COVID-19 dialogue on Facebook: Crisis Communication relationship between Ghanaian Authorities and Citizens

Abstract

The paper explored how the Ministry of Information (M.O.I.), the official mouthpiece of the government of Ghana, interacted with citizens during the COVID-19 outbreak within the context of crisis communication as a tool for authority-citizen engagement on Facebook. Content analysis of COVID-19 comments on the Ministry of Information’s official Facebook page showed higher participation in the discussion from citizens. However, authorities only provided information by being inactive participants in the interaction. The dominant issues focused on Ghanaian authorities and their actions, the course of events surrounding the pandemic, infected cases and deaths, and Ghana’s recovery efforts. The active publics provided information, asked and answered questions, and expressed their opinions as the discussions were ongoing. The comments portrayed negative, positive, and neutral tones. The paper also revealed diverse challenges that are likely to hinder crisis communication during the pandemic, from the inflexibility of action, quality of information, and disparity of knowledge.

Behind the scenes: A critical discourse analysis of Botswana government power plays on Facebook during two post-millennial state-owned organizational crises

“…During the Australian bushfires in 2019/20, Facebook was used as a one-way communication channel by emergency services and did not encourage participation or collaboration, thus missing an opportunity to position the Australian government as ‘open, accountable, and responsive’ (Atkinson et al, 2021). A study of the Ghanaian Ministry of Information COVID-19 communications also found that Facebook was used to broadcast information and identified authorities as inactive in the lively Facebook commentary following their messages (Ansah, 2022). Thus, missing the opportunity to manage the debate enabled other actors to answer questions and determine the narrative.…”