11 pages, Extension is well-positioned to facilitate communication strategies that foster community resilience and disaster recovery, particularly for rural residents. This paper proposes a new approach to post-disaster communication that strengthens rural community capacities in locally and culturally relevant ways. The findings revealed specific post-disaster information needs, preferences for local resources, and communication that encourages resilience through a document analysis and interviews with informants recovering from the 2020 Colorado wildfires. The practical recommendations discussed serve as a starting point for Extension professionals in other areas to consider ways to engage with their communities before, during, and after a disaster.
32 pages., via online journal., Following the March 2017 wildfire devastation in Texas, Oklahoma, and
Kansas, local chapters of the National FFA Organization actively engaged
on social media to advocate for public response to the crisis. Twenty-three
public Facebook posts from FFA chapters and affiliates demonstrate members’
engagement with agricultural issues in the United States, disrupting the
generalization that young adults are disconnected from civic affairs.
However, while Facebook served as an important platform for members’
ag-vocacy in the wake of the crisis, FFA chapter posts contain embedded
traditional rural literacies, which are reflected in members’ collective
identification with existing supporters of agricultural communities. While
FFA chapters had the potential to advocate to a broad readership, the
posts reveal the chapters’ way of reading the crisis and writing a response
to it with an insular narrative. As a result, Facebook posts that target
only limited audiences and/or appeal to readers with exclusionary collective
identification result in the failure of entities, such as local FFA chapters,
to capitalize on Facebook’s full potential as an advocacy tool to inform and
engage large public audiences.
Curtiss, Brook D. (author), Hale-Spencer, Melissa (author), Hueston, Brett (author), Whitney, Jonathan (author), Harnack, Roger (author), McLaughlin, Kaylie (author), Lozinski, Peter (author), Hedlund, Patric (author), Meyer, Eric (author), Wagner, Ellen (author), Nash, Noel (author), White, Mark (author), Ranson, Steve (author), Meier, Jill (author), Sawvell, Derek (author), Keck, Randy (author), Murray, Ian (author), McCarthy, James (author), and Valpy, Bruce (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2020
Published:
USA: International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11786
Online via UI electronic subscription., Brief case examples of how community newspapers adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic in the face of suspended activities in their communities.
Online via UI electronic subscription., Editors introduce a special issue focused on now ISWNE members have been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in their communities.
