Communication for Development One-year master
15 Credits Spring 2018
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Saving people
A comparative study of 2 European Search
and Rescue organizations
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Abstract
Aim and purpose
The aim of this study is to compare two Southern European Search and Rescue Organizations, Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico (CNSAS) and Hellenic Rescue Team (HRT). The goal is to confront communication strategies, operational frames and to point out successful patterns they follow and eventual obstacles the rescue organizations must overcome to further expand.
Methodology
The project follows a qualitative approach and uses both primary and secondary data. Primary data from in-depth interviews with SAR executives and secondary visual and textual data from social media, newspapers, magazines and website content material. Secondary data are analyzed using ethnographic content analysis.
Key findings
CNSAS and HRT transformed their communication strategies with the coming of internet and the growth of social media apps and platforms. Making prevention campaigns and educating people to the dangers are among their primary goals. Showing technological advances is also a common topic in what they put across.
Both organizations exploit the possibilities that new media give in order to faster spread news. Remote mountains and places at sea are not any more distant to the public. CNSAS and HRT happily cooperate with mainstream media, but they now have their own communication channels. Transforming social media likes to a tool of fundraising is something new they do, through campaigns and activities that boost their image.
As technology and education on media practices plays a more and more crucial role on this field, hiring professionals and especially media and communication experts help significantly SAR organizations to reach their goals.
Organization in branches based on volunteers is a similarity between the two NGO’s, regarding their structure. The need for international cooperation to expand will be more and more evident in SAR field in the next few years.
Originality
This study is one of the very few comparative ones in the search and rescue field that addresses communication strategies and organizational structure and proposes best strategies, highlighting gaps.
Keywords
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION………... 5
1.1. Research Question ………...……… 6
1.2 Relevance of this research to the Communication for Development field… 6 1.3 Rescue organizations and their world bodies……….. 7
1.4 A brief history of CNSAS and HRT………..8
2. LITERATURE………..8
3. THEORY AND CONCEPTS USED………..14
4. METHODOLOGY………..16
4.1 Ethnographic content analysis………..16
4.2 Deep interviews………...18 5. DATA ANALYSIS………19 5.1 Documents………19 5.2. Interviews………35 6. CONCLUSION………..39 6.1. Introduction………39 6.2 Findings………40 6.3 Limitations………...43 6.4. Further discussion………..43 7. REFERENCES / BIBLIOGRAPHY………47
5 1. Introduction
This research on Search and Rescue Organizations and the impact of communication in their overall strategies was close to be completed when Thailand Cave Rescue made the world headlines in July 2018.
In a divided world, where often globalization theories are not enough to create stable bonds among people, a youngsters' football team trapped in an underwater cave, sparkled empathy and helped emerge the deepest ever consensus on the rescuers' work.
Search and Rescue (SAR) made the headlines as an example of international cooperation, but also on the always developing technicalities somebody needs to professionally assist other, with the goal to save their lives. Experts' voices helped audiences all over the world to become more familiar with the job of rescuers, most often volunteers ready to sacrifice themselves in order to save human lives.
It is the UN charter of Human Rights that makes human life such a priority. As the Article 3 of UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights already mentions: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” (UN 1948, article 3). SAR
organizations work therefore to guarantee human life, securing in a sense the liberty of people that want to explore remote areas or to live there, giving them in many cases this sense of security that the UN Universal Declaration describes as a human right.
In this degree project, which started five months before the events in Thailand, mixed method qualitative research analysis was used in order to compare two Southern European Search and Rescue Organizations, Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico (CNSAS) and Hellenic Rescue Team (HRT). The goal was to confront communication strategies, operational frames and to point out successful patterns they follow and eventual obstacles these entities must overcome to further expand.
The method was chosen to be mixed as it is more flexible in order to analyze so complex documents which include digital data (e.g. social media posts, videos and photographs on Twitter and Facebook from January 2018 to April 2018); in-depth interviews with key members of both organizations and traditional texts from newspapers and magazines.
The study applied “Altheide's ECA (ethnographic content analysis)” (Altheide 1996 in Bryman, 2001 p. 392) for the part of the documents. Altheide's method is based on analyzing documents with scope to discover new themes for the research. It is an operation that calls for a constant revision (a back and forth) in order to “select further cases and sharpen it up”. (Bryman, 2001, p.393).
Documents are used in order to build “categories that will guide the collection of data” (Bryman, 2001, p.393). The challenge is how to make “constant comparison” (Altheide 1996, p.16 in Bryman 2001, p.393) where data or tools are not the same or totally unequal. You have to search for more vague ideas.
Interviews were transcribed and divided in themes, before being analyzed. That’s a common method already suggested by experts (Seidman,2013, p.118, p.127).
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1.1 Research Question
The main research question is how communication strategies of these organizations emerged and developed over the years?
To answer this research question, the study has set the following three objectives:
a) To examine how communication influenced the whole organizational strategy; b) how HRT and CNSAS communication policies changed with the advent of the Internet and the emergence of social media; c) to analyze organizational structure and its influence to the whole communication plan.
The project will try to answer which social, economic, cultural and even political factors potentially played their part during this evolution.
Definition of a communication strategy
What is a communication strategy? It is something like an organized plan in order to spread information about developments in a specific area, latest news from an entity or an organization. “Specific configuration of the various parameters of
communication (such as message, channel, or targeted audience) for strategic purposes are... called communication strategies” (Adolphsen, 2014, p.23).
A communication strategy usually tries to reach goals using “the appropriate mix of messages and channels” (UNICEF, 2014, p.1), while “can be creative” (UNICEF, 2014, p.11). The creativity seems to be a request in the new media environment where users are continuously bombarded by tons of messages.
Although rescue is not a pure form of development, rescue strategies and
communication of rescue strategies, plans and events can be a development process, like more or less anything in life.
Rescue organizations campaigns usually follow what Scott identifies as “deliberate positivism” (Scott, 2014, p.149). Their campaigns tend to follow and focus on more positive things related on rescue and not commentating at all why people are found in the need to be rescued. In that sense is the action of the rescuers the main focus in any similar campaign. (Scott, 2014, p.149).
“The role of the text is to provide evidence for the audience that their actions can lead to positive and demonstrable change” (Scott, 2014, p.150). We are more and more living nowadays in evidence driven environments, which is more and more applicable also to the SAR context.
1.2 Relevance of this research to the ComDev field
Papers on the Communication for Development (ComDev) field are usually about more traditional kind of philanthropic NGO's, entities which are associated in
7 reducing poverty, battling diseases, providing education, or giving help to refugees or other individuals in need. Although rescue could be also assumed as a kind of
philanthropy (helping other people), research on search & rescue organizations is quite limited both at a European and at a world level. On the other hand, rescue organizations all over the world are emerging every day and can be public or private having as a common the goal to save human lives. Saving lives is one of the universal values and is building bridges among people even from nations previously in war between them. Rescue creates recognition; which often is what people living in societies look for.
Rescue is more and more about international cooperation and transnational
organizations seem to deeply understand this necessity. It is the UN that highlighted the links between disasters and development, trying to transform a disastrous
experience into a sustainable future. In 2002 UN General Assembly concluded that after disasters the key is to “sustain the transition from relief to development” (UN, 2002). The same document underlines the need for an “increased understanding of the link between disaster reduction and sustainable development planning” (UN, 2002).
1.3 Rescue organizations and their world bodies
The establishment of INSARAG (International Search and Rescue Advisory Group) in 1991 (INSARAG c,2018) and the location of its secretariat in the United Nations Office for the Coordination of the Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva
Switzerland (INSARAG a, 2018) was a step forward towards the global recognition of Search and Rescue Organizations. Today 80 countries and organizations are under the United Nations umbrella (INSARAG a, 2018). Furthermore, INSARAG
guidelines established in 2002 became a kind of universal chart defining rescue principles (INSARAG b, 2018).
Other international governing bodies are ICAR-CISA for the alpine (mountain) rescue and IMRF for the sea rescue. ICAR (International Commission for Alpine Rescue) was founded in 1948 “and is incorporated as organization in Switzerland with its seat in Kloten” (ICAR, 2018). IMRF (International Maritime Rescue Federation) came in life in 1924 initially as ILF (International Lifeboat Conference). It was a British organization, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution having in 1924 its golden jubilee that pushed to organize a conference, under the auspices of the League of Nations, with 9 countries. Those where the first to realize the need to “promote cooperation between the world's existing lifeboat services”. Among them it was Norway and Sweden but not Germany (IMRF, 2018). Was it a victors' conference? In any case it was a first step towards international cooperation in rescue. Why not international alpine rescue cooperation earlier? Because mountaineering was still a national and not that much an international affair. ILF name was changed in IMRF in 2007 (IMRF, 2018).
Rescue is still a campus of the rich and of those which have money and technology. Search and rescue seems at least at a non-military, volunteers level like a playground for the rich countries. There are just 6 African countries in the INSARAG members (UN, European Commission, UNOCHA, 2018).
8 Rescue is more and more about international cooperation as the Thailand cave rescue in July 2018 revealed. Approximately 1000 people from all over the world helped as volunteers or very specialized stuff rescued 12 kids and their trainer, sparkling international joy (BBC, Luckhurst, 2018, July 3). European Union also tried to adapt their policies to the new demands with the decision in 2017 to establish rescEU, “in order to reduce the time needed to deploy life saving assistance” (European
Commission, 2017) but also to “strengthen cooperation” (European Commission, 2017).
1.4 A brief history of the two organizations and their branches
Italy and Greece have different stories in Search and Rescue with Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico (CNSAS) being a much older organization than Hellenic Rescue Team. Soccorso Alpino was born in 1954, operating mainly in rescue missions in the Alps in the early years of its existence. Previously in Italy there was Club Alpino Italiano (CAI) that approved in 1932 a series of rules “for the
organization of sanitary assistance in the mountains” (Audisio et al., 1994, p.16). Such a regulation divided zones of intervention in different rescue stations (Audisio et al., 1994, p.16). Compared to the Greeks, Italians have more tools in order to
undertake missions and their human resources base is very broad (CNSAS, 2017). The organization is divided in “21 Services, 242 Alpine stations and 27 speleological stations” (CNSAS, 2017). SAR in Italy has deep roots; since the late 19th century acts of alpine solidarity can be traced in tragic events as floods. Societa Alpina Tridentini (SAT) members were in that era very active to provide help in any kind of natural disaster (Zandonati & Miorandi, 2005, p.7).
Hellenic Rescue Team started unofficially to take part in rescue operations in 1978. It was a group of people from Thessaloniki that originally had the idea to form such a team, influenced by media calls in 1976 to bring down from Olympus mountain the dead bodies of mountaineers killed in a tragic accident as interviewee Trombakas narrated during this research. It took almost two decades for the group to take an official character as a club and that happened in 1994 when the statute of the Team was officially recognized by a court in Thessaloniki. (HRT, 2017). HRT was among 2016’s Nansen Award recipients, one of the most distinguished prizes in the UN environment (UNHCR, 2016). Hellenic Rescue Team has around 30 branches all over Greece which add to its headquarters in Thessaloniki. It also operates through 4 bases of readiness and alertness (HRT, 2018c).
2. LITERATURE
Disasters, prevention and development
Events like accidents, life losses or natural disasters can trigger development. Such events can be a departure point for changes regarding decisions, mentalities and communities’ approach (Strömberg, 2007, p. 199). Strömberg points out that
9 “international relief may neglect disasters in countries that are culturally and
geographically distant from the major donors and may favour high-profile
emergencies at the expense of more invisible suffering” (Strömberg, 2007, p. 200). An event covered from mainstream media sparkles more attention and relief and alleviation is possibly augmented (Strömberg, 2007, p. 214). Such considerations are very valuable in the field of Search and Rescue as they underline the importance of communication and media exposure not only for a faster and successful relief, but in any kind of initiative.
Recent debate is more and more focused on education and prevention instead of intervening after a disaster happens. Prevention is the first among guiding principles in the latest UN Framework for risk reduction, the Sendai Framework 2015-2030: “Each State has the primary responsibility to prevent and reduce disaster risk, including through international, regional, subregional, transboundary and bilateral cooperation” (UNISDR, 2015, p.13). Researchers also point out how “crucial is enhancing our capacity to anticipate and proactively manage disasters risks over time at various developmental stages” (Mochizuki et al., 2014, p. 49).
According to Hewitt “social conditions could play their role in disasters” (Hewitt, 2013, p.2). Repair and maintenance can also be crucial and wealthier people or economies can afford more easily such expenses (Hewitt, 2013, p.2). Structures, “warning systems, …tools like medical care or mass evacuations” (Strömberg, 2007, p. 205) all can help limiting a disaster. Developed countries have more resources and knowledge on performing that kind of interventions.
Even though there is no certainty “relation between economic development and exposure to natural hazards” (Strömberg, 2007, p. 204), it is evident that “economic inequality can also increase vulnerability” (Strömberg, 2007, p. 206). Climate change affects all, but some can take more drastic measures. “Eleven countries provided 90 percent of international aid” (Strömberg, 2007, p. 212). Modern SAR organizations try to reduce educational gaps and to boost prevention with campaigns and seminars, paid or free. Calhoun describes “the management of emergencies as a very big business” (Calhoun, 2004, p.236 in Hewitt, 2013, p.3).
Modern SAR organizations have undergone a very significant boost of technological advances. Search and Rescue Robots and programs like Galileo and GMES are valuable for those operating in SAR. Galileo is “a global navigation satellite system” (Steinicke, Albrecht, 2012, p.29) and GMES, a Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme (European Space Agency, 2012). There is a form of technological optimism, a trend that in this research we should quest whether it is revealed on media documents related to HRT and CNSAS.
Some authors suggest that “exposure risk is more related to behavioural choices” (Ferreira et al., 2013, p. 799 in Mochizuki et al., 2014, p.44). Thus, the key is how to limit risky behaviours and to augment knowledge and safety measures. The number of people doing extreme sports like mountaineering or risky water sports increase. New sports have become popular, which are more connected to nature. The will of modern humans to find a sense of freedom outside and far away from modern cities is evident. In many cases this trend influences statistically the number of people on risk.
10 “Community involvement” is an important factor for the successful implementation of prevention policies. (Keating et al. ,2016, p.76). Ministries and other public
organizations are not enough to “influence change” (Keating et al., 2016, p.77). That’s an opinion close to Mosse’s, which back in 2005 claimed about development “that governance cannot by imposed; it requires collaboration and compromise” (Mosse, 2005, p. 7).
SAR organizations actions or inactions and their related politicization is judged, even if in most of cases the same SAR groups try to stand as neutral as possible when acting. Since the UN Hyogo framework for action (2005-2015) disasters are clearly connected to development. It was a strategic point of Hyogo’s framework “integrating of disaster risk reduction into sustainable development policies and planning”
(UNISDR, 2007)
Internationalization of SAR problems
Efforts regarding big crises are more and more internationalized. There are researchers suggesting an “international mechanism on loss and damage “(Oxfam International, Hillier & Nightingale, 2013). A possible explanation for it can be the huge growth of economic damages related with disasters. In the decade 2000-2010 the amount of damages’ costs quintupled compared to the nineties (Mochizuki et al., 2014, p. 41). “Indirect impacts of natural disasters are rarely effectively calculated “as the same study underlines (Mochizuki et al., 2014, p. 41). “Sustainable and
significant reduction of disaster risk can only be achieved by working across policy frameworks” (Oxfam International, Hillier & Nightingale, 2013).
Media and communication strategies in such an environment can be used as a learning tool. Media and communication function is that of “a primary learning site” aiming at educating people. (Staiger, 2005, p.28). Supporters of Internationalization invoke “fundamental issues of data quality and standardization”, necessary elements to further research globally topics like disaster risk and development (Mochizuki et al., 2014, p.40). Better cooperation between data collecting and data providing authorities internationally is primordial to have a clear image of what is really happening in this field.
Strengthening small countries SAR capabilities can be a lucrative affair for big players. But it is also a tool for diplomacy and a way to strengthen the foreign image of a country (amsa.gov.au, 2015). “Training in search and rescue programs, joint exercises and workshops and development and installation of key search and rescue systems” (amsa.gov.au, 2015) can all make part of an international cooperation scheme. New programs are established in fields like earthquakes’ relief and prevention, focusing on fostering “the proliferation of skills” (cn.undp.org)
United Nations “Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reaction” (UNISDR, 2007) and European Union directives are crucial in that sense. Manuals as the International Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue (IAMSAR) Manual that “provides guidelines for a common aviation and maritime approach in search and rescue services” (IMO,2018) are printed in order to have a common tool, when following such processes.
11 European Union “established in 2001 an EU Civil Protection Mechanism” and
subsequently founded a Common Emergency and Communication Information System called CECIS (European Union/ECHO, 2018). United Nations also have their own Virtual On-site Operations and Coordination Centre (V-OSOCC) in order to strengthen knowledge and to operate faster and more efficiently. (UN OCHA, 2018). UN ISDR acknowledges “that disaster preparedness should be strengthened”. (UN-ISDR, 2007).
SAR organizations and development patterns
In the past volunteers’ SAR organizations were mostly limited in specified fields of rescue usually described in their statutes. There were clear divisions among
organizations doing mountain rescue and organizations doing water rescue. As an example, in the UK Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) operates mostly on water while Association of Lowland Search and Rescue is for land rescue has quite a universal character (RNLI, 2018; Association of Lowland Search and Rescue, 2018). In Sweden it is the Sjöräddningssällskapet-SSRS (Sjöräddningssällskapet, 2018) which operates at sea and Svenska Fjällräddares Riksorganisation -SVEFRO focus on mountain rescue and cave rescue (Svenska Fjällräddares Riksorganisation (2018). In Norway a SAR model was formed based on “cooperation, between government, commercial and voluntary agencies” which is a very interesting one. (Justis- og Politidepartementetet,2002, p.5).
In Germany there are organizations like Deutsche Lebens Rettungs Geselscaft (DLRG) specialized in water rescue, but I.S.A.R. Germany has a wider terrain of interventions going also abroad when there is a disaster (DLRG, 2018; I.S.A.R. Germany, 2018). In Italy there is Società Nazionale di Salvamento (SNS) which is specialised in water rescue (Società Nazionale di Salvamento, 2018). In France for mountain and land rescue police or military services intervene (FFME, 2011) and there is a volunteers’ association Société Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer (SNSM) for water rescue (Société Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer,2018).
ICE-SAR in Iceland provides rescue both on land and at sea (ICE-SAR, 2018). There are few volunteers’ organizations providing SAR at a broader spectrum worldwide. That changed from 2015 onwards when several humanitarian organizations decided to provide SAR for refugees in danger in Mediterranean. Cuttitta says that new questions raised in the SAR field as a “depoliticization vs repoliticization” (Cuttitta, 2017, p.3) dilemma sparkled.
Similar stories are not new to the SAR field, as it was in the seventies that Vietnam crisis already created divisions among SAR practitioners on crucial questions like who is to be saved and from whom. (Refai, 2017, p.20).
Global audiences could since take part in large societal debates over when rescue should prevail above all, and if state authorities could limit NGO’s actions. Several legal and ethical questions rose in that case and a debate is still ongoing. Cuttitta claims that there is a “growing tendency in Europe to locate the issue of migration in technocratic arenas” (Cuttitta, 2017, p.4), but inevitably discussion on migration and
12 rescue of migrants’ influences voting in all European countries involved in such decisions.
Who is to pay for a rescue is another important debate rising all over Europe. Such a societal debate grows more and more with the expanded use of mountains and water zones as fields of entertainment. Which will be the limit? Should citizens pay for the intervention of SAR teams once they do something risky? Limitations on the daily access of tourists and mountaineers in Mont Blanc, France is also an interesting subject related to such a debate (Chavy, Alpine Mag, 2018). If tons of tourists will invade such areas, attracted by a continuous touristic development will the present organization of SAR, based on volunteers, be enough to assist someone in danger? Media reception and risk communication
Media reception is how audiences are absorbing news and making meaning out of various media, or how Staiger expresses it: “How does a text mean? For whom? In what circumstances?” (Staiger, 2005, p.12).
It is the psychological factor that probably bonds together people to follow a SAR intervention in such a large scale…Media stories of saving people reinforce universal values as the value of life and boost security. It is what Staiger calls the
“reinforcement” model (Staiger, 2005, p.28), where values already existing in a culture are just being reinforced by an action or a media narrative.
Zillman’s psychological theories dealing with readers’ or viewers’ reception could also be valuable to analyse audience reception. “Zillmann expanded on the theory of empathy with the creation of the affective disposition theory, which states that viewers empathize with those characters whose actions are in concordance with the viewer’s own moral code. Conversely, a viewer does not empathize with those
characters whose actions are discordant with the viewer’s moral code (Zillmann, 2000 in Granelli & Zenor, 2016, p.5059).
“Risk communication is characterized by a non-linear social dynamic, is multi levelled” (Strydom, 2011, p.7). When reaching particular public spheres, it can “get embroiled in contestation and conflict” (Strydom, 2011, p.9). What NGO’s
communicate or not communicate over such topics can feed societal debates or put out of context some issues…
Reception is still glocal, global ideas are taking meaning locally. Beck writes of a “worldview shaped by a ‘national outlook’ ” (Beck, 2016, p.187), while Schroeder underlines that “national differences matter for the implications of digital media just as they did for traditional media” (Schroeder, 2018, p.325). In a world characterized more and more from “indifference” as the same Beck pointed out (Beck, 2016p.187), SAR represents a unifying factor and bonds together very diverse audiences. Thailand cave rescue or rescue of miners in Chile in 2013 are just two examples of what people want to follow in today’s complex media world. Jiménez-Martínez claims that such global media events can be labelled either as “integrative or disruptive” (Jiménez-Martínez, 2014, p.1809).
13 Advocacy and evidence
Latour as early as in 1996 understood that “the success of policy ideas arises from the ability to continue recruiting support” (Latour 1996:78 in Mosse, 2005, 46). Mosse is saying that there was “a fundamental organizational imperative to promote itself and enhance the emotive content of its brand name” (Mosse, 2005, p.41).
As the whole world starts to work more and more on metrics and evidence, SAR organizations also turn more on evidence that would provide those interested on their work with facts about what they were doing. Although images don't always tell the truth, they are the easiest way to show up an intervention like a rescue.
“A new politics of evidence must avoid approaches to evidence that work either in the service of transcendent a priori ideals or brute empirical reductionism” (Karambelis & Dimitriadis, 2013, p. 315).
Evidence can be connected to accountability and legitimacy and help SAR institutions to further develop and foster their public image. “Democratic accountability... may eventually lead to legitimacy gains” as it is stated in another article ( Puppis & Maggetti, 2012, p.69) . Duncan Green tries to connect more “evidence and
influencing”, evidence as a tool convince to decision makers or donors. (Green 2017). The same researcher notes that it is “authenticity, connectedness and narratives” (Green, 2017) that will make the difference. Recent articles connect advocacy and evidence as “an evidence based advocacy” (Mitchell, Graham, 2017).
The need to monetize advocacy
A challenge for all modern organization trying to build their own social media strategies is how to monetize people's interest. During the recent congress “Sport and Social Network. Information and Entertainment” that was hold in Florence, Italy, in February 7, 2018, Matteo Pastore said that: “When somebody is building a content strategy it is important to understand which are the objectives? Is it visibility,
engagement, or business? Which is the audience targeted and how I plan my content? It is important not to forget creating physical events which fuel content for a network” (Pastore in Violachannel.tv, 2018) “The future will be how to monetize” as Pastore underlined, in other words how to convert simple likes on Social Media in more money (Pastore in Violachannel.tv, 2018). Pastore said in his same speech that “today the video is about 60-70% of the use of information ... The photo is important, but the video is winning " (Pastore in Violachannel.tv, 2018). This is because people tent to empathize more with a real-life situation when watching videos.
Luca Calamai, another Italian journalist that participated at the same congress, underlined that “choosing one social media app often means burning the other medium” and concluded that “such choices are still in a development stage, still to decide upon” (Calamai in Violachannel.tv, 2018). The key in this area as Calamai said is to think “how to create and distribute news in a way that facilitates monetization” (Calamai in Violachannel.tv, 2018).
A recent American study suggests that “Facebook and Twitter are more valuable as indirect sources of fundraising than direct ones” (Lambert, 2014, p. 104). People often
14 need physical events or contacts in order to pay money and choose which
organization to fund.
3. Theory and concepts used
Following recent trends and debates in Search and Rescue, the intention was to try to use theories and examples already used in other fields of social research in order to rethink them in the SAR research area. “Constant comparison and generating
categories” (Bryman, 2016, p. 577; Altheide, Schneider, 2013, p.27) is a process even closer to the methodological framework that is used in this study and the ultimate goal to compare two different but similar organizations, working on Search and Rescue.
The ideas of two of the most important modern scholars, both passed away relatively recently, Pierre Bourdieu and Ulrich Beck were used to formulate a theoretical path to follow. The intention was to establish a kind of fruitful exchange between important concepts of their work and the everyday action happening in search and rescue.
Standardization of everything
Trying to further research the theme of professionalization of search and rescue, Bourdieu's concept of “a common market” (Bourdieu, 2014, p.77) was used as a work tool. His unification theory is in that sense valuable in order to explain the more recent developments, as creating and destroying things (and values?) in mountain culture.
Pierre Bourdieu elaborated the concept of a common market in linguistics. The latter was a consequence of politics of unification in almost every domain (Bourdieu, 2014, p.77). In his work, the French sociologist also mentions “the discredit of peasantry values” (Bourdieu, 2014, p.77). In that sense technology and bureaucracy
/certification can be understood as the main locomotives of what he calls “symbolic domination” (Bourdieu, 2014, p.78). Bourdieu talks about the new “language of legitimacy” (Bourdieu, 2014, p.79). New tools and new applications are the symbols that justify the new values which are mostly technological in our context.
Bourdieu goes further on asking questions on representation, subjectivity and reality (Bourdieu, 2014, p. 288). The French sociologist wants to “understand the specific logic of the social world, which is a field of a continuous struggle to define reality” (Bourdieu, 2014, p.288). He says that organizations “start with a pretention to
transform structures. That gives reason to their ‘reality’”. Bourdieu asks to understand “the chances they offer objectively at different subjective pretentions” (Bourdieu, 2014, p. 288).
15 A European and a global Search and Rescue (SAR) identity is daily more and more constructed in what it is a cosmopolitan fusion. Thus, Bourdieu's theory can be valuable as a tool for analyzing such a landscape
Metamorphosis
In addition, Ulrich Beck's theory of “metamorphosis” (Beck, 2016, p.4) or more specifically the concept of “the positive side effects of bads” (Beck, 2016, p.4) is also valuable when analyzing events regarding search and rescue, because the whole landscape is based in SAR field on a continuous readjusting themselves and learning from previous disasters or fails. Beck underlines that “the metamorphosis of
inequality is the key issue of the future” (Beck, 2016, p.197). Will SAR remain democratic, accessible to all and the right on life will be guaranteed without extra burdens? “There is a synthesis of poverty, vulnerability and threats implied in climate change and natural disasters” the German sociologist (Beck, 2016, p. 198) writes on developing his reflection on recent kind of change. How prevention and evidence discourses can add to the previous Beck’s thought?
The present in Search and Rescue seems to be a point of rupture, a point of diversion with the past when any effort in SAR was judged and planned in national level. Now there are universal guidelines, technical points of convergence and transnational collaboration more than ever before, due to what the Italian philosopher Luciano Floridi calls “the 4th revolution” (Floridi, 2014, p.90).
Developing his latest core idea Ulrich Beck suggested that “there is no metamorphosis without communication” (Beck, 2016, p.126). In the post-modern society for a fact is not enough to happen to build public's attention. It is necessary more than ever to be shared, in the largest possible scale, as audiences and metrics are becoming global. A fake fact can be believed more than a real once better shared, we can assume,
prolonging this Beck's thought.
Public communication as an omnipotence
The German sociologist also underlines that “global risks have the power to change society but only in the medium of public communication” (Beck, 2016, p.127). Search and Rescue is by default a field that deals with global risks and thus communication is extremely valuable. That is new, because in the past if they were just happening rescues were important. Now the act of knowing about them becomes the key. From an amateur perspective and way of doing we have passed to a more professional one, where media (and especially texts and images produced by the rescuers as story builders) are playing their role in SAR's development.
Beck also notices that events “are shaped and made by market players” (Beck, 2016, p.135). It is thus important for CNSAS and HRT not only to exist but to have the best possible positioning in Facebook, Twitter, even in the most powerful search engines, such as Google.
Both Biourdieu's and Beck's concepts are used in a form of a hypothesis, as their validity was not before examined in the area of search and rescue which is different to
16 the areas these sociologists selected in order to form their thoughts. They both worked in the context of social sciences.
4.Methodology
My methodology consists and consists of two parts in order to build and compare two case studies
a. Ethnographic content analysis
b. Deep interviews
4.1Ethnographic media analysis
Ethnographic media analysis is based on “constructing a protocol” (Altheide,
Schneider, 2013, p.44). “The researcher moves from data collection on various items, categories or variables to data comparison” (Altheide, Schneider, 2013, p.44). The goal of such a study is to isolate “definitions, meanings, process, and types” (Altheide, Schneider, 2013, p.45) as the two scientists underline.
Several documents were examined in this section. Starting from social media posts in Twitter and Fecebook of CNSAS and HRT covering the period January 2018- March 2018 the original aim was to identify themes and try to understand how discussions on that themes were developed. Looking on newspapers and other traditional media, articles on the web and other publications like HRT’s and CNSAS magazines was the next step. HRT's magazine called “Eλληνική Ομάδα Διάσωσης” - Hellenic Rescue Team (HRT, 2018a) and CNSAS publication “Notizie del Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico” (CNSAS, 2018a) helped to acquire a more global
understanding of perspectives. Books related with CNSAS as “40 anni del soccorso Alpino-Speleologico” (Audisio, Frangioni, Marucco, Mottinelli,1994) or “50 anni di Soccorso Alpino a Rovereto” (Zandonati, Miorandi, 2005) were also important to have a better idea on basic meanings. Posts on official HRT and CNSAS websites was also a source to study on their core ideas and concerns.
Altheide's and Schneider's method is based to “a unit of analysis” (Altheide,
Schneider, 2013, p.42). In this research the unit of analysis was posts that CNSAS and HRT made on Facebook and Twitter from January 2018 to the end of March 2018.
Altheide and Schneider suggest to “keep categories at a minimum first” (2013, p.46) and that what was done. Initial categories that was tried to divide posts of CNSAS and HRT on Twitter and Facebook were ten:
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• education, prevention, posts on dangers, warnings
• nature
• campaigns
• sponsors and sponsor related activities
• social issues
• memories / history
• appearances on mainstream media (media clippings)
• links on other social media/ links to webpages
• seminars / trainings
Subsequently other divisions added, noticing posts that the two organizations made in the examined period. Categories added were:
• deaths / injuries
• technology
• memories/history
• Fests, anniversaries, international (world) days
• Retweets / Shares of posts made from others in FB
• prizes/awards
• administration related posts
Posts frequencies analysis on various categories will help subsequently to have an idea on where they focus their communication efforts, or which are the themes are mostly interested in to talk.
Looking at an initial string of posts it was given afterwards the possibility to further develop research on them, adding new categories which in some cases gave fruitful additions and in other cases helped through the unexpected poverty on some posts themes, to isolate cases where the two organizations doesn't speak that much as someone could think of. The latter goes more with the two researchers' thought that who studies the categories “can make research notes about whether a case was similar to or different to others” (Altheide, Schneider, 2013, p.46).
A very important step in ECA is going “from data collection to interpretation”
(Altheide, Schneider, 2013, p.33). This is something tried to do in this research during data analysis that followed. “In ECA emphasis shifts from ‘media effects’ to media and modes of representation, including ideological and cultural forms… The
significance of media formats and media -or the shape and structure of messages and images- is recognized” (Altheide et al.,2008, p.128). It’s not a coincidence that ECA is also referred as “QDA (Qualitative Document Analysis)” (Altheide et al. 2008, p.127) as it is a broader research analysis method, valid not only in a narrow ethnographic environment. Ethnography in that sense helps to better study various documents “perspective and meaning” (Altheide et al., 2008, p.135)
18 4.2 Deep interviews
Interviews were used to know more on the way both CNSAS and HRT carry on their communication strategies, the changes happened in the last 20 years, especially since the growth of social media. Interviews were chosen also to clarify organizational structure, the way the two organizations are built but also to collect historically data as for the Greek case there was a very limited number of articles and books on their creation and the early years of Hellenic Rescue Team.
The goal was to further approach the two organizations and having a better
understanding of internal practices they use in order to share acts and thoughts, but also to implement their rescue plans.
The style of “In depth interviews” (Arthur & Nazroo, 2003, p.111) was chosen to carry on such an approach, in an attempt to have longer discourses which will make feel freer on narrating their experiences.
Questions were posed, but interviews were more planned with the aim to let
interviewees to tell more on their “individual personal contexts” (Arthur & Nazroo, 2003, p. 111). That was useful in order to compare experiences and to understand the “why’s” of their choices.
Since there were also other kind of methodologies to be implied in this study and distance was a big obstacle to reach people, it was decided to limit interviews at a minimum possible. It was decided to carry just 4 interviews in total (2 from each team) with some of their members carrying the best knowledge to answer to the questions. Among them there were the two main press officers, which is in CNSAS Walter Milan and in HRT Meni Kourkouta. In addition, interviews were made with two of the most experienced officials, Giorgio Baldracco, former president of CNSAS and still today a member of their Executive Board and Zafeiris Trombakas, among the founders of HRT and today general director of training in that team.
Davis insists more on “how the sample is constructed” (Davis, 2008, p.62). In this case alternatives were limited as the number of interviewees was small. It was decided to go for some symbolic figures in the two organizations and of course to hear from the communication officers, as the research is mainly about communication strategies.
Davis suggestions on learning more on the interviewees’ background was taken into consideration (Davis, 2008, p. 64) in order to build more knowledge on the questions to pose. Regarding the procedure the first step was to contact the communication officers which later provided the contacts to have interviews with Trombakas and Baldracco. The time limit for the interviews was more or less an hour each.
Looking on the development of such organizations worked as a point of departure in order to make an initial questions’ guide. The goal was to clarify things related on educational programs for new rescuers and others, operations and missions,
How social media influenced their being was a critical question to ask all of them. Questioning over board elections and democratic procedures was also a step followed
19 in order to understand about the way the decisive posts of each organization are taken… Further questions were made regarding the topics that the interviewees seemed more interested to develop.
5. Data Analysis
Both CNSAS and HRT transfer their communication focus in new media (like websites and other computer associated tools of interacting) or social media. New media are defined as “those communication technologies, typically involving computer capabilities (microprocessor or mainframe), that allow or facilitate
interactivity” (Rice and Associates, 1984, p. 35 in Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2006, p.21). They try to create new communication channels in such an environment.
It is media professionals that direct the flow of news towards the public, as Boards of both organization have understood the necessity of specialized media officers to coordinate communication activities. Young people like Meni Kourkouta in HRT and Walter Milan in CNSAS carry the load of realizing new communication strategies.
5.1. Documents
From traditional media to new media
CNSAS and HRT tried to communicate the more traditionally way at the beginning of their existence. Apart from conferences, press releases and other similar events, they both choose the tool of a magazine, as the most relevant communication medium in order to reach general public. HRT's magazine was called “Eλληνική Ομάδα
Διάσωσης” (in English Ηellenic Rescue Team) and started to exist in early 2000. The magazine was a trimonthly publication and the latest publication that still can be found on the web is number 41 of 2014 (HRT, 2018a). It was a publication that was covering HRT's activities in Greece, prevention, educational and other subjects and also informed friends of SAR in Greece of international meetings and Conferences (HRT, 2018 a).
CNSAS also publishes its own magazine “Notizie del Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico” that reached number 68 in December 2017. The magazine also deals with articles on prevention, education, events of Soccorso alpino, but also covers international meetings and conferences. (CNSAS, 2018 a).
Following Altheide’s and Schneider’s suggestion to make categories (Altheide, Schneider, 2013, p.62), tables on CNSAS and HRT’s posts on Twitter and Facebook were made during this study, to make more evident which subjects they choose to communicate for. That gives us a taste of their communication activities, although sometimes posts missing on some themes, should not create a wrong idea on what both organizations are really interested at.
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FACEBOOK POSTS JANUARY-MARCH 2018 CNSAS HRT
Nature 3 0 Campaigns 1 8 Sponsors 1 3 Technology 11 6 Rescue Operations 12 25 Administration 2 3 Sports Events 1 1 Prizes Awards 0 0 Social Subjects 0 2 Memories/History 4 3 Education/Prevention 8 6 Deaths/Injuries 4 4
Appearances on Mainstream Media 5 4
Links on other social media/web pages 4 21
Shares of others' FB posts 1 3
Seminars/Training 9 18
National/Religious Fests - World Days 2 3
Table 1. Facebook posts from CNSAS and HRT in Facebook, from January to March 2018
CNSAS makes 68 Facebook posts in that period while HRT 110 posts. In HRT Facebook page 22.7 per cent of the total posts of January 2018 till the end of March 2018 period is about Rescue operations, 19% is on links on other social media and web pages, 16.3% on Seminars or training, 7.2% on Campaigns, 5.4% is on technology and equal percentage of posts regards education/prevention.
In CNSAS Facebook page 17.6% of the total post of the studied period is about rescue operations, 16.1% on technology (a field that CNSAS tries to be a pioneer), 13.2% on seminars and training (an issue where both organization pay heavy attention), 11.7% on education and prevention. Apart for posts with links on other social or web pages, there similarities on which categories CNSAS and HRT are posting more.
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TWITTER POSTS CNSAS JAN. 2018 FEB. 2018 MARCH 2018
Nature 0 0 0 Campaigns 0 0 0 Sponsors 0 0 1 Technology 1 1 4 Rescue Operations 3 1 4 Administration 0 0 1 Sports Events 0 1 0 Prizes Awards 0 0 0 Social Subjects 0 1 0 Memories/History 6 0 0 Education/Prevention 4 1 0 Deaths/Injuries 2 1 2
Appearances on Mainstream Media 0 0 1
Links on other social media/web pages 3 1 3
Retweets 0 0 1
Seminars/Training 1 0 3
National/Religious Fests - World Days 0 0 0
Table 2. Twitter posts from CNSAS, regarding the period January - March 2018
TWITTER POSTS HRT JAN. 2018 FEB. 2018 MARCH 2018
Nature 0 0 0 Campaigns 0 1 0 Sponsors 2 0 1 Technology 4 2 0 Rescue Operations 29 13 10 Administration 1 2 0 Sports Events 2 0 0 Prizes Awards 1 0 0 Social Subjects 0 1 0 Memories/History 1 2 0 Education/Prevention 1 6 4 Deaths/Injuries 6 0 1
Appearances on Mainstream Media 4 1 0
Links on other social media/web pages 20 19 12
Retweets 16 6 7
Seminars/Training 2 7 2
National/Religious Fests - World Days 1 0 1
Table 3. Twitter posts from HRT, regarding the period January – March 2018
On Twitter the total number of CNSAS tweets was 47 for the period covering January 2018 till the end of March 2018, while HRT reached 188 tweets or retweets, but
22 difference is because the Greeks retweeted many of their HRT SAR operations
department Twitter account which is @HRTrescue. Thus, they reached 51 retweets.
Rescue operations is still in Tweeter the main reason to post. Rescue is 27.6 % of HRT’s and 17% of CNSAS posts. Links on other social media or web pages reach 14% for CNSAS and 27.1% for HRT, while retweets are 15.4 % for HRT and just 2.1 per cent for CNSAS. Tweets on memories / history (facts of the past regarding the organization) are 12.7 % for CNSAS and just 1.5% for HRT.
Tweets on deaths and injuries reach 3.7% for HRT and 10.6 % for CNSAS. They both prefer Twitter to communicate unpleasant facts just happened. Education / prevention makes 10.6% of CNSAS’ posts and 5.8% of HRT’s. Technology is 12.7 % of CNSAS and 3.1% of HRT’s posts for the examined period.
Posting on trendy subjects
CNSAS remembers “strength and professionalism of the women” (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook] 8th March), together with a CNSAS Umbria photo of an anonymous woman wearing the characteristic CNSAS uniform and looking a bit high, like when being full of satisfaction after an accomplishment. The number of shares was very high (more than 130) showing that it was a good choice to remember Women's Day. But even in that occasion the CNSAS brand is also promoted simultaneously.
A similar post was made by HRT at the same day (Hellenic Rescue Team, 2018 [Facebook] 8th March). But this time the link was to a 2013 You Tube's video on the HRT women (Hellenic Rescue Team, 2013 [You Tube], 22nd January). The number of shares were less than 20 and the number of likes was not so high as with the Italians. But the video was sending a strong message, even stronger than the CNSAS photo.
Technology as a “vital element” in SAR
Posts on technology are more and more common. CNSAS 'developed together with CAI-Club Alpino Italiano a new tool, a smartphone app that can help you ask for the rescue in a faster and more efficient way” (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook] 20th February). The app is called GeoResQ is an app to keep in your smartphone (GeoResQ, 2018 [Facebook] 20th February)
Another post on technology of CNSAS was “a formation seminar on GECo a new software started to function by CNSAS in rescue operations in caves or in
emergencies” (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook] 19th March). The photos show a room full of people, all wearing CNSAS uniforms. You can see the big screens (indication of technological supremacy. The camera doesn't focus at any particular person but at the team as a group. At the same day, there was a similar post on twitter by CNSAS, that underlines the value of GECo
23 as an “innovative software” (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino Speleologico, 2018 [Twitter]19th March). Such initiatives show the importance that Soccorso Alpino gives in this kind of development. HRT also presents video from a training in
Slovakia. The message is followed by the tag “#neverstoptraining” (Hellenic Rescue Team, 2018, [Facebook], 19th March 19)
Picture 1 HRT volunteers training in Slovakia, on winter 2018. People are very small,
and the force of the mountain is transmitted to the viewer. Source: Hellenic Rescue Team, 2018 [Facebook], 16th March. (Published with the permission of HRT)
From “bollini” to fundraising
In Italy CNSAS has a much longer story of practicing rescuing and dealing with policies surrounding it. As someone can see in a photo published in the “40 anni del Soccorso Alpino -Speleologico” book, there was an initiative for fundraising long before social media. It was the “bollini”, something between stamps and stickers (Audisio, Frangioni, Marucco, Mottinelli,1994, p.16) that a donor could buy since 1930 in order to help Centro Alpinistico Italiano to carry on its Alpine Rescue (Soccorso Alpino) activities (Audisio, Frangioni, Marucco, Mottinelli,1994 p.16). In 1958 it is evident that they were already talking of “publicity campaigns, conferences, film projections” etc. (Audisio, Frangioni, Marucco, Mottinelli, 1994 p.25). Thus, Italians are much more advanced or at least have a much longer history which means also stronger experience on communicating their work.
On March 2018, CNSAS set as a goal with a post on Facebook reaching 100,000 likes. In a photo showing a very difficult kind of rescue in a river with ropes, there was the message: “Call if you want your friends to follow us” (Corpo Nazionale
24 Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook] 5th March). In August 2018 they effectively reached that goal and uploaded a poster for this success (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino Speleologico, 2018 [ Twitter], 11th August).
The “donate” button is more than evident in their first page on the same social. (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook]). HRT also present in their Facebook page 6 ways to help them as organization. Many of them are not financial but include participation and there is also a call for sharing in social media as a way to help (HRT, 2018 b). Fests and educational events on the mountains is another way to attract people and to possibly gain new volunteers, as a CNSAS Facebook post reveals (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook] 22nd January).
The professionalization of search and rescue
In one of the cover videos of CNSAS, the “text” underlines: “More than 7000 technicians that with their work saved thousands of lives. Today Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico is a body in continuous evolution, a body dynamic in developing new technologies and rescue techniques. The past speaks of passion and altruism, values that indissoluble for us that we are looking the future in the sign of a continuous improvement and a professional human growth with always higher goals”. (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2017 [Facebook] 13th September).
The message of CNSAS is that everything is in flux as the word “continuous” is used twice to underline the “metamorphosis” (Beck, 2015, p.3) taking place inside this organization. This policy underlines professionalization but doesn't cancel passion and solidarity, “altruism” (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2017[Facebook] 13th September) as it is more specifically mentioned. Humanism is also blended with technological advances in this text which says a lot of the image that CNSAS wants to have in the society. “Solidarity as a value together with looking for strategic competences among their members” were after all one of the core elements of Italian rescuers since 1872, as Zandonati and Miorandi (2005, p. 7) write in their book. “Share this” (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2017, [Facebook] 13th September) is the message that a visitor also takes, when trying to watch the previous CNSAS cover video.
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Picture 2 Zafeiris Trombakas -showing in the middle- sharing his experience on
26
Picture 3 Educating on rescue a Chinese team. Source: Corpo Nazionale Soccorso
Alpino Speleologico, 2018 [Twitter] @cnsas_official, Feb 2, (published with the permission of CNSAS)
Confirming Beck's theory
CNSAS post on Twitter on the commemoration event of the victims of an helicopter crash in Campo Felice, L' Aquila back in January 2017 is a clear confirm of Beck's ideas on showing “the positive side effects of bads” (Beck, 2016, p.4) already discussed on the theory part of this thesis. Tweet below gives us an idea of how this transition from a tragic moment to hope is made:
“Remembering victims of the aerial incident. #RT and participate. Formation and public information program” (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino Speleologico, 2018 [Twitter] 12th January). CNSAS not only avoids hiding from public memory the tragic event but calls for a re-tweet in order to have the biggest possible attendance on the commemoration. More importantly, CNSAS on this occasion not only
commemorates victims; but also transforms a bad memory into the development of something more sustainable for future generations, through education on the dangers that mountains can hide on winter.
On the same days, CNSAS posts also on Facebook: “Impossible to forget...An aerial accident took away precious people” (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e
Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook] 13th January). Language is descriptive of the way they try to commemorate victims.
Memory of a tragic accident also becomes memory of the work done as on CNSAS tweet on January 25, 2018 about the loss of lives in the aerial accident in Campo
27 Felice, Italy. “With their actions they saved so many lives: now it's up to us to honour their memories. Yesterday there was a torchlight procession on the snow in order to remember Walter, Davide, Giuseppe, Mario e Gianmarco”. (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino Speleologico, 2018 [Twitter], 25th January).
Victims are remembered with their first names, as making part of something closer, as linked in a family circle. People seem to embrace such kind of communication
strategies. The video to commemorate Rigopiano victims, a year after another tragedy in Italy, reached 1200 shares and 122k views as of July 27, 2018. (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018, [Facebook] 14th January).
Prevention and combining news with education
CNSAS combine news on the rescue of two tourists in Val Tartano with education on avalanches. Updates on the rescue which was made with the help of dogs is
accompanied with some lines of text on the importance of an intervention as soon as possible in order to help people survive in similar circumstances. “The first fifteen minutes are vital and give us a possibility of success, of over 90 per cent” CNSAS said on avalanches rescue. (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook] 4th February).
Planning their communication policies, they seem to stay out or stay neutral regarding environmental issues and to post very few things on social issues. At least that
happened in the trimester deeper studied in this research. Love for nature is often underlined in CNSAS posts as in “Here is the spring” post, showing in a photo “the sun creating a diamond as it emerges between two rocks in La Civetta. CNSAS thanks the photographer Claudio Pra” for catching this extraordinary moment in that
occasion (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook] 22nd March).
Love for nature is also expressed in another CNSAS post: “Sometimes the most beautiful flowers bloom on the toughest and hardest terrains. Every day the mountain teaches us something of itself. In this case tenacity and stubbornness first and beauty then”. (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook] 1st March).
Posts on nature or the environment are very few for HRT during the winter months of 2018, but when fires devastated Greece on summer 2018, the whole organization not only turned the focus on destroyed areas like Mati (near Athens) but also carried on a huge humanitarian effort (Hellenic Rescue Team, 2018 [Twitter] 24th July).
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Picture 4 Combining a paying tribute day with something valuable for the future.
The Banner of “Safe with the snow” special day that was organized to pay tribute at the helicopter’s crew that was lost in Campo Felice. Source: Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino Speleologico 2018 [Twitter], 12th January. (published with the permission of CNSAS)
29 Search and rescue as a part of a global market
Bureaucracy and certification can be understood as the main locomotives of what Bourdieu calls “symbolic domination” (Bourdieu, 2014, p.78), the new “language of legitimacy” (Bourdieu, 2014, p.79). They are the symbols that justify the new values which are mostly technological in our context. Although CNSAS (in the video already discussed previously) underlines values like “solidarity and passion”, the new era is more and more linked to technological advances (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2017 [Facebook] 13th September). The language overall has changed. SAR organizations tend to be more and more global. At the beginning of 2018 Soccorso Alpino members were invited to fly in China to educate Chinese speleologists. CNSAS tried to honour with a hashtag the formation of the group #ChinaRescueCave , in order to further promote this collaboration (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino Speleologico, 2018 [Twitter] 2nd February). A similar Facebook post (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2018 [Facebook] 2nd February) had 63 shares till July 22, 2018.
SAR market is more and more fostered by global events like exhibitions and congresses that both organizations are taking part of. HRT for example took part in the DIHAD 2017 -Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development Conference & Exhibition (HRT, 2017) or the IKAR – CISA world congress of 2013 (HRT, 2014, p.8). Nothing is left on chance and good intentions are not enough anymore in a field that becomes every day far more professional.
Cooperation with State
Cooperation with state is another theme that emerged through the systematic study of posts the two organizations uploaded in Facebook and Twitter.
This theme reveals also a difference if compared with other humanitarian
organizations that had often problems with states and state agencies or offices in order to save people in the Mediterranean Sea, especially on 2017 (Repubblica, 2018). Italian newspaper's Repubblica's article about developments near the Libyan coasts suggests in July 2018 that “at this moment there are very few NGO's boats working with the task of Search and Rescue of migrants” (Repubblica, 2018) and talks about the “expulsion of NGO's from the sea patrol activity, with some persisting
exceptions” (Repubblica, 2018).
CNSAS president Maurizio Dellantonio wrote about the recognition that volunteers and specifically Soccorso Alpino has gained among Italian politicians. “CNSAS services were recognized as an activity of a specific nature, with a professional and specialized character” (Dellantonio, 2017, p.1).
HRT also cooperates with the State, and various public services as Civil Protection, the Coast Guard during the refugee crisis, or the Hellenic Air Force and Fire Service in order to provide Search and Rescue and to participate in humanitarian missions abroad. (HRT, 2018d). HRT officials asked in the past for a better formalization of the relationships with State Authorities (opengov.gr, 2013) and for the stipulation of cooperation agreements. A request of HRT was then compensation of expenses for volunteers taking part in rescue operations, better insurance even in missions abroad
30 and the creation of a committee of Volunteers’ organizations with the scope to
evaluate cooperation with the state authorities (opengov.gr, 2013). Such formalization exists in Italy where CNSAS has many collaboration protocols with various regional or state entities.
Picture 5 Training on searching people trapped in an avalanche. Source: Corpo
Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico, 2018 [Facebook] March 19, 08:47, (Published with the permission of CNSAS)
“Elisoccorso” and the start of new era
A theme discovered through this research was the use of helicopters both in mountain and in water (mainly sea) Rescue and advances in this area.
In Greece a United Center of Coordination on Search and Rescue (EΚΣΕΔ in Greek) was born in 1993, with the merge of Operations Center of Air Force and Coast Guard in the same buildings (P.E.A.L.S, 2013). Major rescue operations are coordinated by public or military organizations and that's also the case where costs of such an
intervention is very high. Civil Protection also plays a very important role on covering costs in that sense.
31 Rescue of Mountaineers with Helicopters (“Elisoccorso” in Italian) started in Italy with the help of military Helicopters in the late '60's. It was in 1972 that CNSAS started collaboration with military people making rescues with the help of helicopters in Valle d' Aosta (Dal Farra, 2017, p.14)
Picture 6 Rescuing at night. Source: Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino Speleologico
Twitter, @cnsas_official, March 15, 2018 (Published with the permission of CNSAS) Today the difference between the two countries is that in Italy it is the regions that make agreements and partner with private transport companies to help with helicopters. Privates think of the maintenance and other similar issues. The first rescue with a private helicopter was made in 1985 in Sassolungo (Dal Farra, 2017, p.15). In Greece is still the public sector (AirForce, Coast Guard, Navy and eventually Fire Service) doing this job.
In Italy Soccorso Alpino members are currently flying together with doctors and the crew of such helicopters, while in Greece volunteers like HRT members are rarely included in such flight operations and are limited doing the hard job on the mountain when such a rescue happens. Volunteers organizations and SAR groups like HRT still missing such a deeper recognition from the Greek state.
A web post of CNSAS Veneto, a branch of CNSAS in Northern Italy comes to reconfirm the augmented needs of search and rescue interventions, a topic already mentioned in the literature part of this study.
“The constant increase over the years in tourists’ visits, the spread of sports, the emergence of new outdoor activities, such as the practice of canyoning, has led to a
32
parallel increase in SAR interventions… For this reason, CNSAS Veneto has intensified over the years training, prevention and information, especially among children, aiming at a playful education to safety, to spread more and more a culture aware of the mountains” (CNSAS Veneto, 2018). Turning into prevention and education represents thus a long-term solution as more and more people are doing risky things outdoors. Communication strategies are increasingly focused on informing people on dangers and educating them to be safer in nature.
33
Picture 7 One of the rescue boats of HRT during an operation. The shot is from a
long distance, focusing on the boat and its power to rescue. Source: HRT SAR/OPS Twitter, @HRT Rescue, March 24, 2018. (Published with the permission of HRT)
The logo
The appearance of brand and logo is almost continuous in social media posts and only very rarely there are photos without any of them in both organizations' publications. HRT shows up their red uniforms with their logo in many of their photos. Even when its members show their backs to the lens and the photographer, the HRT's logo is more than evident, eventually more important than the face of the volunteer. Such are posts of a cover photo of February 22, 2018, (Hellenic Rescue Team, 2018
[Facebook], 22nd February) when a member of HRT is turned back to the
photographer with HRT logo dominating the frame or in the post of March 2018, where the sticker with the logo of HRT is on the glass of the boat of the Organization, while looking for a fisherman in Thermaikos gulf, near Thessaloniki. (HRT Facebook, March 22, 2018)
Picture 8 “I Support the Hellenic Rescue Team” campaign banner, with the logo of
HRT Source: HRT Facebook, April 22, 2018 (published with the permission of HRT) Another example of this is @cnsas_official tweet about seminars “on how to deal with mountain in winter” (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino Speleologico Twitter, @cnsas_official, January 10, 2018). All rescuers appearing in red uniforms and offcial CNSAS vests, having a very active body position in order to save somebody trapped under snow. Their helmets, their orange backpacks, their yellow shoes show a very well-equipped team, with the Soccorso Alpino logo and symbol as much evident as a viewer needs in order to distinguish them. (Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino Speleologico 2018 [Twitter], 10th January).
34 But what visitors of CNSAS or HRT social media love to watch? Moments of bravery and daredevils as “the crew of 118 helicopter trying to rescue somebody in the top of a very little rock on Torre Trieste of Dolomites in Belluno”. This post (Corpo
Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico – CNSAS, 2017 [Facebook], 25th July) had reached on August 5, 2018 the number of 2, 011,798 views in total and 48000 shares after 2 posts, an amazing result for any similar attempt from an NGO (CNSAS 2017 [Facebook], 25th July 25, 2017, 23:23)
Picture 9 Rescuing at the edge of a rock. A video that surpassed 2 million views in
CNSAS Facebook page, as of July 2018. Source: CNSAS [Facebook], July 25, 2017. (Screenshot published with the permission of CNSAS)
