Emergency Alert Communications on College Campuses: Understanding Students’ Perceptions of the Severity of a Crisis and Their Intentions to Share the Alert With Parents and Friends

The purpose of this research is to experimentally test the impact of emergency alert communications on college students' threat assessment and resulting behavior. Four different stimuli are created to resemble an actual warning message about a tornado and a shooting crisis on a college campus. Results of the repeated measures MANOVA reveal that warning messages sent through text messages are perceived to be more serious than warning messages sent through social media. This is the case in both the shooting and tornado scenarios. In addition, an alert about a shooting is perceived to be more serious than a tornado alert. In terms of channels used to notify others about a disaster, word of mouth is the top choice for students.