NextGen TV Warnings: What Could They Look Like?

As technologies continue to evolve, so do ways to warn communities about potential threats. In the last decade, we have observed improvements to public warning channels through the use of wireless devices, such as Wireless Emergency Alerts, social media, such as Twitter/X, and personal home assistants, such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa. While these significant changes have occurred, broadcast and cable television warnings have remained relatively unchanged since the Emergency Alert System (EAS) was introduced and mandated in the 1990s. At that time EAS replaced other warning broadcasting systems and became the primary system. The potential for more advanced warning is now on the horizon as the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has already begun rolling out new broadcast signals (ATSC 3.0) known as NextGen TV across the nation. NextGen TV is an upgrade from the current over-the-air broadcast signal, utilizing Internet Protocol (IP) technology that can offer better quality audio and video, a more user-focused experience including rich-format graphics, and location-based services at the exact location of the broadcast receiver.

One of the benefits of NextGen TV is the opportunity to newly design and deliver alerts and warnings for imminent threat events based on the receiver’s location. For example, broadcasters could program different broadcasts to be delivered based on the receiver’s location. On-air meteorologists could break into normal programming at specific locations rather than the entire viewing area. There are also capabilities to set televisions, or other equipped devices, to turn on in the case of alerts within a geographic area. In the past, technologies have been appropriated for warnings (e.g., social media) or developed with an eye toward technical capacities alone. Instead, social scientists have advocated for approaches that take into account message receivers and their behavioral responses while building new tools to reach them. To best utilize NextGen TV and the opportunities that arise from its technological capacities, there is a need for additional research that considers attention in a potentially noisy information environment. Such a perspective makes it possible to design risk communication messaging that cuts through distraction, reduces cognitive overload, and facilitates self-efficacy responses.

In this presentation, we show how prior warnings have been structured and presented on television news programming during high-impact weather events. We draw from literature on cognitive psychology, user interaction, and visual communication to show how the organization and presentation of visual risk information in a noisy environment can facilitate or impede effective decision-making. The results from this analysis will inform additional studies using multiple methods including focus groups and eye tracking experiments that investigate variations in format and design for NextGen TV warnings.