Aspects of Communication in Crisis Situations: Cross-sectional Commentary to Case studies of Covid-19, Natural Disasters, and Nuclear Accidents

Abstract

　 This paper examined aspects of communication in crisis situations, based on the discussion in the symposium on “Reconsidering communication: How can we understand Covid-19, natural disasters and nuclear accidents”, held by Japanese Society for Science and Technology Studies in 2021. First, this paper describes the essential difficulty of communication in a crisis situation from the viewpoint of the self-destruction of prediction. Next, this paper summarized problems and aspects of communication in specific disasters based on the reports of Covid-19 (by Nara), natural disaster (by Sekiya), and nuclear power plant accident (by Juraku) presented in the symposium. Finally, problems which were common to three disaster arenas were taken out again, and the ideal way and positioning of the communication were considered.