The Use of WhatsApp Comments as a Means of Responding to Government Directives on COVID-19: Evidence from Kenya
Abstract
This paper examines how Kenyans in WhatsApp groups used the platform as a means of responding to government directives on COVID-19. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of information about the pandemic and how it was managed was exchanged on the WhatsApp platform in Kenya. The study from which this paper stems set out to investigate the way in which WhatsApp comments were used to convey public perceptions on the COVID-19 government directives in the country. The study used five WhatsApp groups comprising medics, former university classmates, neighbours, investment partners, and a group of workmates. The Critical Discourse Analysis theory, and specifically the ideas of Norman Fairclough, and the Appraisal Framework were used as theoretical frameworks. The study employed the qualitative research approach, which allowed an in-depth analysis of WhatsApp texts that had been sampled purposively. Data was obtained from WhatsApp archives over a period of 12 months to capture various phases of the pandemic. The data were coded thematically in accordance with the research objective and then subjected to content analysis, which was augmented with a critical discourse analysis to determine how the COVID-19 directives were framed in the selected groups. The study found that WhatsApp comments not only disseminated government directives but were also used as a form of agency to discredit government directives. Through irony, sarcasm and religious rhetoric, some WhatsApp writers reinterpreted, resisted or rejected government directives. The findings add to scholarly literature on new media discourse in general, Kenyan new media discourse in particular, and on WhatsApp discourse, an increasingly common but little-studied platform in discourse analysis
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Copyright (c) 2025 Anne Manyasi, Josephine Khaemba, PhD, Catherine Kitetu, PhD
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