How Colonial Government and Corporate Organizations Affected Public Relations Practices in Kenya
Considering that most African countries achieved independence less than five decades ago, the influence of colonial administration on public relations practice in African countries cannot be ignored. Kenya is a country in East Africa. Having achieved its independence from Britain in 1963, Kenya’s history is replete with various aspects of colonial administration which to this day permeate the traditional and professional aspects of life among its people and organisations.
The rise of public relations in Kenya stemmed from the desire of powerful interest groups, including the British colonial administration, to create and manage public opinion. It is in the early 1920s that British civil servants, both locally and nationally, began to become aware of the importance of public relations.
British government public relations existed in Kenya from the inception of the colony in terms of building and maintaining relationships with key publics, but used interpersonal and social relations as a primary technique to achieve harmony and acceptance of their goals. In order to intensify its efforts to pass information to the people, the colonial administration established the Kenya Information Office (KIO) to handle its information and press functions. In 1942, the position of Principal Information Officer (PIO) was created to assume the information and press functions of the KIO. Then, in 1944, a specialist public relations officer position was created within the KIO with increased strategic responsibility for producing and supplying publicity materials.
Due to the protracted struggle for independence that pitted Kenya against the colonial administration, it can be argued that most of the information coming from the British administrators was one-way and with one goal: for Kenyans to toe the line of the colonial administration.
The colonial government employed a top-down communication model that made use of the chief’s baraza (a public meeting called by the chief) as the focal point for communication exchange between the government and the community. When not employing the “top-down” communication structure through the chief baraza, the colonial administration was involved in the “distribution of propaganda messages to settlers and African communities.”
The top-down structure of communication and propaganda tactics that were employed during colonial times in the colony of Kenya prevails in present-day Kenya. A look at the communication structure in the current Kenyan government indicates the existence of a top-down communication structure, similar to that which existed during colonial times. Every government ministry or organization has public information officers whose main responsibility is to communicate to the public the decisions that the government wants to see made, regardless of whether or not public opinion was taken into account in making those decisions.
The unidirectional form of communication, commonly called press agency and public information models, was accentuated during the 24-year government of former President Daniel Moi. Journalists from the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) and the Kenya News Agency (KNA), two media organizations that are wholly taxpayer-funded and controlled by the government of the day, would normally broadcast government communications from ministries and other government organizations after managers have made decisions.
Another common background that has contributed to the practice of public relations in Kenya is private business. In the private sector, public relations grew out of labor disputes and the important role that international capital played in Kenya’s post-independence economy. Organizations such as East African Breweries, Kenya Shell, Kenya Power and Lighting Company, Unilever and East Africa Harbors Corporation realized the virtues of advertising in the late 1940s. Their charge was primarily to develop personal relationships in Kenyan communities. to win friends and influence people, particularly during the Kenyan labor conflicts and the Mau Mau emergency. And after independence in 1963, most business organizations and labor groups recognized the need for planned public relations.
Other organizations, such as the Kenya Power and Lighting Company, have developed their communication to include areas such as internal communication, while Kenya Shell has developed a wide range of corporate social responsibility programs in areas such as environmental conservation and philanthropy.