Attracting public attention to any single issue represents a
significant challenge for public administrators. The proliferation of web sites and television
stations, combined with the decline of print journalism in many markets, has
complicated the task of generating public awareness – a task that is a key step
in most action plans designed to facilitate change. Given this challenge, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube represent an important avenue for generating public awareness.
According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Journalism Project and the Knight Foundation,
approximately 47% of adult Facebook users, (30% of adults in the US) use Facebook to seek out news. In addition, the
researchers note that 78% of these users obtain news while on the site “without
actually looking for it,” as one survey respondent explained. An update to the report posted by Pew
Research in November 2013 includes helpful info-graphics that demonstrate
the usage rates of the top sites and the subset of users who actively seek news
via those sites.
In addition to their subscribers, the sites serve as a
powerful tool to promote near instantaneous “word of mouth” coverage well beyond the subscribers, thereby driving traffic to traditional news
media outlets for more in-depth coverage. In an increasingly crowded market
place, this represents a low-cost, high-impact method for generating public
attention and engagement, as the CDC observed after the launch of its Zombie Apocalypse campaign in 2011.
Public attention is naturally focused on news of emergencies
as they unfold, and social media sites have proven effective for communicating
live updates and helping to direct resources to assist victims. Yet the CDC
traditionally faced a significant challenge directing attention to disaster
preparedness. The CDC’s Zombie Apocalypse
campaign attracted attention to the CDC’s mission by framing disaster
preparedness through what had become popular reference point – zombies. The campaign
was successful in part because it successfully straddled the fine “edutainment”
line, using social media as a mechanism to attract the attention of millions of
viewers of popular zombie television shows and enabling them to think about and
discuss disaster preparedness via an activity they found to be entertaining.
Although some people criticized the tactic as inappropriate,
the public’s response was overwhelmingly positive. As noted by Marjorie Kruvand
and Maggie Silver in their paper, “Zombies Gone Viral,” the campaign shattered
all previous CDC records for visitors to its emergency preparedness campaigns,
with over 4.8 million visitors to the blog over the course of its first 8
months, compared with 1,000 – 3,000 visitors the agency typically received for
posts, as well as over 120 comments compared to an average of around 5 posts (Kruvand
& Sliver, 2013). The authors of this
study note that the campaign was conceived and launched in part due to the
decentralized nature of the CDC’s communications departments and because it was
initially viewed as a short-term tactic (1 week or so) to try to generate
attention among young people. Had the organizational structure for the communications teams been more centralized and hierarchical, the campaign might not
have made it off the ground, as it might have been deemed offensive or even
unprofessional before it was launched. Instead, when
the idea was pitched, the team was given the opportunity to develop and then
test the concept.
The CDC’s campaign clearly increased awareness, but did it
prompt people to action? In light of the campaign’s overwhelming success at
generating public awareness, CDC admits in retrospect that it would have been
helpful to include an evaluation of the campaign’s affect on public disaster preparedness levels. For example, the CDC could have taken the concept one step
further by asking users to take photos of their disaster preparedness kits and
to post them on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter for a chance to win prizes.
They could have partnered with the television series, which might have
sponsored prizes to selected individuals who submitted disaster preparedness kits or plans to
CDC. They could have sponsored a contest and awarded prizes, such as filming a scene
from an episode and hosting an autograph session at local fire departments, to communities with the most disaster preparedness plans submitted by households within a given period of time, for example.
CDC’s Zombie campaign effectively increased public awareness
and even engagement, but it is unclear if it increased action. Perhaps future campaigns
will include methods of engaging individuals and communities in preparedness
activities, and of tracking and sharing those results via social media.
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