Communication practices in the context of the Ebola outbreak in Beni between 2018 and 2020: an interactive pragmatic analysis

Abstract

The Beni region in North Kivu, in the east of the DRC, was gripped by the Ebola virus disease health crisis between August 2018 and June 2020. Every available means, including communication, was deployed to halt the spread and transmission of this viral disease. In this fight – in which we ourselves participated as awareness-raisers – we witnessed conflictual communication at the reception end and dictatorial communication at the transmission end.

Foreign doctors who did not speak the local language were placed on the front line; people from other communities were also sent into the community to raise awareness amongst the local populations – mostly villagers – and the substantial material and financial resources contributed to this response only served to give rise to other problems that had to be tackled at the same time: rumours, misinformation and fake news. These new ‘diseases’ then formed the basis of a conflictual communication environment, resulting in: a lack of community involvement in the fight against Ebola, the spread of the virus with its associated consequences, and physical violence directed at the response teams and their equipment.

The main problem raised by this study lies in the:

• The use of languages not spoken by the communities affected by the Ebola virus disease, which is thought to have been at the root of the communication breakdowns that prevented the rapid eradication of the Ebola virus disease in Beni.
• The use of foreign response personnel (those not belonging to the community affected by Ebola virus disease), which is said to have fuelled mistrust leading to physical attacks during the fight against this tenth outbreak in Beni.

Looking ahead, we have argued that the use of local languages for communication and the adoption of a peer-to-peer communication approach involving members of the affected communities would have enabled the affected communities to take ownership of the fight and foster community engagement.

This reminded us that the perception of the communicative content of such speech acts depends on the context in which they are used by the communicators; and the pragmatic theory of language, according to which the communicative approach is based on fundamental concepts: the implicit and the presupposition, and the interpretation of communicative value, which takes place through a set of values shared by the communicators, thereby ensuring mutual understanding of the messages.

This article aims, from an interactive pragmatic perspective, to examine the concept of ‘verbal knockout’ and the failure of communicative performance in the management of the tenth Ebola epidemic in Beni, North Kivu.

Keywords: verbal knockout, conflictual communication, response, Ebola, Beni, North Kivu.

Received Date: June 19, 2026

Accepted Date: July 10, 2026

Published Date: August 01, 2026

Available Online at: https://www.ijsrisjournal.com/index.php/ojsfiles/article/view/927