Communication as a Tool for the Public Good in Times of Crises Caused by the Earthquakes in the City of Zagreb

Abstract

The risk of earthquakes is continuously present in the Zagreb area, and the strongest one occurred on 9 November 1880. Its catastrophic effects on the city and its population are evident from the records and press publications at the time, the analysis of which reveals the prompt and concrete responses of the city authorities, as the crisis management team, to a major disaster. Communication is primarily one-way and serves the function of ensuring urban safety, and public space is largely regulated and subordinated to official sources. Despite the structured communication immediately after the outbreak of the crisis, over time, there has been an increase in disinformation in public discourse, which negatively affects crisis management and social movements, and even results in the introduction of repressive models for the purpose of controlling the distribution of information and creating a public narrative. The institutionalisation of the urban security concept in the public policies of the City of Zagreb identifies internal and external communication as the backbone of crisis management, defining protocols and assuming the integration of key stakeholders for acting in circumstances of threats of various types and intensities. In the crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the earthquake, which intertwined in Zagreb in 2020, technical and organisational preparedness, with the use of modern technologies, are proved to be a prerequisite for an organised system to provide a successful response to crises through modern communication practices, and self-sustaining specialised platforms represent an imperative for security structures and a priority for a responsible society in establishing and maintaining official dialogue between public authorities and the public in all phases of the crisis. Along with the undeniable benefits of interactive internet services, which manifested their dominance in a crisis context in the rapid and multidirectional exchange of messages, the absence of structured mass communication in accordance with a previously clearly defined crisis plan is conducive to contradictions and the spread of unreliable information that is taken from numerous sources in the entire spectrum of (in)competence.