the Turkey earthquake, and that lives are being saved thanks to the geolocated gadgets included in smartphones. 

If we think about where information comes form, we find that in countries technologically developed, where most of the population owns a cell phone, we will probably be informed at once of whatever happens. On the other side, in countries without these facilities citizens will have more difficulties in accessing the Internet and, therefore, we could say that we will see less information trough the new media.

This seems obvious, but it is not that simple.

From the old media to social media

Social media are one more tool to get information, but not the only one. It is true that they have completely changed not only the way information is delivered but also they have given everyone with a cell phone the possibility to broadcast information, as @gbaron explains so well in this video about crisis communication. The point is, have they really changed completely the scenario, as gbaron says?

I could agree a hundred per cent with him, but  I still think there are some other aspects we should consider in crisis communications.

Agenda-setting

I’m talking here of the old media agenda-setting, which is the criteria used by mass media to decide what news will be broadcast, based on parameters such as  human interests, proximity, number of casualties, how outrageous the crisis is, whether the person involved in a crisis is a celebrity and so on.

The Turkey's earthquake                                    

The question is, is it true that any explosion will be immediately broadcast anywhere in the world regardless of where the place it occurs and its consequences? I might say the answers is no. Why? First of all, because, as I say at the beginning of this post, technological development is a must. If a thousand people die from an explosion in a place where no one has a cell phone, no one would be able to use Twitter to let us know. We would get that information delivered trough traditional mass media, providing they were on site.

Traditional media versus new media

If we agree to this point, I’ll pose a new question. Is there a TV, radio station or newspaper office in that place? If the answer is yes, it is surely because the place is important enough to be in our prayers. What I mean is that we probably have some kind of interest there, either  technological, economic ( petrol, gas), political, humanitarian or of any other kind. If that is the case, there will probably be a technological development strong enough to access the internet, if not by everyone at least for the media, non-governmental organizations and many citizens.

 Therefore, if the media are there, we could get information delivered in the old way: an event occurs, there is a response and information is delivered through the media to the crowd. The most outstanding difference is the number of channels. We would have some more with social media so, if we have a snake eating its tail, why I am writing this post?

Flooding in India

                                                

For one reason. If we admit that there is not a TV or Radio station everywhere, then we would not be able to get the information, and this means that, though it may sound unbelievable, there are still some places in the world which do not exists, form an agenda-setting point of view, since we have no news from them at all. Proof is that there are no examples at all of information  related to those places being delivered.

 If we think of some Third World countries, we might reach the conclusion that we have never ever heard news from them. To make it more obvious, how many countries are in the world whose names- not to mention where they are- we don’t even know? Is it possible that nothing ever happens in those places?

Technological development

To sum up, we could say equality is a problem of technological development. If the country has been able to develop resilience channels and their citizens are wealthy enough to own a cell phone they will have the same chances as everyone else to share information using multiple channels, and, by sharing, they would be able to obtain some help, if needed. If it is not the case, citizens could only count on traditional media, if there is any, to let the world know what’s going on there.

How rumours spread through social media? How do PIOs counter criticism?

By this time, all PIOs know that dealing with rumours in social media, as it was before social media started, is as important as an early warning alarm system in case, for instance, a new Hurricane strikes. But where do rumours come from? How are they spread through social media?

This post came to my mind after watching the new disaster film, Contagius. For those of you who has not gone to see it yet, the plot is about a new disease being spread from Hon-Kong to several cities in the U.S.A, as well as London and other countries in the rest of the world. A blogger shows up and spreads non-contrasted information though social media creating panic, disorder and putting in danger citizens and properties. 

But how rumours are spread through social media? What is more important, why do rumours spread and where do they come from? Coming back to the film, we have a clear answer. Rumours replace corroborated information. What is more, according to ANDA (National Association of Advertiser) in Peru, journalists are responsible for 10 % of rumours.

Before our not-that-new social media-scenario, we may have a journalist being informed of a new disaster. When s/he arrived to the place s/he needed somebody to tell them what was going on. If there wasn’t an official source, they would use a non official one, in order to inform their public as soon as possible. Yes. This is a matter of speed. And the need to fill the gap quickly is related to the quality of the information delivered. 

Nowadays, the problem has multiplied since anyone can broadcast their own version through social media. Rumours come from, according to @luisserrano, ambiguity upgraded by the important of the topic, multiplied by the number of RT in the internet.

Countering rumour

 How can PIOs avoid rumours in social media? Being the first sounds almost impossible, though it is the first step, but there is still the obligation to be the best, right, most credible, accurate and updated source of information. If social media has given us some problems to be solved, it has also given us the chance of a wonderful tool plenty of advantages. We only need to have a look at  this  job on digital volunteers in catastrophes to get an idea of how social media is useful when managing disaster. To check how useful they were during Irene Hurricane watch Major Cory Booker’s interview here .

Social Media Training

I provide media training in the National School of Civil Protection in Madrid within the International Coordination Course. It’s a job that provides me with a lot of fun, since we work on a drill and no one would be hurt whatever happens. As a role player, I monitor an exercise in which I am a journalist for an important international media newspaper and ask my students about their mission. The context is first aid/first responders coming from several countries – through the International Civil Protection Mechanism of the European Union- being deployed in a third country (outside the EU) struck by a disaster.  

ICC exercise at the National School of Civil Protection in Madrid

What sometimes happens is that they give me answers which shouldn’t be their concern at all, as well as wrong information.

Let’s have an example. Imagine my student is a non-governmental organization member deployed in the Bahamas  after a Hurricane strikes. Let’s say I’m a naughty journalist asking him. “I heard something about human rights violations going on. Are you here to prevent them? “ And he says: “Yes, of course that’s part of our mission”. I could immediately tweet something like: “ International team coming from the #EuropeanUnion deployed in #Bahamas during #Hurricane to prevent human rights violation.” If he says “No”, the problem will remain.

What I told them when giving the feedback is “imagine this wasn’t a drill, imagine what you just told me is  being broadcast to millions of people though social media. That is usually enough for them to understand where rumours come from and to rely only on trusted sources.

To end up, it is useful to remember the importance of keeping the media and public on your side on a daily basis, before any crisis occurs.