Adoption of Social Media during Covid-19 Pandemic by African Presidents: A Cross-Sectional Study of Selected Facebook Accounts

Abstract

This paper examined the adoption of social media to disperse information at the beginning of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Content analysis was employed to identify and select relevant posts for presidents of five African countries (Egypt, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Nigeria) from February to July 2020, which were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods. Results indicate that African leaders utilized Facebook mostly in April, posting majorly in text form about issues centered on diplomatic ties, information and orientation, and preventive measures. Followers were more inclined to share the posts than they react by emojis and comments based on Facebook account, post form, and post topic. The findings demonstratively uphold the significance of social media in leadership communication, highlighting ways by which frequent and dominant content can be directed in messages during a crisis.

Keywords

leadership communication social media Facebook African leaders Covid-19 pandemic

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adesina

O. S.

(2017). Foreign policy in an era of digital diplomacy. Cogent Social Sciences, 3(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2017.1297175

Adikpo

Achakpa-Ikyo

(2021). Social media alternative for health communication in Nigeria. In Akwala

Ngetich

Theuri

(Eds.), Dialectical perspectives on media, health, and culture in modern Africa (pp. 19–38). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-8091-1.ch002

Ahinkorah

B. O.

Ameyaw

E. K.

Hagan

J. E.

Seidu

A.-A.

Schack

(2020). Rising above misinformation or fake news in Africa: Another strategy to control COVID-19 spread. Frontiers in Communication, 5, 45. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00045

Aleinikov

A. V.

Kurochkin

A. V.

Maltseva

D. A.

(2021). Information management under the conditions of global pandemic. Scientific and Technical Information Processing, 48(1), 38–44. https://doi.org/10.3103/S0147688221010068

Arkorful

V. E.

(2022). Unpacking the blackbox of responsible pandemic governance: Of COVID-19, multilevel governance and state capacity in Ghana – A review. Public Organization Review, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11115-022-00622-Z/TABLES/1

Barberá

Gohdes

A. R.

Zeitzoff

(2022). Distract and divert: How world leaders use social media during contentious politics. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612221102030

Barberá

Zeitzoff

(2018). The new public address system: Why do world leaders adopt social media? International Studies Quarterly, 62(1), 121–130. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqx047

Bossetta

(2018). The digital architectures of social media: Comparing political campaigning on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat in the 2016 U.S. election. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 95(2), 471–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699018763307

Bruinen de Bruin

Lequarre

A. S.

McCourt

Clevestig

Pigazzani

Zare Jeddi

Colosio

Goulart

(2020). Initial impacts of global risk mitigation measures taken during the combatting of the COVID-19 pandemic. Safety Science, 128, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2020.104773

10.

Chen

Min

Zhang

Wang

Evans

(2020). Unpacking the black box: How to promote citizen engagement through government social media during the COVID-19 crisis. Computers in Human Behavior, 110, 106380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106380

11.

Cheng

Lau

Y. C.

Chan

Luk

J. W.

(2021). Prevalence of social media addiction across 32 nations: Meta-analysis with subgroup analysis of classification schemes and cultural values. Addictive Behaviors, 117, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ADDBEH.2021.106845

12.

Cheng

(2018). How social media is changing crisis communication strategies: Evidence from the updated literature. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 26(1), 58–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5973.12130

13.

DePaula

Dincelli

Harrison

T. M.

(2018). Toward a typology of government social media communication: Democratic goals, symbolic acts and self-presentation. Government Information Quarterly, 35(1), 98–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2017.10.003

14.

Duffett

Wakeham

(2016). Social media marketing communication effect on attitudes among millennials in South Africa. The African Journal of Information Systems, 8(3), 1–26. https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/ajis/vol8/iss3/2

15.

Dwivedi

Y. K.

Kelly

Janssen

Rana

N. P.

Slade

E. L.

Clement

(2018). Social media: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Information Systems Frontiers, 20(3), 419–423. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-018-9848-5

16.

Essoungou

A.-M.

(2010). A social media boom begins in Africa: Using mobile phones, Africans join the global conversation. Africa Renewal. https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/december-2010/social-media-boom-begins-africa

17.

Fontaine

S. A.

Gomez

D. M.

(2020). Going social: A comparative analysis of presidents’ official and social Media messages. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 50(3), 507–538. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12676

18.

Ford

(2013). Social Media and Crisis Communication: Theories and Best Practices . https://curve.carleton.ca/ddcff2d7-8736-42cd-95e9-49ff576ae048

19.

Gilardi

Gessler

Kubli

Müller

(2022). Social media and political agenda setting. Political Communication, 39(1), 39–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2021

20.

Goel

Gupta

(2020). Social media in the times of COVID-19. Journal of Clinical Rheumatology, 26(6), 220–223. https://doi.org/10.1097/RHU.0000000000001508

21.

Heith

(2015). Presidential Road Show: Public Leadership in an Era of Party Polarization and Media Fragmentation . https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=FxceCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Heith,+D.+J.+(2016).+The+presidential+road+show:+Public+leadership+in+an+era+of+party+polarization+and+media+fragmentation.+&ots=nx6vCawQL-&sig=tNNIhwMqSSNiD5h8nJuNK8cqSj4

22.

Internet World Stats (2021). Internet penetration and users statistics for Africa’s population . https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm

23.

Johnson

(2021). Internet penetration in Africa, by country. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124283/internet-penetration-in-africa-by-country/

24.

Kaplan

Haenlein

(2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003

25.

Kavanaugh

A. L.

Fox

E. A.

Sheetz

S. D.

Yang

L. T.

Shoemaker

D. J.

Natsev

Xie

(2012). Social media use by government: From the routine to the critical. Government Information Quarterly, 29(4), 480–491. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2012.06.002

26.

Kemp

(2020). Digital 2020: 3.8 billion people use social media. We Are Social. https://wearesocial.com/blog/2020/01/digital-2020-3-8-billion-people-use-social-media

27.

Lavrakas

(Ed) (2012). Encyclopedia of Survey Research. Sage Publications, Inc.

28.

P. D.

Teo

H. X.

Pang

Goh

C. Q.

(2019). When is silence golden? The use of strategic silence in crisis communication. Corporate Communications, 24(1), 162–178. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-10-2018-0108

29.

Lombard

Snyder-Duch

Bracken

C. C.

(2002). Content analysis in mass communication: Assessment and reporting of intercoder reliability. Human Communication Research, 28(4), 587–604. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2002.tb00826.x

30.

Lone

S. A.

Ahmad

(2020). COVID-19 pandemic-an African perspective. Taylor & Francis, 9(1), 1300–1308. https://doi.org/10.1080/22221751.2020.1775132

31.

Markowitz

D. M.

(2022). How experts react: The world health organization’s appraisal of COVID-19 via communication patterns. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 41(2), 209–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X211026346/ASSET/IMAGES/LARGE/10.1177_0261927X211026346-FIG1.JPEG

32.

Mateos

Erro

C. B.

(2021). Protest, internet activism, and sociopolitical change in sub-saharan Africa. American Behavioral Scientist, 65(4), 650–665. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220975060

33.

Mboussou

Ndumbi

Ngom

Kassamali

Ogundiran

van Beek

Williams

Okot

Hamblion

E. L.

Impouma

(2019). Infectious disease outbreaks in the African region: Overview of events reported to the World Health Organization in 2018 – ERRATUM. Epidemiology and Infection, 147, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0950268819002061

34.

Milman

Lee

S. A.

Neimeyer

R. A.

(2020). Social isolation and the mitigation of coronavirus anxiety: The mediating role of meaning. Death Studies, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2020.1775362

35.

Mirbabaie

Bunker

Stieglitz

Marx

Ehnis

(2020). Social media in times of crisis: Learning from Hurricane Harvey for the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic response. Journal of Information Technology, 35(3), 195–213. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268396220929258

36.

Niles

M. T.

Emery

B. F.

Reagan

A. J.

Dodds

P. S.

Danforth

C. M.

(2019). Social media usage patterns during natural hazards. PLOS ONE, 14(2), e0210484. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210484

37.

Oginni

S. O.

Moitui

J. N.

(2015). Social Media and Public Policy Process in Africa: Enhanced Policy Process in Digital Age. In JSTOR (Issue 14). https://about.jstor.org/terms

38.

Oxlund

(2016). #Everythingmustfall: The use of social media and violent protests in the current wave of student riots in South Africa. Anthropology Now, 8(2), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/19428200.2016.1202574

39.

Reuter

Kaufhold

M.-A.

(2018). Fifteen years of social media in emergencies: A retrospective review and future directions for crisis informatics. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 26, 41–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5973.12196

40.

Rollston

Wilkinson

Abouelazm

Mladenov

Horanieh

Jabbarpour

(2020). COVID-19: Africa needs unprecedented attention to strengthen community health systems. The Lancet, 396. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31532-4

41.

Sadeghmoghadam

Daneshfar

Sharifi

Alizad

(2020). How the first cases of COVID-19 in 10 countries become infected? A case series. Respiratory Medicine Case Reports, 101219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmcr.2020.101219

42.

Schmidt

Cloete

Davids

Makola

Zondi

Jantjies

(2020). Myths, misconceptions, othering and stigmatizing responses to COVID-19 in South Africa: A rapid qualitative assessment. PLOS ONE, 15(12), e0244420. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244420

43.

Schultz

Utz

Göritz

(2011). Is the medium the message? Perceptions of and reactions to crisis communication via twitter, blogs and traditional media. Public Relations Review, 37(1), 20–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.12.001

44.

Shirky

(2011). The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign Affairs, 90(1), 28–41. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25800379

45.

Sobieraj

Masullo

G. M.

Cohen

P. N.

Gillespie

Jackson

S. J.

(2020). Politicians, social media, and digital publics: Old rights, new terrain. American Behavioral Scientist, 64(11), 1646–1669. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220945357

46.

StatCounter Global Stats (2021). Social Media Stats Africa . https://gs.statcounter.com/social-media-stats/all/africa

47.

Stawicki

S. P.

Firstenberg

M. S.

Papadimos

T. J.

(2020). The growing role of social media in international health security: The good, the bad, and the ugly. In Masys

Izurieta

Reina Ortiz

(Eds.), Global health security. Advanced sciences and technologies for security applications (pp. 341–357). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23491-1_14

48.

Stieglitz

Dang-Xuan

(2013). Social media and political communication: A social media analytics framework. Springer, 3(4), 1277–1291. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-012-0079-3

49.

Tankovska

(2021a). Countries with the most Facebook users 2021. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/268136/top-15-countries-based-on-number-of-facebook-users/

50.

Tankovska

(2021b). Global social networks ranked by number of users 2021. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

51.

Triantafillidou

Yannas

(2020). Social media crisis communication in racially charged crises: Exploring the effects of social media and image restoration strategies. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(1), 106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106269

52.

Tsao

S.-F.

Chen

Tisseverasinghe

Yang

Butt

Z. A.

(2021). What social media told about us in the time of COVID-19: A scoping review. The Lancet Digital Health, 3(3), e174–e194. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2589-7500(20)30315-0

53.

Tufekci

Wilson

(2012). Social media and the decision to participate in political protest: Observations from tahrir square. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 363–379. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01629.x

54.

van Rompay

T. J. L.

de Vries

P. W.

van Venrooij

X. G.

(2010). More than words: On the importance of picture-text congruence in the online environment. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 24(1), 22–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2009.10.003

55.

Waisbord

Amado

(2017). Populist communication by digital means: Presidential Twitter in Latin America. Information, Communication & Society, 20(9), 1330–1346. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1328521

56.

Warren

A. M.

Sulaiman

Jaafar

N. I.

(2014). Social media effects on fostering online civic engagement and building citizen trust and trust in institutions. Government Information Quarterly, 31(2), 291–301. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2013.11.007

57.

Wolfsfeld

Segev

Sheafer

(2013). Social media and the Arab Spring: Politics comes first. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 18(2), 115–137. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161212471716

58.

World Health Organisation (2020a). WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard – Global situation . https://covid19.who.int/

59.

World Health Organisation (2020b). Critical preparedness, readiness and response actions for Covid-19: Interim guidance . https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331494/WHO-2019-nCoV-Community_Actions-2020.2-eng.pdf

60.

Yavetz

Aharony

(2020). Social media in government offices: Usage and strategies. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 72(4), 445–465. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-11-2019-0313

61.

Zhang

Zhou

Lim

(2020). From networkin the role of social media and analytics in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Information Systems Management, 37(4), 318–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/10580530.2020.1820635

62.

Zhu

Liu

Kapucu

Peng

(2020). Online media and trust in government during crisis: The moderating role of sense of security. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 50, 101717. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101717