The Impacts of Narratives-based Risk Communication on Hazard Preparedness

面对极端事件，当地防灾准备对于避免灾害至关重要。传统的风险沟通依赖于科学信息来影响灾害防范，而这种技术信息往往不能有效地融入人们的风险认知和决策中。灾害准备在很大程度上受到文化价值观、认知偏见、影响、知识、信息和经验等因素的影响，所有这些都是通过人们构建并相互讲述的故事来传达的。本研究将测试一种创新的基于叙事的风险传播策略的效果，该策略将科学危害信息定位在当地生产的危害叙事中。通过共同编写风险叙述，有效地将科学信息与个人的风险认知和决策联系起来，可能提供一种创新的方式来改善灾害防范，从而更广泛地转化为各种灾害问题。由于项目的重点是洪水事件，这项研究将利用社会行为科学、水文学和计算机科学方面的专业知识。这项跨学科研究工作的重点是测试共同制作的、基于叙述的风险沟通方法是否比传统的风险沟通更有效地改善危害准备（定义为风险感知和决策）。第一个目标是发展共同制作的风险叙述，既科学准确又与当地相关。采用基于社区的参与式研究（CBPR）方法，将从河流社区收集洪水风险叙述的基线数据，以确定叙述政策框架（NPF）中确定的叙述要素。叙事元素包括叙事结构的子集（如人物、情节的使用）和叙事内容（谁扮演英雄、恶棍、受害者等角色）。尽管叙事结构是稳定的，但不同叙事的内容是不同的。叙事中的角色及其相关行为在构建不同的现实概念和随后的决定方面具有形成性。然后将使用自然语言处理计算技术从CBPR数据中识别关键的叙事内容，以获得位于当地语言和图像中的叙事结构和叙事内容的最佳组合。随后，研究人员将量化、解释和描述与每个社区100年洪水图中洪水频率分析相关的水文不确定性（数据、模型和自然不确定性）的来源。由此产生的信息将嵌入到基于cbpr的算法增强的风险叙述中，以创建与当地相关且科学准确的洪水风险叙述。这些风险描述将返回给CBPR小组进行调整和验证。第二个目标侧重于测试这些共同产生的风险叙事作为叙事治疗对灾害准备（即风险感知和预期决策）的影响，通过实验调查设计在这些河流社区的更大人口中进行。不同结构的共同制作的叙述（即，以英雄为中心，以受害者为中心，以英雄和受害者为中心的叙述）将被用作治疗，以测试它们对灾害准备的影响程度，与非叙事科学陈述和无治疗的控制条件形成对比。研究结果有望深入了解叙述在传达灾害风险和影响灾害准备方面的力量。预计其结果将对参与备灾战略的地方和联邦实体有用。

Local hazard preparedness is vital to avoid disaster in the face of extreme events. Whereas conventional risk communication relies on scientific information to affect hazard preparedness, such technical information is often ineffectively assimilated into people's risk perceptions and decisions. Hazard preparedness is largely shaped by factors such as cultural values, cognitive biases, affect, knowledge, information, and experiences, all of which are communicated through stories that people construct and recount to one another. This research will test the effects of an innovative narrative-based risk communication strategy that locates science hazard information in locally produced hazard narratives. Effectively connecting scientific information to individual risk perceptions and decisions through co-produced risk narratives potentially offers an innovative way to improve hazard preparedness that could translate across hazard issues more broadly. With the project focus on flooding events, this research will draw upon expertise in social behavioral sciences, hydrology, and computer science. This interdisciplinary research effort focuses on testing whether a co-produced, narrative-based risk communication approach is more effective than conventional risk communication at improving hazard preparedness (defined as risk perception and decisions). The first objective is to develop co-produced risk narratives that are both scientifically accurate and locally relevant. Using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, baseline data of flood risk narratives will be collected from river communities to ascertain narrative elements as identified in the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). Narrative elements include subsets of narrative structure (e.g., use of characters, plot) and narrative content (who is cast in the roles of hero, villain, victim). Whereas narrative structures are stable, content varies across narratives. The characters cast in the narrative and their associated actions are formative in constructing different notions of reality and consequent decisions. Natural Language Processing computational techniques will then be used to identify key narrative content from the CBPR data to obtain the best set of combinations of narrative structure and narrative content situated in local language and images. Subsequently, researchers will quantify, explain, and depict sources of hydrologic uncertainty (data, model, and natural uncertainty) associated with flood frequency analysis in 100-year flood maps for each community. This resulting information will be embedded into the algorithmically enhanced CBPR-based risk narratives to create locally relevant and scientifically accurate flood risk narratives. These risk narratives will be returned to the CBPR groups for adjustment and validation. The second objective focuses on testing the effects of these co-produced risk narratives as narrative treatments on hazard preparedness (i.e., risk perception and intended decisions) with an experimental survey design across the larger population in these river communities. Differently constructed co-produced narratives (i.e., hero-focused, victim-focused, hero & victim focused narratives) will be used as treatments to test the extent to which they influence hazard preparedness in contrast to a non-narrative science statement and a control condition of no treatment. The findings are expected to provide insight into the power of narratives in communicating hazard risk and affecting hazard preparedness. The outcomes are expected to be useful for those local and federal entities involved in hazard preparedness strategies.