Crisis communication in a post-nuclear accident phase : knowledge organisation and sharing on the Web

Ph.D dissertaion by Antonin Segault, under the direction of Prof. Ioan Roxin and Dr. Federico Tajariol (ELLIADD laboratory, Univ. Bourgogne Franche-Comte, 2013-2017)

Major nuclear accidents generate large scale crisis that may contaminate wide areas for decades. The inhabitants of these areas must then gain new knowledge and adapt their lifestyle to limit the health and social consequences of radioactivity. France developed a procedures to manage such a situation, but the communication stragies presented do not fully support neither dialogue between authorities and citizen nor the use of social Web tools. This thesis was part of the SCOPANUM (Stratégies de COmmunication de crise en gestion Post-Accident NUcléaire via les Médias Sociaux) research project, backed by a grant from CSFRS (Conseil Supérieur Pour la Formation et la Recherche Stratégique). It aims to assess the benefits of information-communication technologies to develop more suitable crisis communication strategies for post-nuclear-accident situations.

After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, collaborative practices have emerged to collect and aggregate radiation measurements thanks to social media. The analysis of Twitter uses revealed that the diffusion of these measurements is not well adapted to the post-nuclear-accident situation. We developed a set of guidelines and a software prototype to support the re-usability of the radiation measurements that are shared on social media. Our work also focused on the practical knowledge that may help people to adapt their life in the contaminated areas. We presented several methods to support the identification and the formal representation of this knowledge using Semantic Web technologies. From these models, we built and tested Ginkgo, a mobile web application designed to support knowledge sharing and appropriation.