Availability of Disaster Preparedness Awareness Improvement for Supplying Knowledge Using Microblog and Comic Expression

The Great East Japan earthquake that occurred in March, 2011 caused large-scale damage in the Tohoku area. Japan has frequently been geographically and economically damaged by natural disasters, such as the 2014 Mount Ontake eruption, 2015 Kanto and Tohoku heavy rain, and 2016 Kumamoto earthquake. In general, disaster preparedness awareness (DPA) increases immediately following a disaster; however, this preparedness diminishes over time. Therefore, the continuation and improvement of disaster preparedness of people is essential. To address this critical issue, we have distributed a “disaster preparedness four-frame comic (DPFFC)” to provide knowledge pertaining to disaster preparedness by using comic expressions via online social network Twitter. The DPFFC aims to improve the DPA by helping users to acquire related knowledge in their daily lives via Twitter. In this study, we considered the possibility that the DPFFC may continue and improve DPA by combining Twitter, which is used in daily life, with a comic, which provides a significant learning effect, and our results confirmed this. In addition, we found that the DPFFC has the potential bridge the gap between DPA and action.