Technical communication during a Pandemic and Winter Freeze is crucial:
It has become even clearer the need to have effective
technical communicators that are able to provide the public with accurate and
vital information. During this pandemic, and now winter freeze and power
outages that affected Texas, there have been many fumbles from the CDC, local,
state and government officials who have not done a great job in communicating
important information that the public has desperately needed and wanted. The
CDC and the previous President and his cabinet were horrible communicators that
lacked the verbiage and command of the language in their speeches and media
press gatherings, due to their communication being subpar and instead of
informing the public they were actually perpetuating inaccurate data and information
that was harmful to society.
The week of February 15 through the 19, 2021 was a very
trying time for over 2 million Texans, we suffered extreme power outages,
continued black outs, our Wi-Fi was rolling in and out, and even our cell
reception took a hit. I personally did not have any power for 5 days, my son
and I had to go stay with my parents. I was one of the lucky ones whose
immediate family had not been affected by the power outages due to our power
grid not being able to sustain itself and was taken down because of the severe
winter freeze. I found it appalling that our local and state officials failed
to communicate effectively and responsibility. The promotion of accurate data
and information is vital especially during a state disaster like Texas just witnessed
last week.
I am a public school teacher and we had to go asynchronous
for two days and canceled the last two days, so essentially we lost a week of
valuable instructions time and the lack of communication from government
officials created a panic buy and citizens were emptying out the grocery stores
and I even saw people panic buying gasoline. Not have a structured form of
communicating can create a panic and state meltdown because the not having information
only fuels the panic of the public.
Cristal, this was definitely such a state disaster. I had no luck buying even whole milk for my little one at all nearby grocery stores and had to drive car year away to get milk and other daily necessities. I feel so relived when I waived everything for my students and just being flexible because this was definitely a time when we needed more understanding as local and federal governments worked on the issue slowly and less satisfactory. I can't agree with you more on how vital technical communication, specifically health and risk communication has been during this pandemic. Witnessing so many people dying within the context of insufficient and incompetent tech comm content from all levels of institutions such as WHO and CDC is just heartbreaking.
ReplyDeleteMy questions for now are: How can we as a field advance unsatisfactory practices from top down and from grassroots movements, especially in context of health and risk communication? How can we as individual tech comm professionals contribute our share in such trying times?
Cristal, I saw some typos and autocorrects in my post when I read other comments. Please forgive these.
DeleteHi Cristal, I agree with you about all that has been going on and continues to go on since Spring Break last year. It has definitely been a poop show and I am tired of all of it as I am sure you are too.
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine having to teach under the current climate in our country. We had two of our grandson's during last year's shut down and this year's slow to go back to school. Their parents were essential. Since I was carrying a full load of classes, both semesters, my mother had to be their teacher.
Can we just go back to normal now?
I can't wait to go back to normal life... Hopefully, with all the vaccines available, and responsible ppl wearing masks, we will soon.
DeleteCristal,
ReplyDeleteFor the snowstorm, it is vital that people got the best information from people in charge of their safety. You mention the government and how the previous administration did a poor job of this - not the snowstorm but of running the American government. They should have been more prepared to handle the lives of so many people, but they did not. Now it is a different administration and I hope they do a better job. When the snowstorm came in Texas, nobody was prepared because for most, it is not something they are used to. Not a lot of people were prepared. It is horrible what happened and it is not something to easily forget.
Best,
Lindsey Kinane
I agree, Lindsey. A lot of my colleagues, friends, and students are feeling it hard to have their mentality back to normal just because of the storm. Many ppl just feel not as motivated to do things. Myself included. My academic productivity is at an all time low after COVID started. Then, there was an unprecedented storm disaster.
Delete