In Case of Emergency, Read This Blog

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A Citizen’s Eye View of Public Preparedness

Good New CDC Citizen Preparedness Video

May 5th, 2008 · No Comments

I recently viewed a new emergency preparedness video produced by the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) for the public called “A New Era of Preparedness”. I think it is one of the better productions on this topic for citizens that I have seen. It can be viewed on the CDC website at emergency.cdc.gov/video/newera.asp.

I liked it for a number of reasons, including:

1) The video directly (and with a dollop of humor) addresses why the “old school approach” of the Cold War-era Civil Defense program preparing for “one big threat” is not appropriate for this “new era of preparedness”. Too often, government communications on preparedness sidestep even mentioning the old ‘Duck and Cover’ campaign for fear of derision. However, to me, preparedness has to be rebranded for the 21st Century and to do that you have to deal with the old brand identity head on. The CDC video does that in a light (but effective) way.

2) Right from the beginning, the CDC video focuses on kids as agents of change. “Kids are more in tune than we think,” the narrator says as shots of children asking their parents are shown. (In one funny vignette, one kid asks his parents whether they should be taking “percussionary measures” [sic].)

3) It recognizes and highlights new media’s growing role. So many government communications on preparedness completely ignore the growth of personal technology as a information distribution source (ie. many sites don’t even recommend having a cell phone as an emergency tool). But this video highlights CDC’s efforts to disseminate information through new media and it even has a shot of an MP3 player (which is the first time I’ve ever seen that popular device in a preparedness video).

These videos can only have so much impact on public behavior. But, as someone who has watched a lot these, I am to see some of the new approaches that CDC has taken in this latest one.

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Tags: Preparedness 2.0

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