Communication to Reduce Dependency and Enhance Empowerment Using ‘New’ Media: Evidence from Practice in UK Flood Risk Areas

Abstract

Sharing of risk knowledge for extreme events is taking place against a backdrop of changing societal communication patterns, in which the flow of information is increasingly multi-directional, within and between individuals, wider communities and a variety of authorities using online media. We present qualitative findings from the CASCADE knowledge exchange project and a case study, from a flood risk area, on the role of social networks using such ‘new’ media as engagement tools in building resilience to flooding. The data emerged from a workshop held in 2018, together with a study into changing communication practice in the Thames Valley near Windsor, UK. It was found that engagement is occurring both during events, as an emergency management tool, and between events, often linked to strategic management such as flood defense and related planning. The qualitative findings were analyzed to investigate whether knowledge and information sharing in emergencies may lead to co-operative sharing between emergencies. According to evidence from workshop discussions across the seminars, and empirical evidence from the flood risk zone, social networks formed and/or enhanced using new media can help promote consensus but also have the potential to accentuate distrust and divide managers and the community at risk. Relevant factors were the nature of the risk faced, nature of event-related protection activity, whether extreme weather events were occurring or had occurred in the recent past, and sociocultural aspects such as the degree of general engagement of civil society, linked to location. There is a possibility that new media may thus reinforce existing power structures, including acknowledged paternalistic attitudes by management authorities and pre-conceived ideas from at-risk communities. In terms of the contribution that social media can make toward the goal of social learning for resilience, the specific role of online social media as a communication tool continues to evolve. It was noted from the workshop that there is a potential for producers of information to act also as consumers (the ‘prosumer effect’), but gaining benefit from this trend requires some changes to existing interaction patterns within and between risk management authorities and communities. More investment may be required in forms of engagement that build relationships of trust, using ‘traditional’ (face-to-face) approaches.