Kenya Government Health Communication: An assessment of intervention communication on bird flu.
Abstract
Following the threat of bird-flu outbreak in Kenya in 2006, the government identified
communication as one of the intervention measures to contain the public anxiety and
manage the crisis in the event that the perceived outbreak became real.
The mass media among other supplementary channels were used to disseminate the
information to the public. The messages served to inform and educate the public with the
aim of changing the attitudes and behaviour of the audience in order to reduce the risk of
their birds and themselves contracting bird-flu.
The study focused on the communication activities by the government of Kenya and
found out that despite the wide message reception by the audiences, the impact was
minimal eliciting negative reactions across the four groups of audiences studied, in
conclusion the overall communication campaign was ineffective.
The failure of the campaigners to address socio-economic needs of the audience and the
underutilization of interpersonal communication; explains the lack of efficacy in this
health communication campaign and the resulting low levels of risk perception on bird,flu by the audience.
Citation
M.A (Communication Studies) 2008Sponsorhip
University of NairobiPublisher
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Nairobi
Description
Master of Arts Thesis