Comparative Crisis Communication between the Military and Insurgents: A Case of the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo Armed Conflict

Abstract

This study explored the approaches to crisis communication employed by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and the March 23 Movement (M23) on X social media platform in the context of their protracted conflict in Eastern DRC. The study covered the conflict period between December 2022 to December 2023. The comparative study was guided by Image Repair Theory and the Press Agentry Model and examined the ways in which the two actors constructed the message, mended their reputation and swayed the audience locally, regionally and globally. The objectives were to find out FARDC’s and M23’s online crisis messaging strategies/approaches, to assess the impact of their online crisis messaging strategies/approaches on the target audiences, to analyze their strategic messaging goals during crisis situations and to determine the influence of external actors in their online narrative framing. The study population was 85 posts for FARDC and 61 posts for M23 rebel group. Using Charles Hermann’s criteria for crisis incidences (Hermann, 1963), 26 of the total 85 FARDC posts and 54 of the 61 M23 posts were found to be crisis-related thus these were the target population. Textual analysis of the selected purposively sampled crisis-incident posts was done to meet the study objectives. The sample size was saturation-dependent in that the crisis-related posts were comparatively and textually analyzed until no further communication approaches and goals could be identified. The results indicated that FARDC’s communications emphasized sovereignty, legitimacy and external aggression themes, and repeatedly depicted M23 as a terrorist proxy of Rwanda in order to delegitimize the group’s operations. M23, on the other hand, used emotional appeal, humanitarian rhetoric and historical parallels of genocide in order to situate themselves as a victim of Congolese state aggression and as a protector of the threatened minority communities. Social media was used by both actors to gain legitimacy, sympathy and political advantage thus the X platform became a virtual battlefield where mastering the narrative was as important as ground conquests. The research draws the conclusion that crisis communication through social media has turned out to be a significant pillar of contemporary conflict dynamics, with propaganda, perception management and digital diplomacy playing a decisive battlefield role. The study recommends the formulation of ethical, audience-sensitive communication frameworks by conflict stakeholders to minimize the negative influence of information disorder and foster peacebuilding efforts