Digital Storytelling Discourses in International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ Mobile Cinema Campaign Against the 2024 Cholera Outbreak in Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines the potential of mobile cinema and digital storytelling as innovative strategies for public health campaigns in response to the 2024 cholera outbreak in Nigeria. Employing the critical discourse analysis (CDA) method, the study undertook three layers of analysis of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC’s) mobile cinema titled How Cholera Spreads (produced in collaboration with the Global Health Media Project). Besides the video’s popularity and wide circulation across digital media platforms in Nigeria, its rich treatment of thematic issues relating to the nature, history, symptoms, spread, and prevention of cholera necessitated its adoption for analysis. The health-themed narratives embedded in the mobile cinema suggest the need to create awareness and orient the public to make informed decisions in the face of the cholera outbreak. The study revealed the IFRC mobile cinema’s portrayal of the significance of systemic and socio-environmental approaches as key to addressing the underlying causes of the cholera outbreak. From an interpretive standpoint, the digital storytelling discourses sustained in the mobile cinema reflect strategies for behaviour change through the tendentious portrayal of preventive measures that, when adhered to, may have a profound impact in preventing/reducing further incidence of cholera disease.