Communicating with the public in emergencies: A systematic review of communication approaches in emergency response

Natural hazards and man-made emergencies pose a consistent challenge to emergency responders and government agencies, raising questions about how to communicate with the public most effectively during the emergencies to maintain safety. We conducted a pre-registered systematic review of current literature with the aim of categorising the depictions of emergency responders’ views of the public (e.g., as a group simply to help or as a group to also elicit help from) and modes of communication (e.g., online or face-to-face). From a screened set of 2084 papers, we identified 26 that met our inclusion criteria. Across these papers, the approaches of the emergency responders and government agencies were categorised into three main categories: Command and Control, Uncertainty and Management, and Trust and Collaboration. We found different modes of communication usage across different types of emergencies (e.g., fires and floods) in the literature, with social media being the most prominent. Further, three different patterns of social media use can be categorised: one-way, passive two-way and active two-way. We identified challenges in implementing two-way communication: specifically, distrust in the public during emergencies and organisational constraints on using information from the public. The views toward the public that emergency responders and government agencies hold can be related to what modes of emergency communication they choose to use with the public. Importantly, two-way communication between emergency responders/government agencies and the public should be encouraged, allowing for dialogue where the public share information with emergency responders who in turn make use of public engagement to enhance public safety.