Kenyan Government Communication in the Sudan Crisis: An Analysis of @ForeignOffice KE Twitter Page

Abstract

In times of crisis, such as wars or natural calamities, a government’s communication strategy is an important asset as it reassures the citizens and builds resilience. This paper explored how the Government of Kenya (GoK) through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), used Twitter as a method of engagement to engage citizens during the Sudan crisis inside of the crisis communication setting. The study sought to establish key issues raised during the crisis, the nature of communication between key crisis publics, the tone used, and the dilemmas experienced by key publics during the interaction. The interactions are confined to only those on the @ForeignOfficeKe Twitter page since the beginning of the Sudan crisis on 15th April for two weeks. Government officials, Crisis publics (Sudan Crisis), and MOFA were the focus of the study. The study used quantitative content analysis to examine how citizens and authorities interacted during the Sudan crisis. All the 18 Twitter messages and the 112 comments made during the study period were picked for analysis. Situational crisis communication theory was used to provide direction. The analysis found that the government's primary message focused on the spread of information about the authorities and their actions, the sequence of events leading to the crisis, and directions of what those caught in the crisis should do and rescue plans. The overall crisis public's tone was negative with most of the messages being criticism of the government and its actions. The study further established that active two-way participation between authorities and the crisis public was lacking. As the talks were taking place, the active crisis public provided information, asked and answered questions, and voiced their thoughts. The paper also brought out bottlenecks that are likely to frustrate effective and efficient communication during the crisis. These include rigidity of government authorities in terms of taking timely and appropriate measures, providing quality information, and disparity of knowledge. This study has shown that crisis publics are a resource that can be used by the government to identify the information needs of the public. This, therefore, calls for the government to establish two-way communication on their social media pages to ensure that the crisis public needs are met.