Breaking the Sound of Silence: Explication in the Use of Strategic Silence in Crisis Communication

Crises present organizations with the “rhetorical exigency” to enact control. Silence is not an option. This study, as the first empirical examination of Le et al’s (2019) seminal study on silence in crisis communication, examines, first, if silence can be strategically used as a bona fide strategy; second, under what circumstances should silence be broken; and third, when silence is broken, how it affects (a) organizational reputation, (b) societal risk perception, and (c) the publics’ crisis information sharing intention. An online experiment was conducted using a nationally representative sample in the United States. Participants were recruited in 2019 via a Qualtrics panel. The stimuli used in this study consisted of two components: (1) an explanation about a fictitious company; and (2) two types of silence breaking (forced vs. planned) embedded in each stimulus accordingly after the same crisis incident. Four hypothesis were conceptualized. They were all supported. Collectively, they showed that the effect of silence-breaking type on crisis information sharing intention was mediated by societal risk perception, which is conditioned by participants’ level of perceived organizational reputation. Silence, or failure to fill the information vacuum, has not been an option to consider thus far as it suggests the organization is “not in control.” However, this study suggests the types of silence organizations can adopt and the modes the organizational silence can be broken. It provides a new lens for organizations to engage in business communication.

Demographic, occupational and societal risk exposures to physical injuries in a rural community in Western Kenya: a 12-week longitudinal study

ObjectiveWe studied factors associated with the weekly occurrence of physical injuries in a rural setting to determine injury-related burden and risk exposures.DesignProspective cohort study.SettingSuna-West subcounty, Migori County, Western Kenya.Participants390 study participants (subjects) cluster sampled from 92 households, recruited and followed up for 12 weeks, between August and October 2019.MethodsWe collected data weekly on occurrence of injuries, individual-level and household-level independent variables using a standard interviewer-administered questionnaire adapted from the WHO survey tool for injuries. Analyses related occurrence of injuries and independent variables using a multilevel Poisson regression model, adjusting for age and sex.Outcome measuresQuantifying injury-related burden and patterns by demographic, occupational and societal risk exposures.ResultsWe documented 44 injuries, coming from 38 subjects dwelling in 30 of the 92 study households. On average, each study subject and household experienced 1.2 and 1.5 episodes of injuries across the 12 study weeks. Open wounds and bruises were the most frequent injuries commonly reported among middle-aged (18–54 years) and young (5–17 years) subjects at 32.2 and 7.6 episodes per 1000-person week, respectively. The common cause of injuries among young, middle-aged and old subjects (>54 years) were falls, road accidents and person-related assault or being hit by an object, each at 15.2, 18.9, and 11.4 episodes per 1000-person week, respectively. Subjects not domesticating animals (incidence rate ratio (IRR)=7.6, 95% CI 1.4 to 41.7) and those making a visit outside the local subcounty of residence (IRR=2.2, 95% CI 1.5 to 3.1) were at higher risk of reporting injuries.ConclusionWe provide evidence of a higher burden of physical injuries associated with demographic, occupational and societal risk exposures with the most injuries resulting from falls. Further studies could better define granular characteristics constituting these factors.

Quantitative analysis of the debris flow risk to concentrated rural settlement in southwest Sichuan, China

<p><strong>Sichuan Province in southwest China is highly susceptible to debris flow disasters and suffers much damage to buildings and loss of human lives in concentrated rural settlements each year</strong><strong>.</strong><strong> By combining geographic information system (GIS) and Deep Encoding Network (DE-Net) methods, we proposed an automatic identification method for buildings highly susceptible to debris flows with large-scale digital elevation data and high-resolution remote sensing imagery based on a vulnerability matrix containing different threshold values of the horizontal distance (HD) and vertical distance (VD) between buildings and channels. A case study in Puge County, Sichuan Province, demonstrated the high identification potential of the method for buildings susceptible to debris flows in large areas with only scarce information available. Meanwhile, We chose </strong><strong>a high-risk village</strong><strong> in Puge County to study </strong><strong>debris flow risk to buildings and residents. Different</strong><strong> types of days and diurnal periods were considered in </strong><strong>the analysis of societal risk to residents</strong><strong>. The </strong><strong>results</strong><strong> indicated that societal risk to residents on holidays is always higher than that on weekdays, and societal risk at night is also much higher than that in the daytime. </strong><strong>The identification results of buildings vulnerability provide valuable information regarding high-risk residential areas to governments and facilitate targeted measure design at the initial planning stage, and the proposed method of societal risk provides a basis for decision-making in the planning of mitigation countermeasures in a specific settlement.</strong></p>

Quantitative Analysis of the Debris Flow Societal Risk to People Inside Buildings at Different Times: A Case Study of Luomo Village, Sichuan, Southwest China

Debris flows, which cause massive economic losses and tragic losses of life every year, represent serious threats to settlements in mountainous areas. Most deaths caused by debris flows in China occur in buildings, and the death toll is strongly dependent on the time people spend indoors. However, the role of time spent indoors in the quantitative analysis of debris flow risk has been studied only scarcely. We chose Luomo village in Sichuan atop a debris flow alluvial fan to study the influence of the temporal variation in the presence of people inside buildings on the societal risk. Two types of days (holidays vs. workdays) and two diurnal periods (daytime vs. nighttime) were considered in our risk evaluation model. A questionnaire survey was conducted for each family in the village, and the probability of the temporal impact of a debris flow on every household was calculated based on the average amount of time each member spent in the house. The debris flow hazard was simulated with FLO-2D to obtain the debris flow intensity and run-out map with return periods of 2, 10, 50, and 100 years. The risk to buildings and societal risk to residents were calculated quantitatively based on the probabilities of debris flow occurrence, the probability of the spatial impact, and the vulnerabilities of buildings and people. The results indicated that societal risk on holidays is always higher than that on weekdays, and societal risk at night is also much higher than that in the daytime, suggesting that the risk to life on holidays and at night is an important consideration. The proposed method permits us to obtain estimates of the probable economic losses and societal risk to people by debris flows in rural settlements and provides a basis for decision-making in the planning of mitigation countermeasures.

Vaccination with vector type vaccines – is it worth the risk?

COVID-19 has the potential to re-frame the whole debate about individual and societal risk, risk balancing, benefit-cost analysis, individual rights, societal responsibilities of individuals and responsibilities of Governments within the overall context that there are limits to what can be achieved in particular instances, and in totality across society. There has been considerable discussion and debate globally about the real and perceived risks of having a vaccination against COVID-19. This might be interpreted as having contributed to the uncertainty in the vaccine debate and contributed to doubt and even erosion of trust in some of the population. Some of this has been due to an understandable demand for immediate answers, before the necessary and detailed data were available and verified. The recent publication of unexpected negative side effects from the Astra Zeneca version of the vector-type vaccine, “vaccine induced prothrombotic immune thrombocytopenia” (VIPIT), has been the latest complicating development, which has caused further concerns, uncertainties and confusion. The risk figures that Governments use are derived from whole population data and processed to give a smeared out average “societal” risk. But to the individuals having to make the choice, these figures may, or may not, be relevant. The corresponding societal estimate of an individual’s chance of being stuck by lightning is the well-known 1 in a million. But individuals know intuitively that for someone who never goes out in bad weather, this is way too high. Conversely someone who goes out to fly a kite in a thunderstorm has an almost certain chance of being fried. In this paper we discuss the current arguments put forward, which accept the 1 in a 100,000 as acceptable collateral damage for societal exposure. It then contrasts them against the numbers that could be derived, if it is approached from the point of view of a particular individual’s risk benefit calculations. Subsequently we discuss how communication and information by policy makers and media may influence the decisions of individuals to have or not have themselves vaccinated. While the current debate about vaccinations provides data and the central focus of this paper, the issue is a general matter, it is symptomatic of a much wider risk question which the vaccine debate has brought into focus; and not just for other vaccines and medical interventions.

Assessment of Societal Risks Associated With Large Gas Transmission Pipeline Systems

Risk assessment is the process of risk analysis and evaluation. It is a required component of pipeline integrity management programs (IMP) and is generally the first step in most IMPs. For the risk assessment of natural gas pipelines, the primary concern is the safety of population near the pipeline right of way (ROW). TC Energy’s SWRA uses a quantitative risk assessment model that considers the effect of the thermal radiation due to ignited pipeline rupture and evaluate the consequence on the surrounding population. The overall risk is then evaluated using two specific risk criteria: societal risk and individual risk, with the societal risk measuring the overall level of risk to a community or a group of people and the individual risk measuring the level of risk to specific individuals who are present within the pipeline hazard zone. Natural gas pipeline systems often extend hundreds or even thousands of miles. As such, societal risk criteria for pipelines are typically defined based on a given length of pipeline segment, usually in 1 km or 1 mile (1.6 km). To assess the societal risk of actual pipelines, different approaches are taken on how the risk along the length of a pipeline should be aggregated and compared to the criteria. For example, the PD8010-3 standard in the UK recommends the societal risk of a pipeline through a community to be aggregated and then normalized to the unit length to be compared with criteria; whereas the Dutch regulation requires societal risk at the worst location to be used. In the current SWRA, the societal risk along the length of a pipeline going through development areas or communities is aggregated following the recommendation of the UK PD8010-3, where the risk is aggregated and normalized to the pipeline length. Due to the vast scale of the pipeline system, it is impractical to manually review all development along the pipelines for conducting societal risk assessment on a system wide basis. As such, extent of communities and development areas is determined by a computer program using a simple set of rules. It was found to have led to unsatisfying granularity in the societal risk assessment in certain situations, with some interaction lengths being too long and thus failing to identify the more critical section within the interaction length, and certain development lengths being too short and thus not very meaningful from a societal risk perspective. To overcome issues with the current societal risk assessment method in SWRA, an alternative method largely following the direction of the Dutch approach is introduced in this paper. In this alternative approach, the societal risk is evaluated continuously along a pipeline with a predefined a sliding length, and thus variations in the societal risk levels along the entire length of a pipeline, including the locations with the highest societal risk levels, can be identified. Implantation details and computational efficiency were discussed. The results from the alternative method were compared to that from the current method. The sensitivity of the sliding length method to the predefined sliding length was also investigated. The study showed that this alternative method improves the accuracy and granularity of the societal risk assessment in the SWRA, and, although it is relatively computational commanding, with an efficient implementation, is still practical even for very large gas transmission systems.