Novel collaborations
Push beyond conventional collaborations and consider inviting co-creators who bring fresh insight and talent.
Convening artists, musicians, writers, philosophers, influential digital content creators, and podcasters can be a great way to connect with target groups through new perspectives, feelings and emotions – all potential drivers of action.
Contents of Disaster Risk Communication Hub
- Introduction
- Process
- Principles
- The four phases of disaster risk communication
- Understand
- Plan
- Do
- IMPACTFUL communication
- Novel collaborations (you are here)
- Media interviews on disaster risk
- Misinformation and disinformation
- Pretesting your content
- The importance of feedback loops
- Scenario
- Resources
- Improve
- Main publications
- Case studies
- Further resources
Getting the balance right between technical accuracy and creative flair will ensure that content is grounded in a solid technical understanding of risk but can also empathise and connect with the target audience in creative ways, to unlock pivotal conversations and actions.
Lack of collaboration among these professionals can waste time and resources, and even cause harm if content is technically misleading, fails to engage audiences or undermines their trust.
Collaboration may require extra effort and planning. For example, a scientist and media producer may work successfully together on a communication piece, only to have an unknowing editor change important details at the last minute, potentially causing inadvertent misinformation. Flagging your collaboration to peers and conveying what support you need to make it work out can help.
Experts in media, communication, and creativity should bring skills of their craft along with the ability to establish strong bonds and connections with the target audience and a commitment to accuracy. Conveying information that is not evidence-based or co-ordinated with disaster risk management authorities and local insights could be incomplete or misleading, which can undermine audience trust and ultimately cause harm.
Experts in technical areas should bring a solid understanding of the issue, a basic ability to convey those in terms that different audiences can understand, and a willingness to collaborate with creative communication experts. Translators can help plan how language should be accounted for throughout the process.