GNGTS 2024 - Atti del 42° Convegno Nazionale

Session 2.3 GNGTS 2024 Towards the IT-ALERT implementaton. Early warning and cell-broadcast systems in the context of risk and crisis communicaton L. Cugliari 1,2 , A. Amato 1 , A. Cerase 2 , F. Comunello 2 , M. Crescimbene 1 1 Isttuto Nazionale di Geofsica e Vulcanologia, 00153, Roma, Italia 2 Università di Roma La Sapienza, dipartmento di Comunicazione e Ricerca Sociale, 00198, Roma, Italia Introducton Communicaton is one of the most efectve - and at the same tme complex - processes to mitgate risks to the populaton. Indeed, it allows protectng the safety of citzens in peacetme: following an ongoing process (Coombs, 2007; Paltala & Vos, 2012) that, through the tmely actvaton of relatonal practces and (in)formatve processes involves insttutons, citzenship, and the media (Zimmerman, 1987; Johnson, 1999; Comunello, 2014; Cerase, 2017; Comunello and Mulargia, 2017; Renn, 2020; Rafiana et al., 2022) or-as in the specifc case study-a few minutes or seconds before a damaging event hits the populaton (WMO, 2022). Technological progress has actually transformed the communicaton of anthropogenic and natural hazards. This has engaged insttutons, and stll requires them energy and efort, to identfy the "communicatve optmum" tme afer tme, trying to identfy the best strategies to disseminate informaton including through Social Network Sites (SNS) (Steglitz & Dang-Xuan, 2013; Alexander, 2014). In this framework, driven by the widespread use of mobile devices, the United Natons Foundaton (2010) argues that: "if communites, to survive in tmes of crisis, depend on informaton, then communicaton technologies consttute their lifelines." The online environments actvate seamless communicatve dynamics (Baym, 2015) that engage citzens in an actve role in terms of demands towards risk management insttutons (Kasperson & Kasperson, 2012). The direct, two-way exchange, in which SNS and platorms are seen as discussion environments, has required further adaptaton of communicaton modalites both on the part of the insttutons responsible for risk communicaton and from the point of view of scientsts, researchers, local managers, and stakeholders dealing - at various levels - with risks, in order to respond clearly, punctually, quickly, and, possibly, by personalizing the response, for citzens who in an "always on" (Baron, 2008) perspectve become "prosumers" of informaton and knowledge. As for risk communicaton, citzens, driven by growing informaton needs in peacetme as well as in crises, rely on the informaton and answers they fnd on the web (verifed or not). In our case,