Tsunami Disaster: A Failure in Science Communication

The thesis of this editorial is that "At the heart of the devastation caused by the [December 2004] Indian Ocean tsunamis lies a failure to communicate scientific information adequately to either decision-makers or the community. Important lessons are to be learnt about the need for professional skills."

David Dickson here examines the role that modern communication technologies can play in mitigating the impact of natural disasters. Following the destruction of conventional telephone lines by the tsunami, Dickson notes, mobile phones became an essential component in many rescue efforts. In acknowledgement of the importance of communication, within only weeks of the catastrophe several national and international schemes were proposed to establish high-technology detection systems to provide early warning of similar threats in the future.

"Behind all this, however," Dickson states, "is the large, unpalatable truth that many thousands of lives could have been saved if adequate measures had been taken, even using existing detection and communications technology, to ensure that news of the impending tsunami was spread rapidly....Indeed the whole disaster could be described as the world's biggest failure of science communication."

The issue, Dickson claims, is not the technology alone: "in some ways that is the easy part". Just as important, he stresses, "is ensuring that sufficient attention is paid to the social dimension of the communication networks needed to transmit information to where it is most needed." For this reason, Dickson urges that any future plans include provisions for developing and making use of the professional skills of journalists in general, and science journalists in particular. These skills, Dickson explains, involve the capacity not merely to spew facts, but the more complex ability to "identify and make comprehensible the potential impact of such information on the lives of readers, listeners or viewers."

Along with communication's power during times of crisis comes what Dickson describes as a weighty responsibility among journalists to ensure the accuracy of the information they are communicating. For Dickson, then, efforts to bolster professional communication skills must focus on strategies for checking the validity of information, perhaps using the Internet - significant for "democratising knowledge by making it readily available to all (or at least all those with access to a computer). More challenging - but equally feasible with the right knowledge and skills - is using the web to ratify scientific information to ensure that it is robust and being used responsibly."

Dickson concludes by stressing that the media "has played an essential role in sensitising both the community and its decision-makers to key areas in which action is needed" in times of emergency. When properly capacitated, journalists can flourish in fulfilling the responsibility that they share with government officials: to ensure that accurate, potentially life-saving information promptly reaches those who need it.