INFLUENCE OF TRUST IN GOVERNMENT AND BELIEF IN THE NATIONAL CENTRE FOR DISEASE CONTROL ON NIGERIANS’ COMMUNICATION BEHAVIOURS (MEGAPHONING) DURING THE COVID-19 LOCKDOWN

Abstract

Megaphoning is a form of public communication behaviour, which entails voluntary communication actions about an organisation/government by its stakeholders. Megaphoning can be positive (pro-organisation) or negative (anti-organisation), online or face-to-face. Nigerians’ megaphoning during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown was rampant, but not much exists on it in the literature. Therefore, this study assessed how Nigerians’ megaphoning during the lockdown was predicted by their trust in government and belief in the COVID-19 statistics released by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). This study was conducted with a view to offering recommendations on improving government-citizen communication during a pandemic or other crisis communication context in the future. The study was a survey in which 401 participants from the six states in southwest Nigeria participated. The participants were aged 16 years and above, with the majority (260; 64.8%) being males and working in the private sector (209; 52.1%). An online questionnaire was used for the study. The descriptive data analysis was done by Statistical Package for Social Statistics (SPSS), while the predictive relationships among the study variables were assessed by AMOS (Structural Equation Modelling) package. The study findings showed that the more the participants trusted the government and believed the NCDC statistics, the more they engaged in pro-government megaphoning (β_belief = .17; p < .001 & β_trust = .23; p < .001) and the less they engaged in anti-government megaphoning (β_belief = -11; p < .05 & β_trust = -.49; p < .001). Also, the study findings showed that the more the participants trusted in government and believed in NCDC statistics, the more they complied with the lockdown regulations (β_belief = .19 p < .001; (β_{+ve megaphoning} = .21; p < .05). The study recommends that government and government agencies should increase efforts in earning the trust of Nigerians to improve government-citizen communication and compliance with regulations during pandemic or other forms of crises.