After Haiti Earthquake, TV Informed People How to Give, Survey Finds

Despite the attention paid to the role of social media after the earthquake in Haiti last year, many more people learned about opportunities to give from more traditional communications channels, such as television and print media, according to a new survey.

More than 63 percent of respondents said they had learned about ways to contribute from television programming, and just over 50 percent cited television commercials. More than 29 percent of participants reported that they had found out about giving through print media.

They cited online forms of communications far less frequently: Web (24 percent of respondents), social media (15 percent), and e-mail (13 percent).

The random online survey of 995 people was conducted earlier this month by Eva Witesman, an assistant professor of public management at Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah.

Thoughts and Prayers

Among the survey’s other findings:

• Nearly 31 percent of the respondents said they had donated money to earthquake relief efforts.

• Roughly 9 percent said they had encouraged others to donate or volunteer in response to the tragedy.

• And almost 38 percent said they had offered positive thoughts or prayers.

When surveys that ask people about their response to a disaster give respondents the option of describing “other” activities, they often say they “offered positive thoughts or prayers,” which Ms. Witesman says is why she included it in the list of questions for all respondents.

The percentage of people who said they had offered positive thoughts or prayers was lower than Ms. Witesman had expected.

“Given the social imperative to be a generous person, one would think they’d check it whether they’d done it or not,” she says. “But the number is low enough that it’s reasonably plausible that people are answering the question honestly.”

Social Patterns

Ms. Witesman is still analyzing the data, but she suspects the survey’s most interesting findings are still to come.

The survey also asked participants questions about their personal behavior, such as how much television they watch, Internet usage, and how much time they spend talking with friends.

Says Ms. Witesman, “It will be interesting to see how those social patterns impact their perception that they’d been asked to give and then their actual giving behavior.”