The relationship between the disaster communication action context and citizen intent to shape climate-related disaster policy across California wildfire seasons

ABSTRACT

The current study examined the psychological and social factors that motivate individuals to share and seek wildfire preparedness and resilience-building messages within disaster communication ecologies. California residents who either lived in counties that (a) experienced the 2018 Mendocino Complex or Camp Fires or (b) bordered active wildfire zones were surveyed. Hierarchical regression and serial mediation analysis revealed that descriptive social norms and Pre-event citizen disaster communication mediate the relationship between climate risk perception and intent to contact local, state, and federal government officials to combat wildfire and extreme weather. Results (a) identify disaster-specific factors that facilitate a disaster communication action context and (b) provide evidence that citizen disaster communication is a cross-ecological process that can be used to foster resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• Disaster communication
• communication ecology
• climate resilience
• social norms
• wildfire policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the University of Arkansas Center for Communication Research.