Social listening vital in achieving social distancing
LISTENING is part of a broad network of effective communication strategies designed to achieve knowledge, meaning and social understanding in the fight against the impact of COVID-19. The art of listening is a skill, born out of the language framework which is aimed at ensuring that communication has taken place. Uttering or writing something cannot guarantee communication to have taken place, communication is more than what we see and what we think. As such, there are many pitfalls that have been encountered in attempts to pass on information about the COVID-19 pandemic so that it reaches the target audiences.
It all started with the phrase, “social distancing” which appeared to have failed the pragmatic test from the onset instead of the more appealing and more practically-oriented “physical distancing”. Language has always been an enabling factor and in this regard, the linguistic test has not sufficiently navigated. Of course, arguments may arise that we speak a multiplicity of languages, therefore, English is the norm while the radio, television and newspapers are the prime channels. With regard to this pandemic, this is not enough as issues of linguistic vulnerabilities have not been taken into account. The language issue was not only overlooked on the COVID-19 account but also even on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) it is silent and rather assumed.
Social listening is the process of tracking conversations around specific topics, brands or industries, and discover opportunities or create content for the audiences. In this regard, the specific topic is COVID-19, which is almost like a brand in itself. In attempts to craft creative social health communication and innovation policies, the authorities need to be inclusive and holistic in their approach not only to see themselves as COVID-19 champions without listening. Listening is both an art and a skill that is why everyone is an important stakeholder to participate in social listening actively and with a purpose. Active social listeners always pay attention to the people’s pleas and expectations so that they won’t miss out what people are talking about. Above all, social listening is supposed to translate into change of behaviour and attitudes. But in the context of COVID-19, people are still as crowded as before, thinking that masks and sanitisers are forms of treatment, which is a dangerous mindset.
In our midst, there are vulnerable populations who speak a multiplicity of languages often little understood by development specialists, and they are often isolated or neglected, and unconnected to those who seek to help. Reaching them requires reaching across languages, and it implies listening to their concerns, freely expressed. Is communicating the COVID-19 pandemic ready for such an effort? Though the SDGs are largely silent on language issues, sustainability requires two-way and user-friendly communication in multiple languages. Right now, governments throughout the world with multilingual societies are in a communication lockdown without knowing. Millions of stakeholders have been left behind because of overlooking the linguistic factor. Sanitisers and masks have been manufactured at breathtaking speed, yet they don’t communicate better than the language issue. For instance, there are masks which are put on by individuals who are affected by the coronavirus while others are worn by those who are not affected, depending on the colour. Then what does it mean when people are advised to prepare their own masks? We have seen doeks and stockings being used as masks and what does that communicate?
Back to the SDGs and Health and Well-being as Goal number 3, already it is facing some communication pitfalls. To carry out the SDGs through dialogue and understanding, especially with regards to COVID-19, we must reach vulnerable populations in languages they understand.
Most of the vulnerable communities who live in marginal environments don’t have radios, televisions and neither do they buy newspapers. Preserving cultural identity while communicating across languages must become a recognised issue, these communities must be educated through languages they understand, deliver healthcare comprehensibly and reach them through comprehensible dialogue.
The use of local languages for COVID-19 awareness is essentially fundamental in social health communication. The local communities cannot cope with technically-related discourses of COVID-19 like sanitisers, social/ physical distance or masks, yet they are expected to be important stakeholders in this case.
In order to succeed in fighting the COVID-19 impact, languages of local people become critical. Therefore, they need to be carefully harnessed and utilised for effective social health communication activities. There are locally available language experts in specific areas and they can be asked to draft communication materials written in languages of the communities so that they are not left behind. Due to the living fact that local communities are quite diverse, ethnically and religiously, there is need to reach out to them in the medium they understand better. African communities are not a homogenous group like their European counterparts, but they are linguistically and culturally diverse.
Cross-cultural linguistic competence is the missing link as we all try hard to tackle the effects of COVID-19. This becomes the missing link in attempts to integrate locals into meaningful risk communication. This competence is critical for successful communication to take place between the source of information and often-despised locals. Social health communication discourses are not even human-specific and user-friendly even with the educated laypersons, who can hardly interpret it, what more, the downtrodden and vulnerable local people who face the challenges of hunger, discrimination, neglect and illiteracy?
As such, listening is not just decoding, but an essentially active process. This would also act as sustainable evidence from which the audience can make generalisations as well as inferences. To that effect, the local language of knowing has such intrinsic and assertive illocutionary force of reason that also contributes to unmasking ambiguities.
The audiences need to be consulted, their local worldviews and intellectual property considerations taken into account and incorporated into the COVID-19 policy development. Through social listening, stakeholders will be able to analyse contexts and larger trends around those conversations and topical issues like the COVID-19 in order to offer valuable insights into the audience’s needs and expectations. During election campaigns, political parties move door-to-door, selling their party manifestos but surprisingly, with regard to COVID-19, which is a life and death issue, people are left to do as they wish as long as they are indoors, no education and no awareness. Social listening is good in that it helps climate change authorities to realise the audiences’ sentiments about the nature of their policies. Social listening helps in avoiding a crisis since authorities can plan for future innovations.