Challenges and Strategies to Promote Social Effects of the Earthquake Rumors

High seismicity and earthquake occurrence is one of the most important concerns of urban management in Tehran metropolitan. Unfortunately, this is being neglected because of the earthquake nature, human negligence and long-time return period of severe earthquakes in this city. Since Tehran has an important undeniable role in preserving the integrity, national, strategic and economic security in the country, any damage in would mean irreparable damage seen in the country. So, it is strictly necessary to pay enough attention to the seismicity condition of Tehran and make the benefit of all potentialities to decrease risk and increase safety level of the city against earthquake. Considering the above-mentioned issues, this paper takes the advantage of rumors in increasing security value of Tehran. It studies social positive and negative effects of spreading rumors about earthquake in Tehran, and also evaluates and assesses its positive performances. The case study was Tehran earthquake rumor in December 2014. The results show that by making the benefit of this media (rumors), we can constantly/repeatedly remind authorities and civilians about earthquake-related issues, improve safety culture against earthquake and increase the preparedness of rescue organizations, institutions, etc. under an efficient management.