1(5) Hannele Huhtala & Salli Hakala & Aino Laakso & Annette Falck Information Flow and Communication in the Asian Tsunami Disaster (2005) (Publication in Finnish) Research Findings The study was commissioned by the Finnish Prime Minister's Office, in response to public criticism about the way in which the communications in connection with the disaster were handled. The tsunami research project was a part from the research project VISA A Framework for Assessing Finland s Governmental Communications 2007. The focus of the study was on the first stage of the disaster (26 December 2004-5 January 2005), when the crisis was chiefly the concern of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister's Office, as well as the Ministry of the Interior and the administrative area for which it is responsible. The study focuses on these organizations internal and external communication and information flow, and also the flow and exchange of information between them. The operations of other stakeholders involved in the crisis management (the Church; travel agencies: Aurinkomatkat and Finnmatkat; Finnair and the Finnish Red Cross) were also analyzed. Communication and reporting by the authorities and the flow of information during the first stage of the disaster were of the utmost importance in terms of people s information needs. The empirical data has been analyzed mainly from two perspectives: that of the authorities and that of the citizens (public). The assumption is that these two perspectives are not mutually exclusive; instead, they should be mutually supportive in order to ensure successful communication and encounters between the authorities and the citizens. From the viewpoint of communication, this means that the authorities must actively respond to people s need for information. This response should be proactive instead of reactive. In fact, the main tasks of communication by the government are the provision of information and advice for citizens, and the enabling of public participation and involvement (Prime Minister s Office 5/2001; Recommendation on the principles and procedure of central Crisis and Communication Research Project Department of Communication/ Communication Research Centre CRC Faculty of Social Sciences P.O. Box 54 (Unioninkatu 37), FIN-00014 University of Helsinki Telephone +358 9 191 24759, fax +358 9 191 24849 http://blogs.helsinki.fi/crisisandcommunication/
2(5) government communication 2002). Compared with earlier crises, the handling of this particular crisis was organized differently. This was the first time that action was organized via the Coordination Board of Government Chiefs of Preparedness. In previous crises, the Government has convened almost immediately, within 24 hours; this time, the Government waited until its scheduled meeting, which took place more than four days after the tsunami. A significant problem was that neither the public nor the media were informed of the meetings of the Coordination Board of Government Chiefs of Preparedness. It would have been good practice to issue press and Internet bulletins after each meeting and thus inform the public of the most important decisions taken. Not a single person responsible for communications was sent to the disaster area. There was no delegation of duties nor were the personnel working on the crisis informed of what exactly had happened. Information that had already been collected was not organized systematically either. Most problems with previous crisis management related to telephone communications, training, technology etc. were repeated in this crisis as well. Personal networking and telephone communications played a strategic role in the management of the crisis. The media and consequently the public at large were served better than those citizens who had been directly affected by the disaster. Stakeholders (incl. NGOs) were invited to attend meetings of the emergency planning chiefs and their expertise was put to use. This research was the first one in Finland, where people directly affected by the crisis were asked to write letters to provide information on the crisis for purposes of official investigation. The letters contained vital information on the events of the disaster area. According to victims and their families those in the disaster area primarily needed organization of the disaster and contact. Organization needs included: Coordination of various functions and clear decisions; Information and documents related to evacuation transport; Information on those who had survived or were still missing; Emergency information points for information and advice. Many letters specifically mentioned the presence of Bishop Eero Huovinen as important for the survivors morale. Serving families and victims through the media failed in the crisis. The contact needs of victims and their families included: Contact with their family
3(5) members; Contact to the authorities; Contact with travel agencies and Finnair; Contact with authorities through the Ministry for Foreign Affairs emergency telephone service. Family members tried to call repeatedly the published crisis phone numbers. The total number of telephone calls to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs was 37 000, of which only 6000 were connected. Communication between people themselves through sukellus.fi and thairy.net, for example, was much faster and, in this case, more reliable than the information provided by the authorities and the media. At the initial phase of the crisis during December 26 and 27, the Internet played a key role in communication, with none of the conventional media could compete. For the victims families, sukellus.fi replaced government information at the most acute phase of the crisis. These sources provided the sort of urgent information that the authorities could have released on the Internet and handed out in paper form in the disaster area. The operation and organization of sukellus.fi showed that a network of experts relying on each other could handle an acute need for information in a crisis situation even with few resources. The problem with government communication did not lie in technology but in the approach itself: effective crisis management was prevented by the government s own bureaucratic, hierarchical procedures. More exercises and rehearsals are required to ensure that those responsible for crisis management are aware of each other s roles and know how to work together in practice. The fastest information channels for people proved to be the telephone, text messages and the Internet. Using these as information channels between the government and the public should, in particular, be developed further. People must have a reliable way of reporting to the authorities over the Internet. This was yet another crisis that showed how vulnerable technology can be, which is why communication always requires wellrehearsed procedures and creative solutions. The Finnish Red Cross solved the telephone problem by setting up mobile satellite phones. The telephone including text messages and the Internet were combined in the work of sukellus.fi and thairy.net, making the Internet a forum for information exchange and creating an emergency group on the Internet. People s communication technology resources and those of the authorities must be considered realistically when technological solutions are planned.
4(5) Hakala and Huhtala argue that the tsunami communication crisis brought about a turning point in the Finnish public administration s mode of communication: due to the communication crisis, public administration was forced to shift from the transmission model of communication towards strategic communication. Crisis communication has also become more political because citizens and the media are more alert about authority communication, and they have also become more active themselves. Crisis communication is understood as an increasingly important part of crisis management and leadership. (Huhtala & Hakala, 2007: 22). New technology has brought new forms of organization to the reach of citizens. These means challenge the authorities to act more quickly and more openly in crisis situations, because in cases where the authorities fail to deliver the information, it will be gathered from other sources. Huhtala and Hakala argue that crises call forth agents and leaders to act. By organizing a web service for over a million people for the duration of one week, Alex Nieminen together with his friends proved how agency and power are produced in practice. The Sukellus.fi organization comprised a few experts from various branches of the society. They knew each other as well as their working methods. Reciprocal trust between the actors was essential. They did not ask or wait for authorization which is typical of bureaucracy). Alex Nieminen published the information on the Internet, immediately on the evening of Boxing Day 2004, as soon as the name lists of survivors came via SMS from Janne Miikkulainen in Khao Lak. In an emergency, the most important thing is to attain contact with family members or friends. Sukellus.fi fulfilled this task on behalf of the authorities for hundreds of Finnish victims and their relatives. The information operations of the Finnish diving company were noted internationally. In the Finnish tsunami disaster, the Sukellus.fi site became an example of agency in a Foucauldian sense. At the same time, for the first time in a worldwide disaster, the Net became a community of images, where people not known to each other began to help each other by transmitting crucial information via the new technologies available. (Hakala & Seeck 2009.)
5(5) References: Huhtala, Hannele & Hakala, Salli (2005) Information Flow and Communication in the Asian Tsunami Disaster (in Finnish: Tiedonkulku ja viestintä Aasian hyökyaaltokatastrofissa) VNK 5/2005 http://www.vnk.fi/julkaisukansio/2005/j07-tiedonkulku-ja-viestintaaasian/pdf/142820.pdf Huhtala, Hannele & Hakala, Salli (2007) Crisis and Communication. Crisis Management in the Context of Media Society (in Finnish: Kriisi ja viestintä. Yhteiskunnallisten kriisien johtaminen julkisuudessa) Helsinki: Gaudeamus. http://www.gaudeamus.fi/?p=2031 Salli Hakala & Hannele Seeck (2009) Crisis and Web-Enabled Agency in Practice: The Cases of Sukellus.fi and Thairy.net. In Kivikuru, Ullamaija & Lars, Nord (eds.) After the tsunami. Crisis communication in Finland and Sweden. Göteborg: Nordicom. http://www.nordicom.gu.se/?portal=publ&main=info_publ2.php&ex=291&me=13 Tsunami research was based on the VISA: A Framework for Assessing Finland s Governmental Communications. Timetable of the Tsunami Research: 2005 Comparative study with other Crisis and Communication Research Projects 2007-2011 Contact: Salli Hakala, salli.hakala(at)helsinki.fi