The Digital Transformations of Public Communication: Breakdown, Continuity or Improvement of the Communication Potential of Cameroonian Administrations

Public communication has undergone major transformations since the early stages of the digitalisation of services. Indeed, public communication has been practically shaken up and transformed, while it thought itself to be safe from any risk of competition. For a long time, it has remained confined to classic patterns in its practice. In a context of digitalisation, can outdated methods of public communication continue to be applied in an environment that has become digital? Such is the question to which we shall endeavour to answer by analysing the digital transformation of public communication in Cameroonian institutions, from the observation and then the analysis of the practice of public communication in administrations. The aim of this research is to show how the development of digital means of communication contributes to bringing institutions closer to citizens. Faced with the hypothesis according to which the institutions studied have been ambushed by this digital turn, we argue that though it is possible to detect a desire to catch up, the major difficulties lie in the professionalization of practices and the institutional adequacy between the goals of public communication and the decongestion of func-tions. To verify this hypothesis, we used qualitative techniques to study the use of digital tools in the communication of several Cameroonian public administrations. In the end, we found that the digital transformation appears to enhance the potential of communication, which nevertheless requires rigour, professionalism and adaptation to the web environment in its practice.