Linguistic strategies of public confidence-building during the COVID-19 pandemic in Tanzania

Abstract

The study has analyzed the linguistic strategies politicians use to build public confidence following the public panic caused by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Five public speeches by John Pombe Magufuli, Samia Suluhu Hassan, and Dorothy Gwajima were accessed from YouTube for qualitative analysis. Results indicate that discourses for public confidence-building involved 1) emphasizing the norms of social events and practices; 2) requiring the public to rely on both scientific authorities and reliable information; 3) requiring the authorities to be responsible for the knowledge disseminated to the public and deconstructing possibilities of untruths during the pandemic; and 4) emphasizing positive-self presentation and negative other presentation. It is argued that building public confidence requires powerholders to consider their role in dominating and disseminating knowledge. They should emphasize truth, norms of practices, negative other-presentation, and positive self-presentation, while at the same time deconstructing the possibilities of untruths. A detailed study is needed to investigate the use of power in building public confidence during crises.