Friday, May 1, 2009
Crisis Communication Project
The community I am going to look at for the crisis communication project is Valley City. I chose Valley City because I live there and know what and how the communication was being handled for the most part. I was going to choose Fargo, but since I was not there during the flood it would be harder to find and determine what the best methods were. The spokesperson for Valley City in my opinion was the Mayor, Mary Lee Nielson who would inform the city on the radio about what was going on with the dikes, Baldhill Dam output, and any other news related to the sewer problems. Although she was not always the one saying or giving the information, she was the main spokesperson. The mayor was the spokesperson because she is in charge of the town and the people of Valley City know who she is and would most likely listen to her. She is one of the first to receive information on what is going on with the river and what the town needed to do. Twitter, Fargo Forum, News Dakota, and the Times-Record were all channels of communication during the flooding situation in Valley City. Each of these helped keep the public informed as best it could on the situation on hand and as what was to come. I am going to talk to people in the community and get a general consensus about which channel was they mostly used. Then ask which they thought was most effect and was the best method that should be used. The channel I will probably go with will be the radio I think, since that is what I used and many other people I have already talked to also used.
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For me I do not really see the radio as the most successful medium of communication during the flood. I think the television did more justice and helped keep the public updated more on what was going on.
ReplyDeleteI was very thrilled to know that twitter was also a medium used to update people of the flood crisis, I had no clue twitter would come in handy and be that effective for sure a situation.
There is a lot of people doing Valley City as their project town. it should be interesting to see the different views on what each one thinks was the best method of communication during the flood. I really wonder how effective Twitter really was? I personally don't really know what twitter is other than its a social media (website)? well anyway do you think that many of the older generations used twitter to get their information about the flood?
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a good research project. It should be pretty easy considering you live right in town and would have heard most of your information from the communication that Valley City used. I agree that the Mayor, Mary Lee Nielson, probably was the main spokesperson of Valley City with other people speaking on her behalf. Radio was probably the main communication for Valley City as you said. It would have been the easiest way to get all that information to the public.
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