灾害预警会引起群体恐慌吗?--基于四个案例的社会学研究  

Do Disaster Warnings Cause Mass Panic?--A Sociological Study of Four Cases

作　　者：童小溪[1] 战洋 TONG Xiaoxi;ZHAN Yang

机构地区：[1]中国农业大学人文发展学院社会学与人类学系 [2]香港理工大学医疗及社会科学院应用社会科学系

出　　处：《中国农业大学学报（社会科学版）》2020年第3期120-129,共10页Journal of China Agricultural University;Social Sciences

摘　　要：灾害预警是当前世界各国为减灾而做出的至关重要的有备能力建设。灾害预警也必须考虑到导致公众产生恐慌行为的可能性。在移动信息技术饱和性扩张条件下,政府灾害预警或其他灾害信息发布,可能导致社会舆情涌动,甚至群体恐慌,这已成为国内应急研究的一个重要问题性。然而,国外的灾害社会学研究,长期存在较强的共识,即灾害当中的恐慌是罕见现象,对恐慌的过度关注是由于缺少实证根据的“恐慌神话”,尽管在国外媒体的灾害报道中“恐慌”也是关键词。本研究重点考察美国导弹空袭误警、日本地震误警、尼泊尔溃坝危机和美国埃博拉传播期间歧视风潮四个案例,发现:由预警信息(特别是虚惊预警)所引发的恐慌行为并不罕见,但媒体以“恐慌”来称谓灾害预警下的所有公众响应,导致“恐慌”过于普遍,也不符合事实。文章建议应澄清“群体恐慌”的含义,以便为中国特色的问题性服务。Disaster warnings,a necessary part of disaster preparedness,also have the potentials of causing mass panic.In fact,with the development and spread of the technology of mobile wireless internet,the triggering of waves of agitated opinions and even mass panic by government disaster warnings and other risk communication has become a real social problem,and an important research question.In contrast,in international disaster research,mass panic has been dismissed as a“panic myth”,despite the fact that“panic”has been a staple word in disaster reporting.This study focuses on four cases of mass behaviors upon disaster warning,namely,missile false alert in Hawaii,earthquake false alert in Japan,glacier lake outburst flooding scare in Nepal,and waves of discrimination in the US during Ebola outbreak in West Africa.It is found that panic was not as rare as the“panic myth”argument would have it,but nonetheless not as prevalent as media s use of“panic”as a description of all emergency situations.It is concluded that“panic”needs to be defined more clearly,in order to facilitate more productive research in the Chinese context.

关 键 词：灾害预警 群体恐慌 灾害社会学 

分 类 号：D035[政治法律—政治学] C912.64[经济管理]