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Table 2
Practical advice for communication using new media.
| Challenge | Practical advice for communication using new media |
|---|---|
| Complexity | Use complementary animated graphics, multimedia and links to updates from other web and social media. |
| Help readers to visualize complex topics with graphics and comparisons, e.g., radiation levels with CT scan, X-rays, annual doses for all sources and for natural source. However, context is essential and maps will usually not be sufficient. | |
| Make extended information related to ionizing radiation from news available on internet. | |
| Expand from a one-way news provision from traditional media to open for feedback by using internet (e.g., comments, twitter feed). | |
| Uncertainty | Give media training to experts so they are able to explain events and be involved in on-line communication and explanation of ionizing radiation. (Be prepared to have expert-volunteers on line to have a dialogue with citizens and with other experts having different opinions.) |
| Communicate uncertainties, e.g., acknowledge scientific dispute over the effects of long-term exposure to low doses of radiation, admit when knowledge is lacking, but underline areas where there is scientific consensus. | |
| Make animated graphics, videos, simulations, related to ionizing radiation, available for TV newscast. | |
| Globalisation of radiological risk | Communicate in local language but also in other world spoken languages (e.g., English); take cultural and political differences into account |
| Anxiety | Organise radiation seminars on line for the public to help reduce anxieties in the post-disaster setting or public presentations on the technical aspects of the Fukushima nuclear accident for interested laypersons. |
| Provide animated maps, which include a time series visualization of regional effects, a local site map, selected news reports, radiation by distance to show several trend lines at different dates in addition the map incorporates many of the changes requests by readers of an interactive internet page. | |
| Have a rumours control centre and active response on rumours disperse by new media. | |
| Unfamiliarity | Report radiation units only in the context and with descriptive explanation. E.g., comparisons with a historical nuclear accident, with legal limits and norms and with the natural radiation background. Use plain language versus scientific language in order to reach a wider audience. |
| If the INES is used as a comparison criterion or reference with other radiological or nuclear emergencies, supplement with animated graphics, multimedia and links to updates from other websites. | |
| Organize pseudo-events to attract the media attention, for instance excursions to a contaminated site or visits to waste disposal sites, and stream them on-line and publish them on YouTube or other social media channels. | |
| Socio-political context | Remain impartial on related political topics, such as being asked to take a side related to a nuclear energy policy. |
| Be well informed about all major nuclear accidents, since media as well as public make links between any nuclear event and major nuclear accidents like Chernobyl or Three Miles Island and information about them is always available on internet. | |
| Relationship | Establish relationships among the information sources long before the emergency also by using social networks. |
| Incorporate traditional and social media in the corporate crisis communication strategy. | |
| Make extended information related to ionizing radiation from news available on internet. | |
| Expand from a one-way news provision from traditional media to open for feedback by using internet (e.g., comments, twitter feed). |
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