Conceptions of emergency calls: Emergency communication in an age of mobile communication and prevalence of anxiety

Abstract

In a mobile communication environment, people's interactions with public emergency assistance organizations become transformed. Sociologists argue that we live in an age when fear and anxiety are increasingly evident in public discourse; this paper explores Swedish conceptions of emergency calls, in light of this trend. A qualitative study examined eight focus groups, comprising 36 Swedish citizens aged 16-71 years, concerning various uses of mobile telephony. The paper concludes that citizen mobile telephony use places great demands on the public safety answering point (PSAP). Consumer expectations are dominated by increased necessity for trustworthy and helpful interaction with PSAP operators. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.