RIYADH: Saudi Arabia continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic every way it can and raise community awareness with numerous government agencies collaborating and more than 1,200 videos, infographics and photographs distributed through various media channels.
The Ministry of Media has taken many measures and launched programs to address COVID-19 when it appeared back in March. It set up an operations room to keep updated with the latest COVID-19 developments.
Numerous media campaigns such as “We Are All Responsible” and “Return to Normal Life Carefully” were introduced to keep residents aware of the dangers of the virus, and their content was developed every step of the way.
The former focused on raising public awareness about the importance of rising to the occasion and showing responsibility when dealing with the pandemic.
It also unified the messages delivered by the various government agencies to the public. More than 150 government agencies partook in the campaign, together with ministers and ambassadors, and it proved successful from the day it was launched, delivering its messages to targeted segments of society.
Working together with other government agencies the Ministry of Media and the Ministry of Health promoted 1,254 videos, infographics and photographs, in addition to more than 12,000 local and international news reports. More than seven billion SMS messages were distributed in eight languages.
The second campaign “Return to Normal Life Carefully” is still active. More than 25 media plans have been set up, 500 media videos promoted and 3,000 local and international news reports published.
The operations room organized regular press conferences to follow up with the latest developments of COVID-19 cases. More than 130 press conferences were held with the participation of different government agencies to deliver awareness messages. More than 30 spokespeople of different ministries took part in the event that was aired weekly on media channels and social media websites.
Guidelines and a glossary of the terms and words associated with COVID-19 were issued to unify the language of the media across all government agencies.
The Kingdom’s unsung heroes, the health care workers, were a target for inspirational videos, showing their extraordinary efforts fighting to curb the spread of the infection and treating patients alike. With more than 3 million views to date, it is part of the intense media campaign to raise community awareness of how dangerous the virus is, affecting all members of the community.
The government communication center also published a book called “Silent Confrontation” showing photos taken by Saudi photographers across the country during the pandemic to capture the various daily activities during the lockdown and after.
