Prepared or Not, Here It Comes: Applying the Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP) Model to Determine How Diversity Dimensions Influence Severe Weather Risk Information Seeking and Processing Behaviors.

摘要

This study examined the influence of diversity dimensions through the risk information seeking and processing model (RISP) of severe weather information among residents of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area. Five research questions guided this project: RQ1: Where do participants look for severe weather information? RQ1a: How do residents participate in passive information seeking? RQ1b: When residents have questions about severe weather, how are likely are they to actively search for it? RQ1c: What are their attitudes toward these sources? RQ 2:How important is the possibility of severe weather to residents? RQ2a: Why do they have the outlook that they do? RQ 3: How do residents process information about severe weather? In other words, how do they interpret the information they receive? RQ 4: What are residents' perceptions of severe weather information sources (e.g., print media, e-mail, etc)? RQ5: Do residents trust the government to protect them from the threat of severe weather? Surveys were distributed online with a sample size of 250 respondents. Multiple regressions and correlations were preformed to explore the research questions. The results of this study discovered the ways in which residents of the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area seek and process severe weather related information and indicate that specific diversity dimensions do impact how residents of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area seek and process severe weather related information.