This is interesting because be had similar conversion in animal health at CIRAD conference, but about farmers’ decision in H5N1 HPAI endemic area in Vietnam to i) vaccine their flock against H5N1, and ii) report an outbreak to veterinary services when they occurs. This was studied there by sociologists through interviews (paper available upon request).

Here the implications are multiple.

Vaccination is essentially a commercial decision aiming to protect the flock, and here too, there is little awareness of the contribution to landscape-level flock immunity. But decision to report an outbreak is even further implications, as not declaring allows the disease to circulate regionally, expose more people to the pathogen, and enhances the risk of human exposure, and with it of a nasty form to emerge.

Farmers living in H5N1 endemic zones are permanently exposed to H5N1. But to date, all they have seen of it in their neighborhood, is a bit of over-mortality in their bird, which is something they can economically afford. So, they feel they can live with it, and do not report an outbreak, because that will imply culling with low or limited compensations. They feel a disconnect between the perceived risk in their daily actions, and the risk advertised by media and veterinary officials. In contrast, in areas where H5N1 is not circulating, farmers hear about the disease through media, and are much more inclined to report because of a lower disconnect between the perceived risk, and the “official” risk.

For the first type of farmers, the most efficient way of reducing this disconnect was through informal contacts in their “epidemiological territory”, i.e. through informal discussion with other farmers, local paravets that sells and administer vaccines, or through discussions at the market. I guess this is the equivalent of social networking….

Cheers,
Marius

I checked out your blog and I agree with you that some basic principles remain the same. However my point about ‘paradigm shifting’ doesn’t mean that it these principles are not sound, however if you don’t shift perspective (paradigm) you will miss some key signs of change and respond with an a set of actions that could be counter productive. The example of VW’s reaction to the greenpeace campaign illustrates this (my colleague Helen Dunnett wrote about it on our blog http://blog.zn.be/2011/marketing/greenpeace-strikes-back-at-volkswagen/). The point is that paradigm shifting can, and is mostly, an evolving process where small changes force you to look at things differently. I think by now these small changes amount to a barely recognizable media landscape, so the thinking needs to shift. But as these changes continue to happen, and even increase, so does our ability to shift our perspective need to accelerate.

I certainly agree that a change of mindset is needed by communicators but it’s not a total paradigm shift. The principles of good, sensible communication, still apply.

Here are my top tips for managing an online crisis, I hope it is helpful: http://www.adamlewis.info/wp/2011/06/slideshare-8-tips-for-online-crisis-management/

A
Adam