Disaster Communication on the Internet: An Examination of 12 Disaster-Relief Web Sites

Abstract

This study employs content analysis to examine selected Web sites containing disaster information. It develops a typol- ogy of disaster-relief information, including relief, recovery, preparation, general information, and feature articles. This typology is intended to provide a useful frame of reference for practical use in disaster communication. Link and text on each site are examined for specificity and variety. In ad- dition, content volume and subject among our domains, .com, .edu, .gov, and .org, are compared. Indication of dif- ferences in both subject specificity and volume were found between sites as well as domains.