Crisis Communication Management During Covid 19 in the Sultanate of Oman: An Analytical Study of the Government Communication Center’s Accounts on X Platform

This study examines the characteristics of the content published on the Omani Government Communication Center’s accounts on X platform, namely its official account and its “Oman VS Covid 19” account, which was dedicated to managing the COVID-19 crisis during the period from January 2020 to August 2022. The study adopted Betteke Van Ruler’s Communication Grid of Tactics Model and employed the survey method to achieve its objectives through two research tools: content analysis tools and semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed a diversity of media formats used in the posts published by the two accounts (text with infographics, images, and videos), with the vast majority (98%) being produced by the Government Communication Center. the study also found linguistic diversity across the Center’s accounts, including Modern Standard Arabic, local Arabic dialects, English, and other languages such as Filipino, Nepali, Swahili, Hindi, Urdu, and Sinhala. Most posts contained between two and three hashtags. In addition, the findings showed that the primary target audience was the domestic public, accounting for 72% of the content. The study recommended preparing proactive awareness content during the pre-crisis stage to help prevent transmission mechanisms and raise awareness of symptoms, alongside utilizing modern translation technologies to effectively reach the intended target audiences.