Public Relations in Bangladesh in the Digital Age: A Content Analysis of the Facebook Page of the Directorate General of Health Services

This study examines the public relations practices used by the health department of the Bangladesh government to inform the public via a social media platform. It focuses on the content posted on Facebook by a government agency to explore communication patterns and audience interactions. A total of 308 Facebook posts dispatched by the Directorate General of Health Services (@dghsbd) for five consecutive months were analyzed to identify the kinds of communication patterns employed in the dissemination of messages and to find out the types of communication patterns that elicit the most enthusiastic responses from target audiences. Grunig and Hunt's public relations model underpinned the study, and the quantitative content analysis method was followed. Findings show a preference for one-way communication was still used more frequently than two-way communication; 64% of the 308 posts followed the public information model, 18% followed the press agentry/publicity model, 13% followed the two-way asymmetrical model, and 5% trailed the two-way symmetrical model. The study recommends focusing on public relations specialists and implementing a two-way communication approach to enhance interactions between the government and the public by improving the skills and training of the public relations team, along with creating and implementing engaging health communication frameworks.