Abstract
For more than two decades (1997-2019), the Bushbuckridge Municipal community in Mpumalanga Province has experienced multiple, violent protests that are often observed to have led to escalating damage of infrastructure and financial repercussions. This study aimed to investigate how the Bushbuckridge local municipality (BLM) can create a crisis communication strategy to deal with current community crises. Using the situational crisis communication theory as a construct, the researcher investigated if there are any strategies deployed by the BLM to address the crisis. A qualitative research approach was used for data collection, using semi and unstructured interview questions. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions interviews were conducted virtually. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings have showed that communication and public participatory is lacking. This study recommends that interactive platforms of communication should be integrated in all crisis communication strategies to enhance public engagement and quicker response and feed to the affected communities. The study revealed that the currently used strategies by the BLM are not effective and fail the turn-around expectation by the community. Furthermore, both the paucity of details and lack of access to information about the crisis communication strategy impacted on the BLM service delivery, as evidenced by recurrent and often violent municipality protests.
M.A. (Strategic Communication)