Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jan 2021 OA PDF

The WHO Health Alert: Communicating a Global Pandemic with WhatsApp

Josephine Walwema Oakland University

Abstract

Upon declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) orchestrated a global risk-communication outreach. The WHO’s objective was to persuade the public to upend and alter their lives so as to contain the disease and minimize its spread and infection. The WHO found a simple and efficient medium to communicate glocally through the social media application WhatsApp, through which individuals could access information without gatekeeping by governments and local agencies.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
2021-01-01
DOI
10.1177/1050651920958507
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
OA PDF Bronze
Topics
social media
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (8)

  1. Baniya (2025)
    Intersectional Disaster Response in the Globalized World Via Equitable Crisis C…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  2. Lambrecht (2025)
    Risk Revisited: The Role of Technical Communication in Negotiating Barriers to …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. MacDonald (2025)
    Communicating Global Governmentality: The United Nations Global Compact, BP, an…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Young (2025)
    Pandemic Communications Beyond Risk and Crisis: A Change of Course for Law Enfo…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  5. Chen (2025)
    Constructed Ethos and Kairotic Responses in Communicating About the COVID-19 Pa…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
Show all 8 →
  1. Madson (2024)
    Cannabis Risk Communication: A Scoping Review with a Research Agenda
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  2. Moriarty et al. (2024)
    Reddit and Engaged Science Communication Online: An Examination of Reddit’s R/S…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Butts et al. (2021)
    Rhetorical hedonism and gray genres
    Communication Design Quarterly

References (10) · 1 in this index

  1. Ding H. (2010)
    China Media Report Overseas
  2. 10.1088/0963-6625/3/1/001
     ↗
  3. 10.1109/IPCC.2016.7740519
     ↗
  4. Porter J. (2020, February 12). WhatsApp now has 2 billion users. And it has no plans to drop end-to-end encry…
  5. Potts L. (2014)
    Social media in disaster response: How experience architects can build for participation
Show all 10 →
  1. Simmons et al. (2007)
    Toward a Civic Rhetoric for Technologically and Scientifically Complex Places: …
    College Composition and Communication
  2. 10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.040
     ↗
  3. World Health Organization (2018)
    Managing epidemics: Key facts about major deadly diseases
  4. World Health Organization. (2020a). Strengthening health security by implementing the international health re…
  5. World Health Organization. (2020b, March). WHO Health Alert brings COVID-19 facts to billions via WhatsApp. h…
CrossRef global citation count: 54 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. Computers and Composition Jun 2026
    Navigating platform algorithms: Global south feminist activists’ rhetorical and composition practices in digital advocacy on social media ↗
    Kalpana Shrestha
    rhetorical criticism social media gender and writing
  2. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly Apr 2026
    Selections From the ABC 2025 Annual International Conference, Long Beach, California, USA: Classroom Activities for Teaching Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Social Media Skills in the Business Communication Classroom ↗
    Andrew Cavanaugh; D. Joel Whalen
    teacher development professional writing social media artificial intelligence
  3. Journal of Business and Technical Communication Apr 2026
    An Acceptance Analysis of Firms’ Posts on Sina Weibo to Build Credibility ↗
    Chenghui Wu
    social media
  4. Journal of Business and Technical Communication Apr 2026
    From Monologue to Dialogue: Communication Strategies of Chinese Museums on Weibo and the Imperative for Participation Awareness ↗
    Xiaole Zhu; Yoonjae Nam
    service learning qualitative research social media
  5. Journal of Business and Technical Communication Mar 2026
    Terms of Service and Community Guidelines as “Value-Laden” Documents: An (Adapted) Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis of “Sexual Content” ↗
    Rachael Jordan
    discourse analysis social media affect and writing