Of warnings and waiting: an examination of the path of information for two communities hit by Typhoon Haiyan

Abstract

Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines in 2013, causing billions in damage, and taking thousands of lives. Media and researchers claimed that people did not have enough information about the storm, or did not understand the information given to them, and therefore did not evacuate. This research departs from the assumption of a knowledge deficit: it asks how people understood warnings and how information flowed from the government. This research focuses on Guiuan, a municipality that sustained heavy damage and loss of life, and the entry point of many typhoons in the Philippines. Guided by Stuart Hall’s Encoding-Decoding Theory, the researcher carried out focus group discussions with citizens and interviews with local government officials from one coastal and one inland village. Through systematic qualitative analysis of interviews and discussions, the researcher found that participants from different locations in the same municipality understood warning information differently, based on unique epistemological frames. While local government framed people as deficient in knowledge, the citizens actually called upon their previous experiences with storms in order to make evacuation decisions. However, they could not project worse scenarios from previous experience and needed a phenomenon to match an experience in real time before making an evacuation decision. These findings imply that disaster imagination, disaster memory, and disaster knowledge are all distinct concepts, and future research should examine how specific contexts frame risk. Early warning systems for storms must also take into account unique epistemological frames as a means to localize communication and engage communities in the decision-making process.     

A vision for communities in the 21st century: back to the future

Globalization, in its capitalistic and popular cultural form, is impacting communities around the world. This paper uses two models to show how globalization actually arose several millennia ago and how the process has greatly accelerated in recent times. One model describes the ‘information technology system’ and the second is James Miller’s living systems model. Using these models as a foundation, this paper argues that globalization can severely weaken communities and is antithetical to future-oriented perspectives. If current globalization trends continue unabated, globalization may result in a future world characterized by satiated consumers whose every desire is met by a totally efficient but completely impersonal economic system. In this world, people do not depend directly upon face-to-face interaction for their economic well being. Because of this, community and even culture collapses. Contrasted to this soulless world, it is argued that a new future could evolve where concern about the future replaces individualistic and market-oriented concerns as the prime motivator of public policy. This future has a good probability of occurring since current populations are being socialized to understand the broad concept of globalization. Additionally, new technologies will allow the development of small, mostly self-sufficient communities which will facilitate the re-emergence of community life and obligations.     

Risk cultures and dominant approaches towards disasters in seven European countries

This paper builds upon the risk culture concept started with Mary Douglas’ and Aaron Wildavsky’s seminal work on risk and culture. Based upon the empirical results of a qualitative sociological study on sociocultural factors affecting risk perception and crisis communication in seven European countries, a theoretical model, illustrating how differences in disasters framing imply diverse approaches to risk and disaster management, is suggested. According to this framework, culturally bounded assumptions and conventions strongly influence how communities make sense of risks and hazards and how these communities consider some ways of dealing with disasters more appropriate than others. The framework suggested in this article distinguishes between risk cultures of a given society, which do not necessarily respond to nation states. In order to explain differences in how cultures deal with risks and disasters, and to define the main features of our typology, three main interrelated dimensions have been selected: disaster framing, trust in authorities and blaming. By analyzing differences and similarities in how people perceive and interpret disasters, as well as to whom the responsibility for risk prevention and crisis management is attributed, in seven European countries, three specific ideal types of risk cultures emerged: state-oriented risk culture, individual-oriented risk culture and fatalistic risk culture. Implications for crisis management and communication in case of a disaster will be addressed for each of these risk cultures.     

构建适应中国特色应急管理需求的财政治理体系

“坚持总体国家安全观”是党的十九大报告关于国家发展战略的基本要求。以习近平同志为核心的党中央对应急管理工作高度重视,积极改革应急管理机构设置,加快构建“全灾种、全方位、全过程”的国家综合应急管理体制。同时,财政作为国家治理的基础和重要支柱,财政治理现代化是应急管理体制现代化的先决条件之一。目前我国应急管理的理论研究较少嵌入财政治理机制的影响。本文梳理了国内外应急管理的相关治理理论,结合我国应急管理体制改革的现实需求,分析了当前我国应急管理中财政治理的现状,构建了我国应急管理中财政治理的政策体系模型,并提出了相应财税政策建议。     

Community social capital and individual disaster preparedness in immigrants and Canadian-born individuals: an ecological perspective

Abstract

Psychological research on the predictors of disaster preparedness has mainly focused on individual-level factors, although the social environment plays an important role. Our goal is to provide a systemic perspective to help improve risk communication and risk management for natural disaster risks. We examined how community-level social capital related to individual-level disaster preparedness in immigrants compared with Canadian-born individuals. We characterised participants’ communities’ social capital by conceptually linking two national surveys using postal codes. We performed sequential linear multiple regression analysis to examine the relationship between community social capital and individual disaster preparedness. Results revealed three components of social capital: societal trust, interaction with friends, and neighbourhood contact. Societal trust positively predicted the extent to which immigrants and Canadian-born individuals knew someone who would search for them post-disaster. Interestingly, results revealed that Canadian-born individuals were more likely to uptake emergency planning when living in a community with strong societal trust, while the reverse was true for immigrants. Results suggest that some components of social capital may have an effect on certain preparedness behaviours. Societal trust could have both positive and negative effects on emergency planning depending on individuals’ immigrant status. Risk communication and risk management should consider social capital as part of the framework for effective disaster preparedness.     

How much could refuges help us recover from a global catastrophe?

Some global catastrophes (such as nuclear wars, pandemics, or an asteroid collision) might destroy civilization. Some propose building well-stocked shelters constantly staffed with people trained to rebuild civilization in such cases. These “refuges” would have an unimpressive expected cost per life saved, but could conceivably have an impressive expected cost per future generation allowed to exist. From some ethical perspectives that highly value future generations, building refuges may therefore seem like a promising idea. However, several factors significantly dilute the potential impact of refuges, even if the proposed catastrophes occur. Government/private disaster shelters, people working on submarines, and isolated peoples who prefer to be left alone serve these purposes to some extent already. Many proposed catastrophes do too much/too little damage for refuges to help, affect the environment in ways that make refuges largely irrelevant, or otherwise give relatively limited advantages to the people in refuges. In global food crises or social collapse scenarios, refuges would add little to aggregate stocks of population, resources, food, and relevant skills; but they may add something unique in terms of isolation and coordination. These potential benefits of refuges seem the most promising, and may be worthy of further analysis.     

Exploring imaginative futures writing through the fictional prototype ‘crime-sourcing’

This fictional prototype presents a future proposition of people interacting with technologically designed or socially engineered producer entities. Entities customised specifically to solve complex societal problems. In this case that of crime and punishment. The prototype speculates how entrepreneurial firms will be able to exploit ‘crowdsourcing’ technologies. It also explores ‘crowdsourcing’ entities by means of a fictional reflection of how life might unfold in the criminal interaction space. The vignette is based on a factual discussion/analysis of the research inspiring these views. In the final section the author explains how this prototype will be developed through field research.     

Der Einfluss des demographischen Wandels auf die Ausgaben der Krankenversicherung

The analysis presented in this document investigates the question of whether the increase in life expectancy causes financial stress for health insurance systems or not. In particular, the authors focused on the financial impact of the ?costs of dying“ and how much these costs contribute to the total health costs. The article analyses an in-patient and an out-patient tariff of a large private health insurance company in Germany. It is based on health care costs of people who died in 1999 and of those who continued to live. The percentage of the costs of dying is often overestimated. However, the costs of those who continued to live increased overproportionately. In particular, this was true for the insured people over 80 years.The claim that the increase of life expectancy only postpones the high costs in the future and has no impact on the financial conditions of health insurance is doubtful. Older people live longer and have more opportunity to take medication and receive therapy for a longer period. Therefore we argue that longer life expectancy and other factors like progress in medical technology pose a severe threat on the financial stability of health insurance.     

我国农村残疾人医疗救助制度建设分析

自2003年国家开展医疗救助试点以来,我国医疗救助制度在不断地改进和完善。根据2011年东北农村残疾人社会保障与服务体系的调研,结合民政部门统计数据,本文分析了农村残疾人医疗救助制度建设的必要性、可行性、存在的问题和解决措施。目前,我国农村残疾人医疗救助制度存在救助覆盖范围窄、救助水平低、资金管理不善和制度衔接不到位等问题,医疗救助应该从农村残疾人抓起,扩大医疗救助覆盖范围、提高救助水平、增强救助管理和完善制度建设。     

Visualizing risk: using participatory photography to explore individuals’ sense-making of risk

Although the field of risk research is increasingly alert to new theoretical and empirical perspectives, it is still the case that few studies take a visual approach, despite its obvious worth in capturing people’s experiences of everyday life. This paper considers how a visual approach can be used to deepen our knowledge of sense-making of risk, particularly young people’s views on risk. It presents empirical findings from a study that uses participatory photography to capture what individuals define as serious risks in everyday life and how these risks are expressed (722 participants in Sweden, aged 5–33, mostly children or adolescents). The conclusion is that focusing on stories embedded in images independently contributes new knowledge about how the individual makes sense of risk in everyday life, and especially that visual methods of data collection and analysis illuminate how individual sense-making of risk is intertwined with other aspects of meaning-making in everyday life. In other words, it is time for a visual turn in risk research.     

First-Order Mortality Basis for Life Annuities

Mortality improvements pose a challenge for the life annuity business. For the management of such portfolios, it is important to forecast future mortality rates. Standard models for mortality forecasting assume that the force of mortality at age x in calendar year t is of the form exp, where the dynamics of the time index is described by a random walk with drift. Starting from such a best estimate of future mortality (called second-order mortality basis in actuarial science), the paper explains how to determine a conservative life table serving as first-order mortality basis. The idea is to replace the stochastic projected life table with a deterministic conservative one, and to assume mutual independence for the remaining life times. The paper then studies the distribution of the present value of the payments made to a closed group of annuitants. It turns out that De Pril–Panjer algorithm can be used for that purpose under first-order mortality basis. The connection with ruin probabilities is briefly discussed. An inequality between the distribution of the present value of future annuity payments under first-order and second-order mortality basis is provided, which allows to link value-at-risk computed under these two sets of assumptions. A numerical example performed on Belgian mortality statistics illustrates how the approach proposed in this paper can be implemented in practice.     

How long might the younger-old live: A predictive model

Life expectancy amongst older people in industrialised countries has been improving over an extended period and still continues to do so. This has ramifications for providers of services to this population, thus necessitating a level of forward planning. Predictive models of remaining life expectancy for older age groups can assist long-term planning processes. This paper presents an extrapolative approach to forecasting remaining life expectancy. Based on logistic modelling of historic mortality and survivorship for the “younger-old” male population of England and Wales over the period 1970-2005, a parsimonious two-parameter model is derived. This model provides a close correspondence to published period life table data. Trends in these parameters are then fitted and extrapolated to enable projections of life expectancy up to 40 years into the future. Alternative assumptions are used to determine a range of future life expectancy trajectories for a 65-year-old male. Occupational pension scheme provision is identified as an area of particular concern in the context of increasing longevity. As an illustration, the life expectancy trajectories are combined with differing discount rate assumptions to generate a number of alternative pension liability scenarios for the extrapolation period.     

日本大地震对经济金融的影响

3·11大地震使日本处于二战以来最为困难时期。地震及次生灾难使金融市场一度陷入恐慌,日本政府及时采取注资及G7联手干预等举措起到了稳定金融市场的作用。本文认为灾难的叠加效应将使日本经济复苏步伐受到影响,但全球经济总体不会受到明显影响。随着日本灾后恢复及重建工作的推进,巨额的救助资金无疑会对日本政府带来新的考验。     

Overcoming Barriers to Life Insurance Coverage: A Behavioral Approach

While life insurance purchase decisions have long been studied, we still do not know how people decide if they need insurance or how much they need. Using in‐depth interviews, we peer into the black box of employee decision making to learn what people know about this employee benefit, and how they decide if it is of value for them. We find that individuals understand the need for life insurance, but find many behavioral economic barriers to getting adequate coverage, including mental accounting, money illusion, and a strong role of defaults. We then conduct an online experiment of the hypothetical employee‐benefit purchase scenario, and find a few, simple interventions could help individuals better decide their life insurance needs.     

Predispositions as determinants of the future

Futures studies has been dominated by the concerns of forecasting and control. This paper suggests that predispositions held by people, especially attitudes and assumptions, have a significant impact on the future and thus constitute an important field of research in futures studies. It discusses three major types of predisposition, and outlines two mechanisms by which they affect the future, especially as it relates to technology. Three examples drawn from real life are then analysed to illustrate the variety of impacts that predispositions have on the future. It is not the intention of this paper to provide a full treatment of the topic, but rather to make an initial proposal. So, finally, the simplifications made in the paper are discussed, and suggestions made about fruitful avenues of further research.     

中国残疾人补贴现状分析及制度设计思路

对残疾人这一具有独特身心特征的人群进行补贴是残疾人社会保障制度中的重要内容之一。本研究通过回顾国际残疾人补贴制度的发展沿革,分析我国当前补贴制度下残疾人的收益,探讨了在中国对残疾人进行补贴存在的挑战,并对如何进行补贴制度的设计,使其更具操作性提出尝试性思路:即在全社会提升尊重残疾人群体平等和尊严的意识;以政府为主导,建立多部门合作机制,促进残疾人补贴的有效性;建立多元化分层补贴制度以"稳"和"恒"为原则加强残疾人补贴制度的稳定性和持续性。     

从“居养”到“参与”：中国残疾人社会保护政策的演变

本文考察了中国残疾人社会保护政策的发展历史，将其概括为两个发展阶段，即“居养”阶段和“参与”阶段。居养政策的理论基础是人道主义和仁政，以院舍收养作为残疾人社会保护的主要方式，导致残疾人的社会隔离；权利模式的理论出发点是平等和权利，通过构建权利体系保障残疾人的平等参与权，从而实现残疾人的社会回归。目前，中国残疾人社会保护正从“居养”政策向权利政策转向。     

The role of metaphors in the development of technologies. The case of the artificial intelligence

Technology plays a prominent role in configuring the way we live and work. In this paper we go further and think that it is a first level driver in the configuration of our deepest perceptions and has a paramount influence on shaping our worldviews and metaphors, though this aspect goes unnoticed for most of the population.In this paper we analyze how metaphors take action in the characterization of technologies, mainly emerging technologies, and in their evolution, and furthermore the impact of technologies and metaphors on the way we perceive our daily life. We analyze metaphors underlying brain nature and artificial intelligence, raising the connections between them and showing how metaphors in one of these fields impact on the way we understand the other. This fact has important consequences, for instance it conditions the evolution of computational systems, and we propose two scenarios for this evolution.This paper relies on the conceptual model and classification of metaphors proposed by Lakoff and Johnson in “Metaphors we live by”, from the orientational metaphors that show values and mantras, to the deepest structural metaphors that are reconfiguring how life is conceived. It also relies on CLA (Causal Layered Analysis) and to its reference book “CLA 2.0” in order to insert this analysis in a wider and future oriented framework and to analyze scenarios.     

An Ex Post Assessment of Investor Response to Catastrophes

A large body of research has examined abnormal stock returns for insurance companies in the wake of major catastrophes. Most of these studies have investigated the ex ante factors that investors may consider when generating expectations of future profits, represented by postcatastrophe stock returns. We instead ask whether these expectations were ultimately correct by investigating the relationship between returns and the disaster’s effect on future earnings. We find that returns immediately following a disaster are not associated with future earnings. Approximately six days following a catastrophe, however, returns begin to show a significant positive relationship with future earnings. This relationship becomes stronger in subsequent days. We conclude that investors are unable to correctly predict a disaster’s net impact on profits immediately after a disaster because existing public information is insufficient or misunderstood. Only once insurers begin disclosing their estimated losses can investors make accurate predictions about a disaster’s effect on earnings. Our study shows that the investor expectations inferred in much of the existing literature are not predictive of future profits. Our findings are consistent with semistrong-form market efficiency in the wake of a major disaster.     

Pointing fingers across the tracks: an examination of strategic messages in the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

The oil industry transports crude oil via rail due to increasing demand. Though convenient, this can be dangerous, as many railways travel through populated regions, placing individuals in close range at risk of danger and death during a train derailment. In 2013, the deadliest rail disaster to happen in Canada in 140 years occurred when a Montreal, Maine & Atlantic (MMA) train carrying 7.7 ml of petroleum crude oil broke loose in Nantes, Quebec, and traveled towards Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. The train derailed and exploded in the city’s center, instantly killed 47 people, destroyed downtown, and forced the evacuation of over 2000 residents. The disaster prompted safety and criminal investigations, and litigation for personal, economic, and ecological reparations. This study uses dialectical tensions of strategic communication decision-making to examine the crisis and post-crisis stages of the event to determine how the tensions of organizational responsibility and emotional connection intersected during the crisis. Further, the impact of the crisis at an industry level and the resulting industry-wide lessons learned are revealed. Results were twofold: The tensions intersected with one another; and in socially stigmatized industries, organizational learning can occur on an industry-wide level. Tensions intersected when insensitive communication and messages disowning responsibility for the event initially occurred, and also later, when sensitive communication and taking ownership of the event were communicated. Learning occurred via observation, and actions were implemented in similar organizations in direct response of the event. In addition, regulations were created in direct response and implemented in both Canada and the United States. The study offers implications, discusses the complexity of transnational crises, and calls for future study of interacting tensions of strategic communication decision-making in order to understand how inherent tensions in a crisis situation prompt certain organizational responses to crises.