Use Of WhatsApp As An Organizational Communication Platform: A Case of Kenya’s Safaricom Technology Division

A Thesis Submitted to the School of Science and Technology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of Master of Arts in CommunicationThe use of technology in communication has proliferated in the last decade, more so with the advancement of mobile technology which has made information dissemination and reception more instantaneous. With the advancement in mobile communication technology, platforms have come up and have been adopted by many who find them appealing. One of these platforms is WhatsApp, whose adoption rate has enormously grown from its inception in 2009, with the current number of users surpassing 1 billion in over 180 countries (WhatsApp, 2016). In Kenya, 49% of mobile users have WhatsApp (Adika, 2014). Its use has penetrated even into institutions and organizations. Therefore, with the current growth rate, the need to understand the usage and the satisfaction that users are getting from it cannot be overlooked. Based on the uses and gratifications theory (Katz, 1959), the current study examined the motivations for WhatsApp usage and the gratifications gained from using it within Safaricom’s technology division although it is not an official communication platform. Data were gathered through a survey that was carried out within the division, to collect data from the 461 respondents with a response rate of 66% (N=302). The findings revealed that the users were highly motivated to use the platform (M=3.52) to communicate internally and that the platform satisfies their cognitive, affective, tension-free, personal-integrative and social integrative needs, of which the latter were the most satisfied (Mean = 2.95). Additionally, the study revealed that the need to stay in touch with colleagues and collaborate with others were the pressing needs that the users had and are gratified with WhatsApp usage. However, the findings showed that there was no significant relationship between the various demographic characteristics and satisfaction level (p>0.05). From the study’s finding, the xii researcher concludes that WhatsApp usage brings gratification to the users therefore making it attractive for use by the employees. This gratification is attributed to the features that WhatsApp offers as a medium of communication, which include instantaneity, capability of sending messages in both graphics and texts and its boundary-less communication capability