Social media approach to crisis communication during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of Saudi Arabia

This study examines the use of Twitter as a communication tool by the government of Saudi Arabia in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. To identify the content used by Twitter, this study employed content analysis along with the application of the user and gratifications theory. For this qualitative research, data were collected for one month, from March 1 to March 31, 2020, when COVID-19 first hit the country. The data collected focused exclusively on the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH), as it is the most important, prominent, and active government agency addressing this crisis through social media. The results show that the Saudi government used Twitter not only to convey information, but also to highlight its importance and raise public awareness. The results also demonstrate that the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health tweeted between six (6) and nine (9) times per day to disseminate information and knowledge about COVID-19. The Saudi Arabian government actively used Twitter as an approach in the crisis communication of this pandemic and indirectly proved that the use of social media is effective in managing crises. Government communication methods for delivering messages to the public have varied from decade to decade, but social media is now the fastest and most popular. This study is in line with the goals of managing pandemic, where researchers around the world are working to identify the government's effective method of communication. The social media approach is not new, but it is not popular in some countries. Regardless of these two aspects, this study has helped reduce the knowledge gap in crisis communication approaches in crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.