Social media in crisis communication: insights from peace operations on the African continent

Social media plays a crucial role in United Nations (UN) peace operations, which are typically deployed in regions affected by conflict to promote peace, facilitate political dialogue, and support post-conflict reconstruction efforts. The UN has introduced the concept of the digital peacekeeper, whose role is to collect and analyse public data, with a particular focus on social media. This article explores the role of official social media use by African peace operations (POs) between 2003 and 2024 through a qualitative analysis of 126 UN documents. The findings reveal that African POs employ a diverse communication strategy, primarily centred on disseminating information, education, and access to reliable information in disrupted contexts. However, the full potential of social media is not realised, resulting in a predominantly one-way communication model. Using affordance theory for social media, the paper demonstrates how bidirectional interactions could support sustainable peace efforts.