TY - JOUR
T1 - The evolution of the operational earthquake forecasting community of practice
T2 - the L’Aquila communication crisis as a triggering event for organizational renewal
AU - Sellnow, Deanna D.
AU - Iverson, Joel
AU - Sellnow, Timothy L.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 National Communication Association.
PY - 2017/3/15
Y1 - 2017/3/15
N2 - The scientific community of earthquake experts has long grappled with how to communicate earthquake probabilities successfully to non-scientific publics. Perhaps most central to their concern is the widely held belief that scientists can actually predict earthquakes when, in fact, they cannot. The potential consequences of this miscommunication problem were appallingly realized as a result of the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy. Failed risk communication among scientists, a public official, and L’Aquila residents prior to the earthquake resulted in 309 deaths, 1500 injuries, and 65,000 people displaced from their homes, as well as the sentencing of six scientists and one public official to six years in prison for manslaughter. This paper examines how and why the L’Aquila Earthquake communication crisis ultimately redefined the international scientific earthquake community of practice and its discourse beyond that of community resilience to organizational learning and renewal.
AB - The scientific community of earthquake experts has long grappled with how to communicate earthquake probabilities successfully to non-scientific publics. Perhaps most central to their concern is the widely held belief that scientists can actually predict earthquakes when, in fact, they cannot. The potential consequences of this miscommunication problem were appallingly realized as a result of the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy. Failed risk communication among scientists, a public official, and L’Aquila residents prior to the earthquake resulted in 309 deaths, 1500 injuries, and 65,000 people displaced from their homes, as well as the sentencing of six scientists and one public official to six years in prison for manslaughter. This paper examines how and why the L’Aquila Earthquake communication crisis ultimately redefined the international scientific earthquake community of practice and its discourse beyond that of community resilience to organizational learning and renewal.
KW - Communities of practice
KW - crisis communication
KW - operational earthquake forecasting
KW - organizational learning
KW - organizational renewal
KW - risk communication
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85014446111&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00909882.2017.1288295
DO - 10.1080/00909882.2017.1288295
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85014446111
SN - 0090-9882
VL - 45
SP - 121
EP - 139
JO - Journal of Applied Communication Research
JF - Journal of Applied Communication Research
IS - 2
ER -