Emergency Management Websites

Abstract

This chapter examines the provision of emergency management information on government websites. E-government websites can be an effective tool for communicating with residents of a community on preparedness measures that they can take, and provides information for those that have been impacted by disasters. This chapter demonstrates that there is much variability in the content provided on emergency management websites. This chapter focuses on the role of websites in emergency management through a content analysis of their websites. There chapter will first provide a rationale for studying e-government through emergency management websites. It will then examine the commonly found e-government growth models indentified in the literature. The factors that influence the adoption of government websites are also examined in this chapter. The most commonly found studies of the content provided on websites are benchmarking reports, which are discussed. Accessibility and transparency are two important issues in the advancement of e-government websites, and are also mentioned in this chapter. The main thrust of this chapter is a content analysis of state government emergency management websites. The conclusion to this chapter summarizes the main research findings of the chapter.