Communication strategies on risk and disaster management in South American countries

Planned communication is widely recognized as a fundamental tool for risk and disaster management (RDM). This study aimed to analyze the communication strategy of RDM systems in the context of seven Spanish-speaking countries of South America (sscSA), specifically: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru. This involved the review of 29 documents related to RDM planning. This study is part of a larger research project called Integral communication system in critical events which have previous results already published. The computerassisted qualitative data analysis methodology was used to analyze the textual corpus. The qualitative analysis was complemented with statistical models such as principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis. A total of 203 ideas for good communication were identified and classified into five components: i) early communication planning, ii) information and communication system management planning, iii) communication and communicator quality management planning, iv) RDM awareness raising, and v) stakeholder consolidation. Ecuador, Chile and Paraguay correlated mostly with pre-disaster communication. Colombia and Bolivia correlated with communication during a disaster. While post-disaster communication was not well represented in sscSA planning.

ANALYSIS OF STATE TWEETS POSTED IN 2020, DURING COVID-19, IN SOUTH AMERICA WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Communication as an essential component for risk management receives renewed interest with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 and the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The research aim was to analyze the most relevant factors of the communication issued by the Ministries of Health of eight Spanish-speaking countries in South America on Twitter, one of the most important social networks today. Particularly: a) an exploratory analysis of 40,082 tweets was carried out by detecting word communities;b) the communicational behavior was contrasted in the analyzed countries;c) the individual and collective communication behavior of these countries was analyzed in different stages of the pandemic in 2020;d) significant relationships between reported issues and the evolution of positive cases due to COVID-19 in 2020 were analyzed. Consequently, this study allowed the detection of 18 communication issues linked to the pandemic, such as the containment of the virus or communication in the face of deficiencies in the pandemic response system. In addition, it allowed to highlight some positive aspects such as early communication, communicational flexibility, inclusive communication or communication redundancy. © 2021 by the authors