Here is an excellent paper by Dr. Dennis McDonald
about school communication. Virginia Tech continues to be a driving force in people’s thinking about communication and particularly mass notification. As I commented today to a reporter from PR Week, this event perhaps more than any other since 9/11 demonstrates the huge shift to a post media world. Every day the expectation is increasing of direct communciation vs mass communication through traditional media. Isn’t it astounding to look at the criticism leveled against the administrators that they did have the capacity to simultaneously alert thousands of people with an instant and direct message? And since that event, that expectation has multiplied many times over. It is not just university administrators who are scrambling to come up with ways to meet this new kind of direct and instant demand. It is anyone who is in the public safety business.
McDonald’s paper focuses on the use of social media sites. As crisisblogger readers will note, this is something I have commented on several times in the past. Indeed, the technology we provide for mass direct communication, is used to push info to social media sites and we now consider it one of the many important distribution modes.
The world of public information management gets more complicated and challenging every day. Thanks Dr. Mcdonald for helping address some very important issues.
Crisisblogger 