Narratives of risk communication: Nudging community residents to shelter-in-place

Community emergency response has received researcher’s attention within the academic and professional risk management and communication community. Such studies help residents to be as safe as sound science, professional emergency management (including risk migration), and public communication can accomplish. Once designed and implemented, emergency response campaigns are monitored to determine what strategies work best to inform, alert and motivate vulnerable populations to make wise preventive (precrisis) emergency responses. Framed as such, this study reports data from a quasi-longitudinal analysis of community emergency management communication in one of the USA communities most at risk for chemical release/exposure. It probes the protective action decision-making motivational efficacy of a spokes-character named Wally Wise Guy. Previous research has demonstrated that knowledge of Wally and its protective response (including shelter-in-place) messaging is a strong predictor of community members’ preferred protective action and willingness to engage in such action once alerted to do so. This current study uses narrative theory, augmented by nudge theory, to further examine why Wally’s advice is useful in community emergency response. In specific, it asks whether Wally, a turtle spokes-character, nudges citizens to know and comply with emergency management advisories to shelter-in-place as notified.